How to Generate Weekly Goal Wallpapers for Productivity

The desire to use our time wisely often has us jumping from one organization tool to another—analog and digital lists, hourly planners, bullet journals, and reminders of all types. Many people use a combination of things to stay productive, but they often end up overwhelmed with everything they have to do each day.

What if you could make things easier by setting just a few core goals for each day and keeping them at the forefront of your mind with an inspirational wallpaper like this?

And what if you could automate it?

Visualizing for Daily Productivity

A written plan of action can enable you to complete more in less time. Why? Because when you use visualization tools to record tasks and goals, you free up your brain from worrying about unfinished items.

But while a to-do list to check off can be helpful, it can also be incredibly overwhelming. There are so many little tasks to complete that you may struggle with where to start.

If you're someone with a lot of responsibilities who struggles with long to-do lists, here's something to try: approaching your low-level tasks through the lens of a few high-level priorities. And by placing these important goals at the forefront of your mind—as your desktop or phone wallpaper—you are constantly coming back to what matters most.

Types of goals you can set for your generated wallpapers include:

• Non-negotiable goals
• Intentions
• Prioritized tasks

Keep in mind that because wallpapers are static, it's best to set high-level goals that you can focus on throughout the week, rather than low-level tasks that may change day-to-day. Sorting items by priority will also help you tackle the most important things while your brain is fresh and energy levels high.

Now, let's get to how you can use Nocode tools to build non-negotiable goals into your daily routine.

Create a Planner on Google Sheets

Since your daily goals will be visualized on a wallpaper and not checked off like a to-do list, Google Sheets will act as your database. Log into your Google account and create a new Sheets file.

Setting up Your Google Sheets file

Make sure that your weeks are sorted in rows and your days are sorted in columns. If you will be using the Bannerbear Desktop Planner Wallpaper template, include the following columns: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Weekend. You can label your rows however you want.

❗ Note : You will need to fill one row with data to test your Zap later on. It doesn't have to be fancy! Use lorem ipsum, throw in Priority #1, Priority #1, Priority #3…

Customize your planner however you want. Keep in mind that you will only be using Sheets to insert your daily goals, and your wallpaper's look will ultimately depend on your Bannerbear design.

Once you are happy with your spreadsheet, duplicate it so that you have two: one for planning and one for final use. Since the latter will act as your wallpaper generation trigger, all drafts should be kept on your planning sheet and only moved when final. Label each sheet accordingly and consider color-coding them for ease of use.

Bear Tip 🐻: If you use our template, you can add a weekly quote column to your Google Sheets document. By matching it to the dynamic field on your Bannerbear template, you can have a new inspirational quote to motivate you every week!

Customize Your Bannerbear Template

Sign into your Bannerbear account and go to the Projects tab. Create a new Project, label it accordingly, and click "Create a Template". You can also use our Desktop Planner Wallpaper template.

🖍️ Quick Tips for Creating a Visually Appealing Wallpaper Design :

• Format the size of your template to match the dimensions of your screen.
• Upload an image as a static object if you have a background you'd like to use.
• Make sure the "Text Fit" field is set to "off" if you don't want your text resized
• Use contrast (color, weight, font, shape) to make sure your text doesn't fade into the background.

You will need to have text fields set up for each day's goals. Label each layer carefully, with the goal fields easily distinguishable from the titles. This will make the following image generation setup step easier.

Bear Tip 🐻: Want to see your daily goals on your phone too? Create an additional template with dimensions matching the size of your screen. You can rearrange the fields and adjust the font size, as long as the layers remain the same. Then, use the Bannerbear Image Collection feature to generate multiple wallpapers every week, ready for your use!

Set up Zapier Trigger to Generate and Upload Custom Wallpapers

All your materials are ready, and all that's left to do is set up the Zap that will deliver beautifully designed wallpapers to your Drive every week. The flow is relatively simple, with only one trigger and two actions.

Log into your Zapier account, and let's get started.

Step 1. Create a New Zap and Choose Google Sheets as the Trigger

From your Zapier dashboard, select “Create Zap”. This will lead you to a page where you can set up a new trigger. Select Google Sheets as your app and “New Spreadsheet Row” as the Event.

You might have to connect your Google Sheets account if it isn't connected yet.

Select the Spreadsheet with your weekly goals in it, and select the Worksheet where you will be putting your final goals.

Test the trigger and make sure Zapier is able to find a row with data in it.

Step 2. Set up Your First Action: Create Image in Bannerbear

Zapier now knows where to find the data that goes on your wallpaper each week. Now, you have to tell the app what to do with it.

Set up an action by selecting Bannerbear as the app and "Create Image" as the event.

You will have to connect your Bannerbear account using the Project API key, which can be found on your Project tab when you select the right Project and click the "Settings/API Key" button.

After your account is properly connected, set up the action by selecting your Template ID value and matching the fields from your Bannerbear template to Zapier.

❗ Note : You only need to match each day's goal field to the corresponding day. Leave fields with day title text blank. This ensures Bannerbear receives it as null and turns it into static text.

Click "Continue" to pass this data to Bannerbear. To ensure the command works, click "Test & Review".

Bannerbear will generate an image based on your dummy text. Copy the image_url into your browser to preview it.

Step 3. Set up Your Second Action: Upload File in Google Drive

Now, you have to set up an action that sends the generated images to your Google Drive where you can easily download and make them your wallpaper each week.

Set up an action by selecting Google Drive as the app and "Upload File" as the action.

Connect your Google Drive account if needed, and make sure you have a folder created to store your wallpapers.

Select the correct folder, and fill the file section by pulling the Image URL created in Step 2.

Click "Continue", then "Retest & Review" to ensure your commands work.

You should find a wallpaper with your dummy text sitting in the designated Google Drive folder in just a few seconds!

Step 4. Turn on Your Zap

You're just about done. After confirming that all your actions work, click "Publish Zap".

Now, you can go about your life as usual. Establish daily goals and priorities on your Planning spreadsheet once a week, then paste them onto a single row on your final sheet. The addition of a new row will trigger the generation of a fresh, new image file that you can then easily download from Google Drive and set as a wallpaper on your device.

Now It's Your Turn

Personal devices can easily become distractions that take you off task. With your goals visualized on the background of your screens, though, you're constantly reminded of what matters most.

Nocode tools make it easy to automate tasks like this so you can enjoy beautifully visualized goals without any effort beyond setting them.