The Ultimate Guide to Perform a Thorough Weekly Review

At the heart of the GTD model, there’s a process that often makes people feel guilty: this is the weekly review. To put it simply, the weekly review is a one-on-one meeting with yourself when you go through all your projects and obligations and then prepare for course correction.

When you skip the weekly review, you easily can fall off the wagon. As you can accumulate a sleep debt, similarly you can get into weekly review debt. It’s important, therefore, that you treat your meeting with yourself as it was a meeting with a third party.

In this post, you’ll learn:

• What a weekly review is
• Why it is important
• How to perform, step by step, a thorough weekly review
• How to make sure that you won’t miss your deadlines anymore
• How to avoid guilt about missing your weekly review
• How to build up a trusted productivity system for your review
• How to make the weekly review a habit

Table of contents:

• The rationale for doing the weekly review
• The weekly review checklist
• Creating your weekly review checklist with Evernote
• Creating a habit tracker with Evernote
• How to do a weekly review in Notion
• Make the weekly review a habit
• Weekly review in action: build up your trusted system
• Conclusion

Let’s begin with the rationale.

The rationale for doing the weekly review

The weekly review is central to GTD which is a framework that offers, as the author David Allen puts it, a “work-life management system for stress-free productivity.”

You probably have missed some important deadlines in your life―hopefully not your wedding ceremony―yet it created a bitter experience downstream. Maybe you missed the opportunity to participate in a promising project, missed your exam, had a hard time to prepare for an agenda in the last minute, or simply forgot about your spouse’s birthday.

We all are humans and those things just occur to us naturally. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

The GTD framework and particularly the weekly review ensures that you won’t miss an important deadline anymore.

But it’s much more than mere deadlines: it’s all about your projects, your goals, your mission, and ultimately, your life. Dedicating one hour per week to your progress in life doesn’t have to be painful nor is it wasted time. 

The weekly review seems a bit arbitrarily selected time to reflect on your progress in work (and life). In a calendar, however, the week is the smallest entity that we humans see as a yardstick. The weekly review elegantly fits the quarterly and yearly reviews, which are more holistic approaches.

Let’s see, step by step, how you can perform a thorough weekly review.

The weekly review checklist

Below, I provided a checklist that I currently use:

• Check inboxes
• Check physical inbox
• Check Waiting For list
• Check projects
• Check calendar (current and upcoming week)
• Set MITs (Most Important Things) for the upcoming week (3 items)
• Schedule leisure time with family
• Schedule thinking time
• Schedule exercise
• Check my Life Plan
• Check my goals
• Fill in my Weekly review template
• Check and update my Not-to-do list

I keep my checklist in Evernote and set up hyperlinks to easily move from one note to the other. We’ll now address each item one-by-one.

Check your inboxes

You may have multiple inboxes: a drawer in your office, your post, and your email addresses all are inboxes that are open to virtually anyone to put another item onto your to-do list. It’s up to you how often you clear your inboxes, but the weekly review is a perfect time to empty all, be they physical or electronic ones.

Next, you have to decide whether the item in your inbox is actionable or not, should be referenced, or is junk. The GTD workflow provides a nice framework in this sense.

Estimated time spent: 5 minutes (Note: I clear my inboxes each day and don’t have much paper, so my numbers may not be a good estimate for you.)

Check your Waiting For list

Allen himself defines the Waiting For list as “reminders of all the things that you are waiting to get back from or get done by others.” 

There’re a handful of tricks that you can use to keep and handle your Waiting For list. The most old-school way is that you CC yourself on every email that you’re waiting to get feedback on. You then keep these emails in a separate folder and re-visit your list every week to ensure that you check off items that are delivered, completed, or are no more important.

During your weekly review, you may follow up your “outsourced responsibilities” and get to kick some ass if necessary. You may update your Waiting For list accordingly.

Estimated time spent: 5 minutes

Check your projects

A project, as Allen phrased it, is “any of your desired outcomes that will require more than one action steps to complete.”

If you happened to adopt the project thinking, you already have lots of projects in your productivity system, including but not limited to your household chores, office duties, and goals. The weekly review is a time when you reflect on all those projects. In particular

• You ensure that no project comes without a next action (i.e. each project should have at least one action step that you can work on).
• You schedule your next actions according to the GTD rules.
• You update project status and archive completed projects.
• You create new projects for stuff that meets the project criteria discussed above.

Now that you’ve updated your projects, it’s time to grab your calendar…

Estimated time spent: 10 minutes. (Note: Again, it all depends on how many projects you run. With some 30 projects on my list, this may take me at least 10 minutes.)

Check your calendar

With your calendar in your hands or on your screen, check the entries and accomplishments for the current week and ensure that you schedule your stuff that needs a follow-up.

Next, scroll to the next week and check out whether you have any deadlines, deliverables, or important entries that you should act upon. Schedule them with due care.

There’re some techniques you can leverage here:

• The Unschedule method assumes that you schedule your me-time, exercise, family events, and your important goals first. Meetings and everyday stuff should occupy the gaps only.
• The Pomodoro technique operates on the premise that you work in 25-minute blocks of uninterrupted time and then unplug for some minutes. In its most primitive form, you can use a kitchen timer to guide your sessions.
• Shortening your schedule and deadlines is a good trick to stop procrastination and not spend too much time on a task.

There’re some key entries in your calendar that are central to your success: these are your Most Important Things (MITs), Frogs (Brian Tracy calls them frogs because these are often the things that are the ugliest ones), or Big rocks (more on that in the next chapter). They need considerable attention, that’s why they appear as a separate item on your checklist.

Estimated time spent: 5 minutes

Set MITs (Most Important Things) for the upcoming week

Experts say that you should schedule your Big rocks (MITs, Frogs) first in order to leave space for the small things, and not the other way. You probably have heard about the jar metaphor: if you have to fill a jar with a few big rocks and some sand, you better load the big rocks first; otherwise they won’t fit into the jar.

Many experts propose that you schedule at least three Big rocks for the week and then schedule everything else around them.

The flip side is that you should protect your Big rocks by setting boundaries for yourself. Make sure that you communicate clearly your boundaries, and make people respect them however uncomfortable they might be. I’ve set up such a boundary which works like charm: I kindly requested my colleagues that they don’t disturb me until 10 a.m. If they will do, I would politely turn them down kindly showing the door.

Your scheduled items, of course, aren’t set in stone; you can always fine-tune your system.

Estimated time spent: 5 minutes

Schedule leisure time with family

It’s beyond question that family is sacred field but it bears repeating: set up boundaries to ensure that you spend quality time with your family. This resonates with the Unschedule method: schedule specific events, excursions, and gatherings. They not only will charge your emotional batteries, but they also build anticipation that feels so good. 

Estimated time spent: 2 minutes

Schedule thinking time (optional)

I borrowed the idea of thinking time from Jeff Sanders, the author of the 5 A.M.Miracle. I schedule, as I call it, a Thinking-While-Walking-Time (TWWT) to get rid of the everyday stress and reflect on the week.

Jeff suggests that you should ask tough questions from yourself; questions that are related to your goals, to move things forward.

Estimated time spent: 2 minutes

Schedule exercise

Family, thinking, and exercise all comprise a quality time that you should, by all means, protect. This is the part where people, me included, will be consumed with guilt time after time. By adding these entries into our calendar as well as communicating and protecting our boundaries, we are more likely to avoid guilt.

Estimated time spent: 2 minutes

Check your Life Plan

Life Planning was proposed by Michael Hyatt & Daniel Harkavy in the book Living Forward. As the opposite of constant drifting in life, the authors claim that “Life Planning is about taking responsibility.” Your Life Plan is “a living document that you will tweak and adjust as necessary for the rest of your life.”

First, you need to assemble your very own Life Plan. Hyatt & Harkavy suggest that you identify your “Life Accounts” depicting 7-12 distinct areas of your life from self-care to family to career. The authors provided an online tool (“Life Assessment Profile”) to identify your Life Accounts. 

Below is the proposed structure of your Life Plan:

• Purpose Statement
• Envisioned Future
• Inspiring Quote (optional)
• Current Reality
• Specific Commitments

Begin with defining your Purpose Statement that aligns with your ultimate values in the given Life Account. You then envisage your future as if it were in the present. Your Current Reality pictures your present conditions. Finally, under the Specific Commitments, you list the specific goals that bring you closer to your Envisioned Future. 

Repeat that process for each of your Life Accounts.

So, then, how does that relate to the weekly review? The weekly review is the perfect time to reflect on your Life Plan, to engage in your Purpose Statement, and to update your Specific Commitments. 

You can find Life Plan examples at LivingForwardBook.com.

Estimated time spent: 10 minutes

Check your goals

Without clearly articulated goals, one could drift like plankton in the Hudson River. It has repeatedly been shown that by writing down your goals you will be more likely to achieve them. Many successful people know that and keep a list of their goals in some form.

The SMART goal system gives a nice framework to get your goals on paper:

• Specific―Be specific in what you want
• Measurable―Be quantitative like a scientist
• Actionable―Your goal must be something that you can act upon
• Relevant―Your goal must be relevant to you and your current circumstances
• Time-bound―Phrase your goal so that you can measure it on a timescale

For example, one of my goals for the last year was: take a bike ride at least two times a week with targeting a total of 60 km travel distance.

This goal is specific and measurable because I committed myself to go for a ride two times a week and targeted a minimum of 60 km travel. It was relevant to me because my favorite outdoor activity is taking a ride and I had physical stamina and time to realistically achieve my weekly target. It was also time-bound with saying that I should do it two times a week but, at the same time, it allowed me some freedom in using my time by not defining my biking days.

The weekly review then allowed me to increase my weekly target from 60 km up to 90 km as I gained more confidence and stamina over the season.

When completing your weekly review, you may take a look at your goals, check your progress, and then change courses if necessary.

I’ve created my very own tracking chart in Evernote, where I listed my goals for the year, picked up three goals for the quarter, and tracked my progress each week, all in one note. This system ensures that

1. I can easily overview my goals in a single note.
2. I stay on track.
3. I can share my goals with my buddies to keep each other accountable.

So, then, “How does it relate to my Life Plan?” you might ask. The Life Plan is kind of a personal constitution that guides you in the right direction. Specific Commitments in the Life Plan are your goals in their premature forms. You then pick up some goals from different Life Accounts for each quarter to accomplish them.

Without breaking down your goals into quarterly chunks, you won’t move your big things forward.

Estimated time spent: 5 minutes

Fill in your weekly review template (optional)

Again, I borrowed the idea from Jeff Sanders, who published a very nice template for the weekly review, addressing questions from AHA moments to successful and failed habits to achievements. Addressing those questions can be tough and time-consuming for the first time, but they pay out in the long run.

Part of the template is a habit tracker which allows you to measure, on a daily basis, how much progress you’ve made with your targeted habits. For example, you may want to go to the gym three times per week. You then track your progress on your sheet and celebrate when you achieved your weekly goal.

Estimated time spent: 10 minutes

Check and update your Not-to-do list (optional)

I have a Not-to-do list to keep a record of my tasks and activities that waste my time. A not-to-do list is a dynamic yet permanent list that you keep for your very own reference to help filter out important work.

Within a few minutes, you can have a quick look at your Not-to-do list, add new items, and delete others, if necessary.

Estimated time spent: 2 minutes

It’s now time that we sum up the numbers.

Total time spent: 63 minutes―Well, this is a rough estimate. It might take more time if you have a lot of projects on your plate. Over time, you’ll be more comfortable with your system that will supercharge your progress.

Creating your weekly review checklist with Evernote

Evernote provides an elegant and easy-to-use way for your weekly review. Below is a step by step guide as to how to make your own checklist in Evernote.

1. Create a new note (⌘N)
2. Save this note into your Templates: you can create a new notebook (⇧⌘N) with the name “Templates”
3. Add your checklist elements and insert checkboxes before each entry
4. Add your note to the Evernote shortcuts: right-click, Add to shortcuts
5. Create hyperlinks to easily reach your secondary notes (Life Plan, goal template, etc.) from your checklist: go to your secondary note, right-click, Copy internal link, then go to your weekly review checklist and select your item then right-click, Hyperlink, Add (then paste the internal link)

You can now easily reach your checklist from the Evernote shortcuts and check off your items week by week without creating new notes. Through interlinking notes, you’re only a few clicks away from all your templates.

Creating a habit tracker with Evernote

There are tons of habit tracking apps in the market but Evernote is highly flexible. So, why bother with a new app if Evernote can help you?

Here comes a short guide for creating a habit tracker in Evernote:

1. Create a new note (⌘N)
2. Save this note into your Templates: you can create a new notebook (⇧⌘N) with the name “Templates”
3. Insert a table (⇧⌘L)
4. Add 8 columns and a couple of rows to your table
5. Enter your habits into the first column
6. Enter the calendar days into the first row
7. Insert checkboxes into each cell from Monday to Sunday
8. Link your habit tracker to your Weekly review checklist (right-click, Copy internal link, then go to your weekly review checklist and select your item, then right-click, Hyperlink, Add (then paste the internal link))
9. Add your note to the Evernote shortcuts: right-click, Add to shortcuts

You’re now ready to track your habits each day by simply ticking the checkboxes. At the end of the week, a short summary might be helpful: you can sum up your achievements for each targeted habits.

At the beginning of the week, you just copy your habit tracker template to your targeted notebook and you’re ready to begin with the week with a blank habit tracker.

How to do a weekly review in Notion

Notion is an all-in-one tool, which makes it a perfect candidate for a weekly review.

Here’s how to create a weekly review database in Notion:

• Create a new database
• Add a Date property, which will represent your progress: each week, you could then set up a start date and an end date to encapsulate your next week
• Create whatever properties you want that you’ll propagate each week when you’re doing your weekly review
• Create a weekly review template within the database, which will serve as the backbone

Each row in your weekly review database will represent a single week and will hold an individual template.

Here’s what it looks mine.

I also have individual databases for my daily, quarterly, and annual goals and habits. All those databases communicate with my weekly review database.

However, you don’t have to start with such a complex system. It took me a while until I got to that complexity.

Now that you have your checklist in place, it’s time to talk about guilt…

So, what about guilt?

There’re times when you skip the weekly review and there’s nothing wrong with that provided that you not accumulate too much debt. It’s best, however, to schedule a weekly review for each week.

Experts say that the best practice is to perform your review in “Out of Office mode”―a nearby cafe or the park are great choices. What I’ve found over the years is that Friday morning is the best time to do my review. Others do it on Friday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, or Monday morning. It takes experimentation to find the right place and time to unplug and reflect.

Sometimes, very rarely though, I skip my weekly review or do it within twenty minutes. And I feel guilty but then I remind myself that ultimately it’s my own life and I’ll definitely stay on track because I have a trusted system…

Weekly review in action: build up your trusted system 

The weekly review assumes that you have a trusted system in place―be it a notebook, a task manager, or a note-taking application. You want to trust your system so that you don’t have to worry about open loops, missed deadlines, and vaguely articulated projects. You need a system that fits your pocket and follows you wherever you go.

Building up such a system takes hard time and dedication but it pays out in the long run. The best thing is that you build a whole-life system: you get a pair of magic glasses that lets you percept your world from another angle.

OK, let me explain that. You have a job and a family, you have goals and dreams, and you have a lot more responsibilities either as a parent, colleague, or friend. Without a trusted productivity system, most people can’t handle all those responsibilities with due care. Or even they can, they can’t close the gap between family and career.

If you, however, build up a system that you trust and leverage to the fullest, you may join the dots between various life domains. And this is when synergy happens.

I have to admit that I haven’t yet achieved that synergy, but surely did come closer to it. At least I discovered that those life domains exist, identified them, and made efforts to balance them against each other.

In this blog series, I showed, on the premise of the GTD model, how you can build up your very own productivity system.

Don’t waste more time here; let’s see how you can make the weekly review a habit.

Make the weekly review a habit

Now you’ve learned how to build up a trusted system and how to perform a weekly review. How do you make then your weekly review a habit?

To ensure that you don’t skip your review, you may

• Schedule your weekly review
• Protect your time-blocks (boundaries)
• Experiment with different places and times to find a supportive environment for your review
• Track your progress in a sheet
• Celebrate your small wins

What’s more important, though, that you believe in your system and get to see the first results! That’s when you gain momentum. (And, by definition, start to feel guilty when you skip your review.) 🙂

I wish more and more employers would encourage their subordinates to do a thorough weekly review at the very end of the week. They then, as a result, would say goodbye to the open loops and missed deadlines. 

Conclusion

It was a long article, so thank you for your patience that you followed through.

We’ve covered what a weekly review is, how to perform it, step by step, how to make it a habit, and why it’s important to have a productivity system.

It’s only human that we want the highest gain with the least effort possible, and the weekly review isn’t appealing in that sense. It’s another item on your to-do list, you would say. And you are right: it’s one more item to check off during the day. If you, however, consider the result, it seems that it’s a typical 80/20 relationship: 20 percent of your time will account for 80 percent of your results.

So, take action now and schedule your weekly review if you have a productivity system already in place. If not yet ready, you might find this article interesting.

Please share your best practices in the comments below.

Your one takeaway: schedule your weekly review right now.

Image credit: Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash