The Weekly Review: How One Hour Can Save You A Week’s Worth of Hassle and Headache
The weekly review is supposed to help you do three things: get clear, get current, and get creative.
Get Clear. Take some time to clean up your workspace and empty your inbox. Then, review your projects. Which are most important? Which ones have milestones coming up in the following week? Organize them by priority and urgency so when you start next week, you'll know what to start without having to think about it.
Get Current. Look at your calendar. Perhaps next week you have a big meeting with your boss about a big software upgrade, but you forgot to call the vendor to get the details. Put that call on the calendar for next week, and give yourself enough time to research before your meeting with your boss. Finally, check your mail for anyone you may be waiting on input from. Make notes or appointments to check in with them next week.
Get Creative. Look at those projects you've always wanted to get to, like redesigning your personal web site, and think about what small parts of those projects you might be able to slip into your schedule. Think about how you can be more efficient—maybe you're a sysadmin and there's a new tool that will cut down on the time you spend each week pushing patches to your servers. Take some time to get out in front of your life, instead of sitting in the passenger seat
First Things First: Put It On The Calendar
Get ClearCollect loose papers and materialsGet Inbox to zeroEmpty your headGet CurrentReview Action ListsReview past calendar dataReview upcoming calendarReview Waiting For listReview Project (and larger outcome) listsReview any relevant checklistsGet CreativeReview Someday/MaybeBe creative and courageous
0-15 minutes: Clean up email/paper notes. Interview notes, new contacts, and emails I want to follow up on all get filed. If there's a message I can fire a response to in a minute or two, I'll respond, but nothing that requires research.15-45 minutes: Review ideas, projects, calendar appointments. This is where I spend the bulk of my time. I look through my idea bank (stored in Wunderlist, which I mentioned last week), trash anything stale, add new ideas, and assign dates where I can. I head over to my to-do app (ReQall, another tool I love), clear out old and completed tasks, and add new or follow-up items based on my calendar, assignments, and trigger list.45-60 minutes: Brainstorming. This is where I head back to my idea bank and start brainstorming topics I want to write or learn more about, items in the news that are worth investigating, and personal projects that need my attention.
Try a Trigger ListIf you're having a hard time building a checklist, you may consider using a "trigger list" to jog your memory each week. The trigger list is just a long list of items you should scan during your weekly review to make sure you didn't forget anything. It's designed to trigger your memory and help you remember something you may have forgotten. We mentioned how you can use a trigger list for school and personal projects, and productivity guru Merlin Mann published this one at 43Folders a long time ago for professional projects.
Make Sure You're Reviewing and Not DoingOne common trap that people fall into when trying a weekly review is that they spend too much time actually doing things instead of reviewing them. If you hear someone say the weekly review only works for a small number of tasks, or that their weekly review takes hours upon hours, the problem may be that instead of scheduling a time to call that software vendor back, you're actually taking time out of your review to call them. Don't fall into that trap—it's tempting to do it now and get it off your plate, but a rule of thumb is that if the to-do takes more than 2 minutes to accomplish, stop and schedule it or put it in your to-do manager.
