Splitted weekly review

Hi there,
As many people (according to what I've readen/heard), the main point on which I'm facing issues to use the full potential of the GTD methodology is the weekly review. I don't manage to get even one free hour in my week. Even after having tried several moments.
I tried a new way and it works pretty well for a few months: splitting it.
Every day, a reminder tells me the part of the weekly review I'm supposed to do. For example, Monday: "Projects in progress", Tuesday "Actions on computer", Wednesday "Actions at home", Thursday "Actions in the city", etc.
This trick allows me to only take ~10 minutes per day 7 times a week, and even if I don't get the full profit of the "real" weekly review, I can reflect, get some time cleaning lists, adding items still in a part of my head but not in my system yet, get refreshed on what is pending, etc. during these 10 minutes.
I guess this way of doing could interest other GTDers facing similar issues. And, maybe, some experimented GTDers who tried the same and who would think this is not a good idea could also share their view or their warnings.
Cheers,
Christophe
 

TruthWK

Registered
I've totally thought about trying something like this and have to some extent. However, I have found there are still times where I feel like I need to catch up more than just one area so I'd say give yourself permission to do that. One thing I do is to pick a reasonable amount of time to spend on GTD system work every day. That way I give myself a limit to not spend all day on my system and to control my perfectionist tendencies. Doing a 2 hour weekly review once a week is very hard psychologically and to focus for that long on something like that.
 

schmeggahead

Registered
Listening to David on one of the webinars, he said if you haven't done a weekly review, you are essentially trying to do it all of the time and not finishing, essentially failing at it.

I thought, well, if I'm (in a way) always trying to complete the review, I decided to start my day with 30 minutes of "weekly" review, every day. The funny thing about doing that was 1) I did a bunch of <2 minute tasks and 2) what I reviewed yesterday was quick to review today (not much changed) and 3) I kept making it farther and farther through the review.

I really got to know what was in my system and what had my attention. I got to know what helped me do things quickly and what didn't. My system got lean and highly usable. Someday and incubate grew. Project list shrunk.

When I turned to processing IN after these short daily reviews, I knew how the new stuff fit, more and more with what I had already committed to doing.

Happy reviewing,
Clayton

Have an open mind but not so open your brains fall out. - Auggie
 

gtdstudente

Registered
Hi there,
As many people (according to what I've readen/heard), the main point on which I'm facing issues to use the full potential of the GTD methodology is the weekly review. I don't manage to get even one free hour in my week. Even after having tried several moments.
I tried a new way and it works pretty well for a few months: splitting it.
Every day, a reminder tells me the part of the weekly review I'm supposed to do. For example, Monday: "Projects in progress", Tuesday "Actions on computer", Wednesday "Actions at home", Thursday "Actions in the city", etc.
This trick allows me to only take ~10 minutes per day 7 times a week, and even if I don't get the full profit of the "real" weekly review, I can reflect, get some time cleaning lists, adding items still in a part of my head but not in my system yet, get refreshed on what is pending, etc. during these 10 minutes.
I guess this way of doing could interest other GTDers facing similar issues. And, maybe, some experimented GTDers who tried the same and who would think this is not a good idea could also share their view or their warnings.
Cheers,
Christophe
Humbly aiming to do the step-by-step "Weekly Review" in ten-minutes daily . . . for increased "empty" head and hyper-crisp / hyper-fresh GTD system
 
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