Dedicating time to thinking of larger goals. Catching up on the things you did not get to? Do you have a set WR format? Also how long does this process take?
I try to clear all my inboxes the day before. But usually I start my weekly review with a 3-5 minute quickie mind sweep and then process anything that comes up. I use the Incompletion trigger list to try to catch any stray thoughts. The list is int he GTD methodology guides.
I review my calendar looking forward for the next couple of months usually about 6 months in the future. I capture any projects that I might have missed related to deadlines coming up.
Then I focus on each project I have and evaluate it:
- Do I still need to do this project?
- Do I need to do this project during this quarter? (For me I pull others back out into my Someday/Maybe lists)
- Is the name such that I know what my goal is?
- Is there at least 1 clear next action?
- Is the action worded properly so I can really do it?
- Is the context correct?
I also have some single action lists and those tend to get long. When I review the individual actions in those, especially if they have been there a while I ask whether the "action" is really a project in disguise and if it is I create a new project and do the actions above.
After review all my projects in a project oriented view I review all my context lists and ask these questions:
- Is this item in the proper context? (Yes duplicated from above but I still fix errors frequently in this part)
- Are there too many items on this list for me to feel comfortable?
- Do I need to create a new context for some of them?
- Are there few or no items on this context?
- Do I need to delete a context?
- Are there any special circumstances that require me to add or delete a context for the next week or so?
Then I take a look at the various appropriate Someday/Maybe lists. Mine are in a tool that presents them as text files so I can read them quickly.
I just verify that I don't need to add any new projects from them into my lists and also make sure that if I've moved any projects back into someday/maybe that they are in a state where I can pick them up again in the future and run with it.
Lastly I think about any other things I might want to do, the get creative part and do another mind sweep. Then I try to process those according to the normal inbox processing.
Entire process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, it all depends on what has happend during the past week and what is coming up.
Once a quarter I schedule at least 3-4 hours for a really indepth review of higher levels and the big swapping out of projects from current system into Someday/Maybe and vice versa.
End of year I do an even more indepth review that starts around the solstice and takes almost a month where I add extra things to each weekly review to get ready for the new year.
