Weekly Review Takes 4 Hours - Am I Doing It Wrong?

awingen

awingen

Registered
I do my weekly review on Sunday, but it inevitably spills into Monday and sometimes even Tuesday because the review takes forever. Fastest was 3 hours, but usually I need about 4 hours to get through everything.

I work through the checklist David has made available and I work with Evernote. I have about 60 projects and about 250 items in my action lists right now, pretty busy, a lot on my plate... but is it normal to take this long or am I just messing it up?
 
K

kelstarrising

Kelly | GTD expert
awingen said:
I do my weekly review on Sunday, but it inevitably spills into Monday and sometimes even Tuesday because the review takes forever. Fastest was 3 hours, but usually I need about 4 hours to get through everything.

I work through the checklist David has made available and I work with Evernote. I have about 60 projects and about 250 items in my action lists right now, pretty busy, a lot on my plate... but is it normal to take this long or am I just messing it up?
Click to expand...

It can absolutely take that long if you have:
  • Backlog from the week in your inboxes due to sheer volume or not enough "defining time" day-to-day
  • A large number of projects and actions to go through
  • You get into "doing" time during the Review (either project planning as TesTeq said or doing any actions that take longer than 2 minutes)
  • Interruptions while you are doing the Review

A 3 to 4 hour Review isn't a bad thing at all. The only caution I would have is telling yourself is has to be that long every time, because what that sets up is an easy out in your consciousness if you don't have a 4 hour block of time or the energy to go through that kind of rigorous reviewing. As David says: Any reviewing is better than no reviewing. So if you have a week where you only have an hour, you can still get a great Weekly Review in by choosing only a few steps from the checklist that will give you the biggest payoff. Or, you may sometimes go through the way we do Guided Weekly Review webinars on GTDConnect.com, which is to only allow 3-8 minutes per step, to get through the entire Review in about 75 minutes.

Hope that helps!
 
awingen

awingen

Registered
Thanks a lot. Oogiem hit the nail on the head, I fall into the trap of doing stuff. "It's going to take 30 seconds, let's do it right now". Then it takes three minutes and before you know it a few hours have flown by.

Also Kelstarrising - I will check GTD connect, limiting the time per step sounds like an excellent idea! Need to get more of those :)
 
GTD-Sweden

GTD-Sweden

Registered
awingen said:
I do my weekly review on Sunday, but it inevitably spills into Monday and sometimes even Tuesday because the review takes forever. Fastest was 3 hours, but usually I need about 4 hours to get through everything.

I work through the checklist David has made available and I work with Evernote. I have about 60 projects and about 250 items in my action lists right now, pretty busy, a lot on my plate... but is it normal to take this long or am I just messing it up?
Click to expand...

As I see it is a good thing to have as few projects as possible in your active system. What I do is that I sometimes put projects to pause when I find that my system is flooding with projects and I loose control of actually getting about 10-20 percent done that I have mapped up. Then you get a good bonus - the less active projects you have the less time the WR will take:)
 
arunkw

arunkw

Registered
my weekly review ... inevitably spills into Monday and sometimes even Tuesday
Click to expand...
Have a emergency version of weekly review, use it in case if your regular weekly review is going to spill over to next day. Think of it with an analogy that if you are crunched with time such that you can't take shower, what will you do? You will opt for your emergency version of just brushing up your teeth and washing your face.

is it normal to take this long or am I just messing it up
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For me it takes exactly 3 hrs 30 min, but there is no guilt that It took so much time for me, because I tend to compare it with the time I spend watching a 3 hours bollywood movie, and that GTD weekly review hours are more precious to me compared to any movie. If your gut says you're spending too much time then reduce it, else 4 hours is good too.
 
awingen

awingen

Registered
Wow, did my review Monday morning with all of your tips in mind. Took exactly 2 hours and I was done. Doing my daily review in about 45 minutes now, every day. Makes all the difference in the world. Thanks a lot!

Also started my gtdconnect trial. How could I not :)
 
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