If you’re a fan of Getting Things Done (GTD), then you’re likely already familiar with the concept of a weekly review, but they can be a great tool even if you aren’t following the full GTD methodology.  Essentially a weekly review is just a meeting with yourself where you reflect on the previous week and plan/organize the week ahead.  Dedicating an hour or two for this activity has tremendous benefit.

Timing

I like to schedule my weekly review at the end of day on Friday for two hours.  If I don’t need the time, great, but at least I have it blocked off.  It’s important to me that I don’t have anything after, so if a meeting has to happen for whatever reason at 5pm on a Friday, I’ll push my review back until after.  I want the week to be over when I finish the review and a new week to begin.  I spend my Friday night relaxing and my week starts again on Saturday, which is a day for myself and my family.  I put myself and my family first this way.

Work vs Personal

I include both in my review and don’t separate them out.  Both are required for my happiness and success and I find that they overlap quite often.  I do however pay attention to the balance between the two.  If I have a week where I only made work accomplishments and my personal life suffered, that becomes something I address in the weeks that follow.

List Making

I make several lists during my weekly review:

• Accomplishments:  At a very high level, I list out what was actually accomplished during the past week.
• Worked On:  What are the things I worked on but didn’t necessarily finish?
• Likes:  What are all the things I liked about the week?
• Dislikes/Failures:  What are all of the things I didn’t like about the week or that turned out to be failures?

Goal Review

I review each of my goals and mark down what I accomplished towards each of them.  Then I note each of the goals where I’m off track.  This process is short and to the point.  I leave the solutioning for later.

Planning

Using the information I’ve gathered into lists, I need to plan out my week ahead.  The big things I want to accomplish here are:

1. Identify the 3 most important things I have to get done next week.
2. Schedule a meeting to brainstorm solutions to any of the dislikes/failures of the past week.
3. Schedule a meeting to review and analyze each goal that was identified as off track.

Narrative

I write a very short paragraph or two that sums up the week.  It would be a daunting task to go back and review all of the lists I’ve created over a year or even a month.  Summing things up in a narrative enables me to quickly review the month and ultimately the year when it comes time for those reviews.  This has proven to be a powerful tactic over the years.

Technology

I use very little technology.  I store all of this information in OneNote, though I may have to review information in outlook, planner, etc in order to perform the review.  I have a tab for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reviews.  Each tab contains an agenda as the very first page and then a page for each day/week/month/year in the appropriate tab.  The agenda is the pattern I follow for the review session and ensures I don’t miss any steps.  I don’t schedule meetings without agendas even when I’m the only participant.

Summing it up

An hour or two spent reviewing each weak really can pay you back with better results and time saved.  Hopefully these ideas motivate you to either start performing a weekly review or give you an idea for how to make your weekly reviews more successful.  Doing this type of review faithfully over a long period of time pays dividends just by itself, but adding in daily, monthly, and yearly reviews amplifies that even further.   What are your thoughts on weekly reviews and how do you put them to use in your work or personal life?