Help with jump starting my weekly review

T

thr61

0
I have been doing GTD for about 2 years now and have many sound practices and tools in place. My one area of weakness is in the weekly review -- it gets done but not weekly and sometimes only monthly and sometimes in bits and bytes.

After attending the Roadmap seminar, I am now focused on making this a true weekly habit and have realized the following approach will be best for me:

1. Commit to a single hour of my week on Friday to do as much as is possible of the WR. I realize this is not ideal, but I know that I can consistently block out an hour and firmly believe that an hour of WR is better than none at all.

2. My question is: which of the typical WR tasks should I focus on? My WR list includes:

a. Gather all loose papers and process
b. Process all notes from circa and OneNote
c. Review previous calendar data
d. Review upcoming calendar
e. Review action lists
f. Review @waiting for list
g. Review and update project list, making sure there is one NA for each project
h. Review Someday/Maybe list

So, if you had an hour only, what would you do and in what order? My goal will be to expand the hour and become better at it, but I am a firm believer in setting attainable goals.

Thanks for any and all help, comments, and critiques.
 
Teleseminar

I'd suggest you listen to the excellent teleseminar called "Critical Success Factor: Weekly Review" that is posted on the Connect site. David, Meg Edwards, and Marian Bateman go through the weekly review in detail, offering tips for how to get it done in an as soon as an hour (to 90 minutes) if need be.

John
 
Well, the first thing I would do is move (a) and (b) out of the Weekly Review. These are more along the lines of inbox processing and should be done daily.

I don't have many appointments, so (c) and (d) are insignificant. YMMV. If I did, I would treat (c) as an inbox task as well.

As discussed elsewhere, I use my tickler instead of @waiting for, so (f) is also insignificant for me.

That leaves (e), (g), and (h), which I'm almost always able to cover in less than an hour. (Usually much less.)

In general, I've found that if I do the Weekly Review regularly, it hardly takes any time at all. If you delay because you don't have time this week, then next week you'll need even more time. Which you won't have. Pretty soon you've got a giant weekend-swallowing monster on your hands. This is the point at which many new GTD users give up, unfortunately.

Katherine
 
Help with jump starting my weekly review

Hi

I have just started trying to get to grips with this and make it a regular useful event. I got a small binder (3/4 inch) and put some dividers in marked up with my required elements (diary print out for the last four weeks and next four weeks, current action lists including waiting fors, tickler entries, completed actions and project list. Each week I print out these elements, put them in the folder and then work through them marking up the pages and then go back to the PC and update the various areas. (If I did it at the PC I would be very quickly sidetracked and also I can see exactly where I got to if I do have to pause and go back to it later).

I am also working on some checklists for example a financial checklist.

I agree with Katherine about not processing the Inbox and notes as part of the review. I tried to do this following David's weekly review checklist and it took up too much time. This needs to be done daily and if I have any inbox or whatever not processed when I do the weekly review then it does not get into the system until I next process. I am fairly relaxed about that as I tend to process anything I think needs to get into the system quickly on the fly.
Pixlz
 
I certainly agree with the necessity of processing notes and Inbasket stuff daily or it becomes an overload and the WR grinds to a crawl.

I can do my WR in about 90 minutes most weeks, but I had a marathon session a few weeks ago and took several hours to complete it. Why? I had all day and allowed myself the luxury of processing incompleted NA's during the WR. Not recommended but is fun and helpful on a day you have the time.
 
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