Your first week isn't about getting it right, it's about starting the record. Here's how to set up your first week so Existence has something real to work with, and help you build the habit that makes every week after it easier.
Start with what already happened
Before you design anything forward, give Existence your past. Connect your Google Calendar from Settings under Calendar Connections. Once it's connected, your prior and upcoming events appear as Time Blocks automatically.
This matters more than it looks like it should. Existence's suggestions get sharper the more history it has to learn from, and a lot of your week is already sitting in that calendar. You're starting from a life that was already happening.
Design your week
Design by setting how you want your time distributed across Work, Life, Health, and Sleep. That's your intention, the Ideal You projected forward into the week ahead. It doesn't need to be exact. It needs to be honest about what's actually in front of you: what's due, what your body needs, who you want to show up for.
Start with the parts of your week that repeat, since they give the rest of your week a shape to build around. Sleep is the one most people skip and it's a full Pillar for a reason. Go to your Getting Started checklist and open the sleep configurator to set your ideal sleep schedule once. Existence builds the recurring Sleep Time Blocks for you from there. Build blocks on repeat for your work hours, your commute, anything on a consistent cadence.
With your anchors in place, build out the rest of the week the same way you'd build any Time Block: click an open slot, give it a title specific enough to describe what you'll be doing, where, and with who, and let Existence assign the Pillar and tags.
Saved Blocks hold anything you build regularly but not on a fixed schedule. Suggested Blocks surface routines Existence already recognizes from your connected calendar or your own patterns.
Copy/Paste duplicates any block instantly when you want to repeat it later in the week.
By the end of Design, your intention is set. The Ideal You has been projected forward in time.
Account for what actually happened
This happens as the week unfolds, not after it. As each Time Block passes, come back and adjust it to reflect reality. Then capture how that time was experienced: what it meant, what gave energy, what took it, and what you want to remember. In practice, that means rating the Energy of the block and adding a Reflection when it's worth holding onto.
This is what separates a Time Block from a calendar event. A calendar tells you where you were supposed to be. Existence tells you how it went.
You don't have to account for every single block in your first week to get value from this. It's a starting point for you to see the patterns Existence has to offer.
Optimize using what your time revealed
On your next Design Day your Last Week Recap will show you where intention and reality aligned, where they diverged, and what patterns are shaping the way you create time. That gap isn't a grade and it isn't failure. It's information, whether it's Health slipping because Work bled over its edges, or Sleep never getting its full intended percentage.
Take what it reveals into next week's Design. Then the cycle begins again.
Keep in mind, your first week won't be your best week, and it isn't supposed to be. Each week gets clearer. Each adjustment gets more precise.
Note: By default new users Design Day of the week will be Sunday, to adjust this to another day of the week click on your profile icon, go to settings and then under Calendar preferences is the option for Start Week On. This is where you will choose a different Design Day of the week.