How to do the Weekly Review

Brent said:
About defining whether someone is "doing GTD:" personally, I don't care if I'm "doing GTD." I don't care if other people are "doing GTD." I care if I'm Getting Things Done. What does it matter?
Click to expand...

Yeah, we're not talking about whether or not you're an accepted member of a religion here based on your beliefs and practices....

Another thought as I have mulled over this thread...I keep a running grocery list and write things on it as I use them up during the week. But still, before I go to the grocery store, I do a complete check of my pantry to see what I have in stock and what I don't. This was the case even when I lived by myself. So reviewing projects and next actions against each other isn't a complete waste of time. I would never go to the grocery store and buy just what I had written on my list through the course of the week. Not only is a grocery list a matter of filling in what's missing, it's planning what is to come and being prepared for it as well - I may have not made spaghetti last week but this week I am going to so I need spaghetti and pasta sauce even though it isn't something I ran out of during the course of the week.

As a self-directed/self-employed person, I find it imperative that I set weekly goals and then evaluate at the end of the week if I completed those goals and if my projects and next actions support my goals or not. Making sure I've followed through with a client by matching next actions with project lists may seem like a redundant waste of time, but it can be very effective at making sure I've covered all my bases, even if I have a list of standard procedures I'm following. Even if I had the most automated computer program in the world that always made me have a next action for each project, I still would not trust it to make sure my project and next action lists were complete - I would still check one against the other to make sure I was working full-circle and making the most of each and every opportunity that came my way.

I'm glad we've had this thread going because it has truly brought forward to me why I value the weekly review.
 
Brent said:
Well, that's slightly inaccurate. More correctly, work is a separate context from home. . .

As far as I remember the book -- and I may be remembering it incorrectly -- David states that he's agnostic about the specific tool(s) you use to record your NAs, Projects, etc. . .

I try to do a review every week; I just don't always get around to it. That's my failing; it's not a deliberate departure from David's Weekly Review principle.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about contexts but rather about the Weekly Review. Regardless of the form of the lists, the book says to look at all of them "in one fell swoop" in one Weekly Review:
"Frankly, it doesn't matter how many different lists of projects you have, so long as you look at the contents of all of them as often as you need to, since for the most part you'll do that in one fell swoop during the Weekly Review."

"Many people feel more comfortable seeing their lists divided up between personal and professional projects. If you're among them, be advised that your "Personal" list will need to be reviewed as judiciously as your "Professional" one, and not saved for weekends. Many actions on personal things will need to be handled on weekdays, exactly like everything else. And often some of the greatest pressures on professionals stem from the personal aspects of their lives they are letting slip."

​
The Weekly Review as described in the book is clearly one big session. A block of 2 hours is mentioned specifically. Some lists may be on paper, others in Outlook, but you would review them all in one sitting, to get the "big picture."

Now you may want to accuse me of being anal in quoting the book. :-) I have a pretty good memory for what I read anyway, and I read this one really carefully. Certain sections I even re-read. But understand that when I picked up the book in an airport bookstore, my life was a disorganized mess. I knew some of its recommendations would help me tremendously -- and they did. I wasn't sure about others, but I followed them all as I understood them for awhile. I usually follow recipes before I modify them.

So I did the Weekly Review exactly as described in the book for about 6 months, which is why I remember it. It took a long time. Looong. The result seemed good. But I fell off the wagon. Then I got back on, but was streaky. Some weeks I'd review, some not.

You could consider that the problem was with me, not the system. But it was a lot easier to change the system than to change myself or my level of motivation for Weekly Review. More importantly, the Weekly Review has a purpose which can be achieved in different ways. You worked out a way for you. I don't think your way is a "failing" at all -- unless you are forgetting personal commitments or not happy with the balance between your personal and professional roles. That is the kind of person that I think the book's recommendations were geared toward: someone with a lot of pressure at work who spends too much time there, neglecting relationships and personal commitments.

Brent said:
About defining whether someone is "doing GTD:" personally, I don't care if I'm "doing GTD." I don't care if other people are "doing GTD." I care if I'm Getting Things Done. What does it matter?
Click to expand...
As I said before, it doesn't matter to me either. But I recently came across David's blog entry about defining and trademarking GTD. It clearly matters to him, so I was just considering how to respect that. And hundreds of visitors come to this forum every day, and many are probably new to GTD and trying to learn about it. It may be confusing to learn about how to GTD when people are describing something else altogether.
 
andersons said:
I would agree with this statement completely. But my understanding of GTD comes mainly from the book, which uses the term "Weekly Review" in caps repeatedly and says
"Whatever your life-style, you need a weekly regrouping ritual."

​
This sounded like an absolute requirement to me. I don't know if subsequent materials have qualified it somewhat.
Click to expand...

I remember David saying that if someone only implemented 80% of this, they'd be ahead of the game by leaps and bounds.

So, for that person who's only doing 80%, are they not doing "GTD"? I've also heard David say that at its heart, GTD is just a series of tips and tricks that have been proved to be "bullet proof" or something of that nature.

So, even though David has trademarked the acronym "GTD", I don't think that the edges are really that rigid.... rather, they're rough, much like the edges of "knowledge work" itself.

I believe that GTD is a "system like water" that results in one having a "mind like water".
 
pageta said:
Making sure I've followed through with a client by matching next actions with project lists may seem like a redundant waste of time, but it can be very effective at making sure I've covered all my bases, even if I have a list of standard procedures I'm following. Even if I had the most automated computer program in the world that always made me have a next action for each project, I still would not trust it to make sure my project and next action lists were complete - I would still check one against the other to make sure I was working full-circle and making the most of each and every opportunity that came my way.
Click to expand...
That's a good point; matching next actions with projects is not a redundant waste of time. When you are done, you will have a very good mental picture of what you need to do. Imagine if someone gave you a set of pre-made lists of projects and actions and maintained them for you. Everything might be on there, but you'd have no clear picture of where you were going.

As far as the automation, there is no way for me NOT to trust that all projects have NAs defined for them. It does not work like a grocery list. Call a project with no actions defined a "blocked" project. As soon as a project becomes blocked -- as soon as I complete the last NA I've defined for it -- immediately the project shows up on my NA list: "Song orchestration is written?" If the orchestration is not written, I immediately know I have to define a NA.

I do think about my projects and actions. But not about whether any projects are blocked.

I do not have to determine whether a project needs an action; instead I can focus on what that action should be. Not having to scan my lists for blocked projects saves time. I still review my projects as much as I want to and think about them creatively. But NAs get added immediately when needed, not just once a week. Catching these blocked projects immediately is a lifesaver for me, especially when the projects themselves have deadlines.

IF you can always define a week's worth of actions at a time, and IF you always without fail review every single week for the next week, then this automation is not critical. But those are two big IFs. Plus, it is very natural to think about a next action for a project after you have just completed the previous one. You can leverage that flow. And you can easily keep your system complete and current a greater percentage of the week.
 
How to do the Weekly Review

"The Weekly Review as described in the book is clearly one big session. A block of 2 hours is mentioned specifically. Some lists may be on paper, others in Outlook, but you would review them all in one sitting, to get the "big picture." "

I believe Andersons may be taking what the book suggests too literally. The Weekly Review can only be completely done in one big session if a person is self employed with a home office. The reason is simple: to really review your project list, Allen suggests browsing "through the work-in-progress support material to trigger new actions, completions, waiting fors, etc"

Clearly, people who work outside the home, will physically have support material in two places hence two sessions.

Personally, its not a big deal if a weekly review has to be split up in two sessions-home and office. Just doing the review is what counts.
 
For those who care, the "official" definition of GTD is here:
http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php
It calls for "appropriately frequent" reviews.

Personally, I'm not interested in arguing about what is or is not Correct GTD (tm) in this forum. That's a job for davidco employees and lawyers, and is mostly irrelevant to the reasons why I'm here.

Katherine
 
No, I don't want the forum to turn into GTD police at all (though that seems vaguely implied in David's blog post). The forum is helpful because people discuss different solutions even when those solutions are not GTD. But the forum is sponsored by davidco, David Allen asked folks to be clear about GTD when they talk about it, so I opened some discussion on whether we should do that here when discussing the Weekly Review.

I do not take the book "too literally." It says what it says. I did not write it. I'm not taking anything out of context, or misrepresenting it. If it said "appropriately frequent review," then who could say that didn't work for them? But it's Weekly Review that is strongly seen as a core practice of GTD in many people's minds. The title of this thread is "How to do the Weekly Review."

If one reads the book, reads posts on this forum, and reads any GTD blogs, one will come away with the distinct impression that an important part of GTD is the Weekly Review. One will not get the message "figure out how much you need to review." If "appropriately frequent review" instead should be the real message, maybe this thread will help get it out there.

I don't follow GTD religiously. I've been critical of a number of GTD recommendations and abandoned them myself. Others, though, have been tremendously beneficial. Some are good for some situations but not for others.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due. That means maybe we can't say, "Isn't it great how GTD works for everyone" and then do the opposite of several "core methodologies." Benefitting from doing 80% GTD is one thing. Completely overhauling a "core methodology" is another. It's not helpful if I say "GTD works for me" while I am making anti-GTD, Franklin-Covey prioritized "Today" lists each day.

There are plenty of other threads where people say, "This isn't exactly GTD but here's what I do." The clarification is helpful. That's all I was doing here.
 
To The Point Of The Thread ...

... here's my take on the weekly review. Modified to fit my tools and time.

* Sync phone
* Gather all loose papers and toss them in the inbox
* Process physical inbox
* Process Outlook inbox
* Process office and cell voice mail
* Process my notes:
o Journal
o Levenger
o List things as appropriate
o File reference notes and materials as appropriate
​
* Review past calendar dates in detail for remaining actions, etc.

o Update client contacts
o Enter time as needed
o Review and update call lists
​
* Purge travel docs folder
* Look at upcoming calendar and capture actions about arrangements, prep. etc.

o Review background and notes on the people I will see this week
o Look for possible relationship events: Dinners, ball games, breakfast, coffee, etc. with others in the places where I'll be
​
* Purge travel docs folder
* Look at upcoming calendar and capture actions about arrangements, prep. etc.
* Empty my head: put in writing any new projects, action items, etc. that I haven't captured yet
* Review "Projects" list: Evaluate the status of projects, goals, outcomes one by one, ensuring I have at least one current kick-start action for each in my system.
* Review Next Actions lists: Mark off stuff that's complete; review for reminders of further action steps to capture.
* Review Waiting For list: Record appropriate actions and any needed follow-up; check off received items.
* Is there anything else I haven't done that I need to do?
* Review Someday/Maybe list and look for anything that may have become active and transfer it into Projects. Delete anything that's no longer of interest.
* Review Palm Notes: Ensure they're current and add items and next actions as needed.
* Review "Pending" and Support Files: Browse through all work-in-progress support material for new actions, completions, and waiting-fors.
* Be creative and courageous: Any new great ideas?
* Sync phone

I keep a printed version in my inbox on my desk and in my portable plastic-folder inbox that rides in my briefcase.

If I'm able to keep myself free of interruption, the process takes about two hours. If I miss a week, it naturally takes more, and if I've been processing the inbox throughout the week (especially if I'm on the road) it takes less time (often much less). I seem to get a "full review" in about once a month, with shorter (1-2 hour) reviews weekly.

I try to do the review between 2 and 4 pm on Fridays, but that hasn't worked as well as I'd like: I'm often only in the office once or twice a week, and typically too much "stuff" intrudes. Still working that out ...
 
"I do not take the book "too literally." It says what it says. I did not write it. I'm not taking anything out of context, or misrepresenting it."

Andersons, I believe your intrepretation is too literal. Clearly, if you do not have all the information to do a complete weekly review in one location, you cannot do the complete weekly review in one session. Pure logic.

Here is a cut and paste from Allens description of the weekly review from the tips and tools section:

"Review Project (and Larger Outcome) Lists

Evaluate status of projects, goals and outcomes, one by one, ensuring at least one current action item on each. Browse through work-in-progress support material to trigger new actions", completions, waiting-for’s, etc."

Another cut and paste from the tips and tools section:

"[So, OK folks, this may seem like more hokey stuff-I-should-do-but-never-do stuff. Honestly, this is what I do to keep myself sane and in control. This is not theoretical or out of some book. This is literally, blow-by-blow, what I do at least once a week."

I would infer that Allen would not object to people doing a part of the weekly review at home.
 
If in doubt ask David directly.

andersons said:
No, I don't want the forum to turn into GTD police at all (though that seems vaguely implied in David's blog post). The forum is helpful because people discuss different solutions even when those solutions are not GTD. But the forum is sponsored by davidco, David Allen asked folks to be clear about GTD when they talk about it, so I opened some discussion on whether we should do that here when discussing the Weekly Review.
Click to expand...
Ok, andersons. I am beginning to be slightly annoyed. Are you The David Allen Company public relations officer? Or maybe you have David's authorization to represent him in his trademark protection actions?

In my opinion David's intention is to protect GTD against unfair business competition - not to limit GTD discussion on his own company forum.

If in doubt, ask David directly. There is no point to discuss here what he may or may not think about it.
 
GJR said:
Andersons, I believe your intrepretation is too literal. Clearly, if you do not have all the information to do a complete weekly review in one location, you cannot do the complete weekly review in one session. Pure logic.
Click to expand...
I agree, it appears to be something of a logical contradiction between the tips-and-tools article and the book. But for quite awhile I followed the book, not the website or any other material, and the book discourages separating work and personal review. The book says not to wait for the weekend to review personal stuff and then takes quite a bit of time to explain why. The book advocates one session and takes awhile to explain why. There's not a whole lot of room for interpretation here: the recommendations are specific, not general.

In fact, I see that the book also includes the seemingly-contradictory directive to review pending and support files. But the strong recommendations for one comprehensive session were much more memorable since more discussion was devoted to those. There's a bit of wiggle room ("create islands of time for some version of this process"), but there's a lot of specific recommendations about what's ideal ("I recommend you block out two hours early every Friday afternoon for the review. Three factors make this an ideal time. . ."). I gave the "ideal" scenario a try.

At the time, I didn't give the contradiction much thought; I just brought my personal project support material with me to the office in an accordian file.
 
TesTeq said:
Ok, andersons. I am beginning to be slightly annoyed.

In my opinion David's intention is to protect GTD against unfair business competition - not to limit GTD discussion on his own company forum.
Click to expand...
Why be annoyed?

You are probably right about his intention, I hope so, but he specifically mentioned the DavidCo Forum at the end of the original post. That's what made me wonder about minimizing confusion and ambiguity here.

Hmm, I just noticed his blog title is "Between the lines". . .Linking to the definition from here will hardly reduce ambiguity, it's true. It just didn't occur to me to think of monetary reasons for linking to the definition. I see.

Nonetheless, clarity is often better than ambiguity or confusion. I still find that clarity about GTD is helpful in forum discussion. Not that there is a need to define every little detail, but at least clarity on the essentials as they are widely understood. It's also instructive to hear disagreement about what is essential GTD.
 
Ouch! This thread is getting painful.

1. We can all believe that we do not need to follow GTD to the letter to benefit from it.
2. We can all believe that it is useful to define GTD with as much clarity as possible, so that when we diverge from GTD, we do so consciously.

Some are accusing andersons of denying statement 1. This is clearly false. She has affirmed 1.

Andersons has openly affirmed statement 2. Many here deny it. I wonder why.

When DA discusses processing he says that you must: (a) take items out of your inbox one at a time, and (b) do not process the next item until you have completed processing the previous one.

Then DA explains that there are exceptions to (b) above. Some personality types, according to DA, may violate (b), although most people ought not to do so.

DA is about as anal as they come. And I do not believe that he is anal solely for legal/commercial reasons. He is anal because he has worked his butt off:) honing and clarifying his system.

One benefit of this public forum is that there are hundreds of minds helping to clarify, probe, and hone GTD even further.

Some day DA might wish to produce a second edition of the GTD book. Let us do what we can to help improve it.
 
andersons said:
As far as the automation, there is no way for me NOT to trust that all projects have NAs defined for them. It does not work like a grocery list. Call a project with no actions defined a "blocked" project. As soon as a project becomes blocked -- as soon as I complete the last NA I've defined for it -- immediately the project shows up on my NA list: "Song orchestration is written?" If the orchestration is not written, I immediately know I have to define a NA.

I do think about my projects and actions. But not about whether any projects are blocked.

I do not have to determine whether a project needs an action; instead I can focus on what that action should be. Not having to scan my lists for blocked projects saves time. I still review my projects as much as I want to and think about them creatively. But NAs get added immediately when needed, not just once a week. Catching these blocked projects immediately is a lifesaver for me, especially when the projects themselves have deadlines.

IF you can always define a week's worth of actions at a time, and IF you always without fail review every single week for the next week, then this automation is not critical. But those are two big IFs. Plus, it is very natural to think about a next action for a project after you have just completed the previous one. You can leverage that flow. And you can easily keep your system complete and current a greater percentage of the week.
Click to expand...

But what about projects with more than one action, where you're working on more than one aspect of the project at any given moment? My projects are not linear. That's why I used the grocery list analogy. Just because I'm prompted to come up with A next action for a project doesn't mean that I've captured all of the next actions I could possibly be working on. THAT is where I would not trust the software because no software will ever know all of the possible tasks I might be doing for any given project.

The weekly review is for taking a step back and looking at the whole picture and seeing things you might miss in the heat of the moment. I always put down the next action when I complete a next action, if there is one. But that doesn't mean I've captured all of my next actions. That's what the weekly review is for...at least one of the purposes of the weekly review.
 
Work vs. Home

Actually, I do separate work and home reviews by neccessity: My bills, my home filing system, mortgage papers, etc. are all at home, and my work materials are at work.

I also, though, don't do two full weekly reviews a week. Here's how I manage it: I do some version--from "lean and mean" to "the whole hog" of the weekly review I posted above at work each week, typically on Friday (but sometimes on Monday while on an airplane). Similarly, I process my home inbox, which is about mail and bills more than anything else, on Sat or Sunday, which usually takes 30 minutes to an hour. I don't review all my projects, NAs, and somedays then, though, because I've done that at work.

So it's more that I do a bit of my processing at home on the weekends, appending my lists and calendar as required, while doing my full review-which from a review perspective includes work and home--in one shot at the office (or on the road).

Works for me.

Seat 1A
 
pageta said:
But what about projects with more than one action, where you're working on more than one aspect of the project at any given moment?
Click to expand...
Good question. If I'm working on more than one action to move a project forward, they're all in there, and they all show up on appropriate NA lists. But if I feel I need to review a project to think of more actions, I just do it. Anytime it's bugging me. If I don't, I don't.
pageta said:
Just because I'm prompted to come up with A next action for a project doesn't mean that I've captured all of the next actions I could possibly be working on. THAT is where I would not trust the software because no software will ever know all of the possible tasks I might be doing for any given project.
Click to expand...
No, the software doesn't think of NAs for you. But it will tell me that I need to. That feature -- reminding me immediately when a project becomes blocked -- really takes care of MOST of the project planning/reviewing I need to do. Using the GTD definition of project (anything taking more than 1 action step to complete), I have a LOT of those. Many do not need special thought, though (e.g., "Air conditioning is fixed"). The ones that do need more thought, are less linear, and may have several NAs I could define -- well, the reminder the project is now blocked helps with these too. A project is blocked when I check off the last remaining NA. That is a very natural time to think of more, since I am already in the mindset of thinking about that project outcome. If I think of 10 more actions, I can put them all in the system at that time.

To capture all the NAs I could possibly be working on, this is really what I do:
Option 1. Don't worry about more possible NAs unless the project is bugging me. I don't have to schedule a specific review time to think of more; I can relax because I have some, and if I finish all those, I will be reminded to think of more right then. (>90% of my GTD projects)
Option 2. If another NA pops into my mind even when I already have some, I add it in as soon as possible. Sometimes I thow a note in my inbox, but mostly I put it directly into the system.
Option 3. If a project is bugging me, I stop to review it as soon as possible. Sometimes the NA I defined before seems brainless or obsolete.
Option 4. I have also used the software features to make a short list of the projects that don't bug me, but should. :-) Like projects where the NAs are very unpleasant so I tend to avoid them. (Like getting incorrect medical bills changed.) However, recently I've been better about doing unpleasant NAs so I haven't used this project list much.

Basically, the automation triggers shorter, more frequent reviews of the most important projects. And less or no review of simple, linear ones. I just seem to have a much better picture of my important projects now than when I was reviewing them only once a week, all together. My mind can devote more attention to more complicated and important projects since I don't have to devote any attention to the many simple ones.

It's not hard to trust it because it simply works. It is more like having an assistant who notices every time you finish off a jar of pasta sauce and adds it to your grocery list for you. Or faithful newspaper delivery. If your paper gets delivered to your door every day without fail, you don't think about whether you have to go to the store to buy one. You can spend your time reading it instead.
 
moises said:
1. We can all believe that we do not need to follow GTD to the letter to benefit from it.
2. We can all believe that it is useful to define GTD with as much clarity as possible, so that when we diverge from GTD, we do so consciously.

One benefit of this public forum is that there are hundreds of minds helping to clarify, probe, and hone GTD even further.

Some day DA might wish to produce a second edition of the GTD book. Let us do what we can to help improve it.
Click to expand...
Great points and well said.

I asked a question perhaps at the wrong place or in a wrong way or both. The answer is clear though; the community wants to discuss freely whatever approaches to productivity work for them, with a focus on GTD and appreciation for it. Discussion of different implementations and even different approaches is all useful. Past discussion has been free and helpful, and there's no reason to think this will change. Let's not get upset unless it does.
 
Quick side note: Some of us literally must keep their work and home systems separate. For example, I work in an environment that involves some classified data. I can't even take my work NA list out of the office, and I certainly can't take folders or other data home. I can't do the reverse, either; I'm not going to keep my personal reference files or home inbox at work.
 
Separate home and office with WR link.

I think keeping home and office systems separate is more healthy for your life unless you are workaholic to some degree. The only part of the system that should be available in both environments is UCT (Ubiquitous Capture Tool) - just in case you have great idea to put in the home or office inbox.

I link both systems by treating home system as my main system and office system as the subsystem. In the home system I have only one recurring NA concerning the office system "Do the office system Weekly Review".
 
hmm.

I'm new.

This was an interesting thread. I think there is always confusion on webboards, with the lack of face-to-face conversation and truly knowing the person on the other end, with whether or not there is conflict, and what kind of intentions, feelings, and opinions are being conveyed.

I despise any sort of conflict, personally. I turn to knots inside.

I understand that conflict exists, and what has helped me unknot is to narrow down the source of the conflict. I do a GRPI check: what is the Goal, what are your/my Roles to achieve the goal, what is the Process that you and I go through in our roles to achieve the goal, and is there an interpersonal conflict?

That was a sidetrack. But I think that people mostly disagree on Process here.

The main thing I wanted to say is that I remember reading in GTD that David Allen realizes that what most people get out of the book is a few good tricks. I think if he finds it acceptable that people use a few tools and not the whole system, I find it acceptable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top