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A weekly review can help you to plan your life with intention and make sure that your actions are leading you towards reaching your goals.
Doing a weekly review lets you get clear headed, get organized, assess your progress made, and make plans for your most important goals.
The weekly review was popularized by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done. His method is known as GTD.
Doing a weekly review can help you:
- Clear your mind
- Get clarity
- Stay focused on your goals
- Stay motivated and both intellectually and emotionally connected to your goals
- Stay up to date
- Get organized
- Review your progress
- Celebrate your small wins!
- Make progress quicker
- Make plans and take action to reach your goals
- Learn how you can do better
This article will walk you through how to complete a weekly review to clear out your mind, get organized, assess progress, and move forward in reaching your goals.
When to do a weekly review?
The day to do a weekly review is completely up to you and works best according to your kind of weekly schedule.
Friday morning: If your typical work week is Mon-Fri, you’d probably prefer to do the weekly review on Friday morning. Doing it in the morning will give you time to tie up any loose ends and allow you to make sure that everything that needs to get done that week gets done on that Friday.
Saturday: If you have a busy Friday, you could also choose to do it on a Saturday right after the end of your work week.
Sunday: You could also choose to do it on a Sunday which is my choice for the day. I also like to do cleaning, organizing, and journaling on Sundays as a way to ‘reset’ the week. Others also like to do this on a Sunday along with meal prepping for the week ahead.
Monday morning: If you have a busy weekend, you could do it on a Monday morning to start off the next week.
Choose what you think will work best for you and your type of week or try out different days to find out.
Set the Mood and Organize Space
Grab your favorite drink. Light some candles. Play some nice music.
Limit distractions. Put your phone on Airplane Mode or Do Not Disturb or just turn it off.
Close all unnecessary tabs and declutter your online space if that’s what you’re using.
If you need to, clear out and organize your space. Tidy up to set yourself up for success.
Brain Dump
Grab a notebook, a piece of paper, or a blank online document on your computer and phone and just write anything you want to get off your mind.
It could be things you need to do or anything you want to take note of and remember. Anything that is taking up space in your head.
Take as long as you need to make sure your mind feels clear.
Collect Any Loose Papers
Collect any loose papers around. Mail, bills, receipts. Clean out wherever you may put or stack papers. Your purse, bag, files, drawer, top of counter or chair.
Throw away any trash.
Respond to Any Messages, Emails, Comments
Check to see if there are any communications that have gone unanswered or need action on your behalf. Go ahead and respond to those now to get it out of the way.
Places to check:
- Email(s)
- Phone messages
- Voicemails
- Calls (to return)
- Instagram DMs
- Instagram comments
- Facebook messages
- Facebook comments
- Twitter DMs
- Tweets and Twitter comments
- Blog/Article comments
- Slack
- Any other app, website, or program you use regularly to communicate
If you can, get to Inbox Zero.
Review Projects, Tasks, Notes
Implement the two-minute rule. Anything that takes less than 2 minutes to do, do it right away. This helps you avoid procrastination on small things that don’t take much time.
Check off anything that you completed and mark any progress you made on your projects.
Review any checklists and reminders.
Review “Waiting For” list. Check to see if you need to follow up on anything or anyone that you are waiting for. Confirm any upcoming appointments, meetings, or anything scheduled with others.
Review Calendar
Review your calendar for the past week and the next two weeks.
Review and assess anything that you have upcoming, any tasks and reminders to take note of.
Make any necessary adjustments. Make sure that you are taking note of anything to prepare for in the future — birthdays, events, etc.
Organize Tasks
If this is your first time doing a weekly review or first time in a while, make sure to organize your tasks in a way that is easy for you to understand instead of just one daunting to-do list with no connection to each other.
You can organize tasks by:
- Urgency
- Timeline – Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year
- Life categories
- Projects
- Energy level
Review “Someday/Maybe” List
Check any creative lists to see if you have the chance to try and pursue. This could be movies to watch, books to read, places to visit, restaurants to try, project or business ideas.
Checking this weekly allows you to keep interesting ideas in front of you for whenever the opportunity or the courage arises.
Schedule Any Upcoming Tasks
Review your tasks and projects to see if you can schedule any tasks for the next week or if you need to add anything.
Schedule any important events, meetings, and appointments.
Now that we’ve taken care of planning the next week and what needs to be done, it’s time to reflect on the past week.
Reflect on the Week
Review anything you tracked that is important to you.
This could be:
- Habits
- Food
- Exercise
- Sleep
- Time log
- Task completion/project progress
Questions to Ask Yourself
Write down your answer to the following questions:
How do I feel about this week overall?
What went well? What do I need to keep doing?
What’s not working? What needs to change?
How can I improve for next week? What do I need to do to be better?
Are my weekly/daily plans and actions aligned with my goals? Am I making progress towards reaching my goals?
What were my small wins? What can I celebrate?
Always Celebrate the Small Wins
Celebrating the small wins is actually more likely to help you reach your goals according to research. When you celebrate your small wins, you stay motivated on your goals because you are seeing progress even if it’s small. It also helps you feel successful which as a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeps you going toward more success.
Find What Works Best For You
When sticking to a weekly review, it’s important to find what works best for you. Everyone has different types of work, goals, and weeks. There is no one size fits all to doing a weekly review so customize your weekly review to suit you and your needs and goals.
What’s important is that you’re regularly assessing your progress, what went right, and what went wrong and making any necessary changes to move you closer to your goals. Doing a weekly review can save you time and help you get organized and stay focused and motivated to help you get things done.
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