Weekly Review Challenge (November 2014)

[Barb]

This month we'll focus on our calendars and, hopefully, share tips and tricks to "be kind to our future selves".

When doing your reviews this month, share your thoughts about the following:

• Do you have enough "doing" time to get to the things that really matter for you between now and the end of the year?
• If you have a role to play in any upcoming holidays, is that under control?
• What has worked well for you during busy/crunch times of the year that you can share with the Connect group?
• How do you keep yourself balanced and healthy when you are crazy busy?

The monthly prize for November will be the folded workflow map (link below) and don't forget our big quarterly prize drawing at the end of the December for a free Virtual Coaching session*! Good luck, everyone, and keep sharing!

*Must be a member on 12/31/2014 to be eligible

November Prize: https://gettingthingsdone.com/store/product.php?productid=16672&cat=293&page=

 

[Oogiem]

WR #1 Finished

I started my review on Friday the 31st - Getting inboxes clear. Which I decided was going to take far too much time so I did a quick scan and have been picking away at them over the last few days. Finally finished the real review yesterday.

As I mentioned in October lots of projects with the changing seasons. Our big last day before closing for the winter event went off well with our largest ever 1 days sales volume of meat, wool and books from our store. We also have another local person with jams and jellies for sale and another with empanadas, Welsh oggies, spice mixes and frozen entrees made from our meat for sale. Everyone did well I think. This was a huge project that it was a relief to mark completed.

I'm in the final packing stages of sending the hardware for my presentation in Austin ahead of time and manged to find and clean up a major bug in LambTracker so it's going with 99% working software I'll continue development probably up until the night before I give my presentation but what I have on there can demo acceptably well.

All in all things are going well.

 

[Barb]

#1 for November

I started this review Sunday and I'm just now finishing. There is something very unsatisfying about a review going longer than planned!

Anyway, I printed out my "Thanksgiving" and "Christmas" checklists and started some baby steps. I was able to take care of 4 presents on Amazon pretty quickly--yay! I plan to do more shopping during a very long conference call tomorrow. I also plan to check my supply of wrapping paper, etc. because I don't like having to settle for what's leftover. I'm surprised to see Christmas popping up in stores already!! Ugh!

 

[ollie_r]

Weekly Review 0.6a(?)

Usually I do my Weekly Reviews together with my spouse on Friday. We've gotten in the habit of coaching each other through it and asking the tough questions. Everything has been going so smoothly lately, both of us being in Captain&Commander I guess. That feeling is so ... amazing. We've both started a business together and have been through some pretty chaotic and hectic times. Either way, I didn't trust this Captain&Commander feeling and needed reassurance that yes, everything was fine! So I decided to start early this week. I must have gone through each project plan and each list at least three times to double and triple check.

The last couple of days we did a lot of admin kinda tasks that have been piling up. I got my main next actions list from 50 down to 16. Woohoo.

We trained Dragon Naturally Speaking and got much more writing for our clients done in a single day than we used to in three. Why we procrastinated on this so long, I don't know. We should do these sharpening-the-saw kind of tasks before anything else, even if it feels like a temporary setback.

We also had a lot of nebulous projects that weren't moving forward for a while now regarding some home improvements and decoration we want to do, now that we have some breathing room. We took a whole day of back to back meetings and did the natural planning model on each of them. It was very exhausting but it also left us enthusiastic and we're finally seeing a clear path to checking them off as done. Our home is finally going to look more like a home and not just a sparse office with a built-in bedroom.

Lastly, I finished a project I had been meaning to implement for a while now: "Intention Journal is up+running". When I first discovered this GTD Connect feature I loved it, but never used it, because I didn't want to keep two calendar-like systems. So I created a new calendar in iCal where I put mind-joggers, affirmations and ticklers that pop up on my iPhone with some regularity now. I have the calendar on invisible, so I HOPEFULLY won't go numb to it. Looking forward to see how that helps with the higher horizons! My plan is to put a next action to journal on the question on my @Creative Thinking list.

I'm curious if anybody else has experimented with the Intention Journal and what their experience was!

 

[Jenn]

WR # 1 for November (# 38 of 2014)

Just completed my review for the week. I spent time on Friday getting my electronic In Box to zero so it made starting the review easier. I still had to clear my paper In Box but this was quite enjoyable with my new folders that I won in the September review! It is nice to be able to put papers into "Action Support" and simply reference them in my action comments and move on to the review.

One of the best parts of this review was looking forward through November and December and clearing my calendar for my vacation I also moved my weekly reviews around during that period to make sure I don't drop them altogether.

I know I have some work to get done this weekend and doing the review early Saturday helps me clarify what does and does not need to be completed. This way, I can ensure I enjoy some of the weekend too!

In terms of this month's focus:

• What has worked well for you during busy/crunch times of the year that you can share with the Connect group?
  • I make a point of blocking out time on my calendar in advance so that others can't grab it for appointments. If I am feeling particularly overwhelmed, I will book off any openings in my calendar for the next days until I catch up.
• How do you keep yourself balanced and healthy when you are crazy busy?
  • I try to consider this during my weekly review. I take a look at when to fit in exercise and also which nights I will be home to cook and when we'll be relying on leftovers. I also have a long-standing Friday afternoon "out of office" appointment that keeps this time slot free. If possible, I take it off and use the time to do something for me. If I can't afford the time off, then it's already a timeslot that is blocked off and I can fill with priority tasks.

Jenn

 

[Barb]

WR # 1 for November (# 38 of 2014)

Just completed my review for the week. I spent time on Friday getting my electronic In Box to zero so it made starting the review easier. I still had to clear my paper In Box but this was quite enjoyable with my new folders that I won in the September review! It is nice to be able to put papers into "Action Support" and simply reference them in my action comments and move on to the review.

One of the best parts of this review was looking forward through November and December and clearing my calendar for my vacation I also moved my weekly reviews around during that period to make sure I don't drop them altogether.

I know I have some work to get done this weekend and doing the review early Saturday helps me clarify what does and does not need to be completed. This way, I can ensure I enjoy some of the weekend too!

In terms of this month's focus:

• What has worked well for you during busy/crunch times of the year that you can share with the Connect group?
  • I make a point of blocking out time on my calendar in advance so that others can't grab it for appointments. If I am feeling particularly overwhelmed, I will book off any openings in my calendar for the next days until I catch up.
• How do you keep yourself balanced and healthy when you are crazy busy?
  • I try to consider this during my weekly review. I take a look at when to fit in exercise and also which nights I will be home to cook and when we'll be relying on leftovers. I also have a long-standing Friday afternoon "out of office" appointment that keeps this time slot free. If possible, I take it off and use the time to do something for me. If I can't afford the time off, then it's already a timeslot that is blocked off and I can fill with priority tasks.

Jenn

Great coaching here, Jenn! Thanks!

 

[CJSullivan]

WR #1 for November

I can tell that November and December for me are going to be all about the Someday/Maybe list. Today I did a little different review than my usual. I finished cleaning up all my in baskets, and reviewed my calendar (forward and backward), and then I turned my attention to my project lists. I normally review action lists first, and leave the project lists & upper horizons for the end of the review. Well, I've been away for half this past week, which is unusual for me, and as such it gave me a chance at a slightly different perspective. While flying at 30,000 feet I was actually able to review my upper horizons, but in a sort of "short-term" way, in order to really focus in on my priorities for the rest of this year. So I was keen to review my projects with this new perspective in mind, and it's been extremely helpful. To answer a couple of this months bullet points:

• Do you have enough "doing" time to get to the things that really matter for you between now and the end of the year? I certainly didn't until I took a fresh look at things. I feel such a sense of relief in having put the "nice-to-haves" on the back burner.
• If you have a role to play in any upcoming holidays, is that under control? Our holidays are fairly low-key, and have been for a few years. Not much specifically holiday-related, but I will have more time off from my day job, so it feels good to have my priorities more nailed down as I will have a little more "quality time" to devote to them. And I'll be able to really enjoy some holiday down-time.

The wonderful by-product of all this is that I did some brainstorming today and came up with a really quality idea for something that's been eluding me for ages. By letting myself off the hook on quite a few projects (I've gone from 45 to 30 active projects), without any effort I've gained a considerable amount of creative energy.

 

[Oogiem]

WR#2 Finished

My last review before I head off to Austin. I took my own advice and whittled down my projects to only those that I can actually work on while away from the farm. I'll be gone for 5 days but I also know I'll have some time to work on other projects so I made active some of my longer term projects that need additional planning figuring I can use the time away to push them forward.

A big part was looking forward in the calendar. We've got our USDA sheep AI experiment with lots of date/time critical actions that absolutely have to be completed within an hour at most. So I made sure I had gone over all the experiment protocols and blocked those times in my calendar along with an extra half hour or hour to get the sheep ready before each procedure. I'd rather be standing around waiting for it to be time to do something than trying to rush sheep to get them in position because I am late. Some of the timings are going to require we be up at midnight to get certain procedures done within the 1am to 2am timeframe required by the experiment. That actually spawned a new project, Make sure I wake up when my phone sounds its alarm as we no longer have an alarm clock. I'll test that while I am gone.

I also started both my Thanksgiving and Christmas lists, a bit early for the Christmas one but again the research stuff means that I will be pressed for time if I don't get some things done sooner.

One of the projects I plan to do more planning on is a general health one. I have been really lax in most health related projects and I need to look at what I have to modify in my schedule to make keeping healthy a priority. We eat really well, good food, home cooked nearly always or the times we go out to eat are at local restaurants with local farm to table fare that is very high quality, seasonal, mostly organic, ingredients. Unfortunately exercise is not happening. I am also missing a lot of my mental time off due to schoolwork, LambTracker development and general farm work. So while I am away I am going to try to rebalance my life and projects so that I get to do some mental well being stuff at least once a week and some exercise at least 2 times a week.

I am also using the block time in the calendar for doing right now as there are lots of potential meetings and events that can suck up time if I don't save it for what I determeine to be important and critical.

 

[MikeP]

WR #1

This Weekly Review happened over the weekend. Email and calendar was Saturday AM and lists were Sunday PM. NOT the way I like to operate (splitting it up, doing it entirely on the weekend, and not really getting into the creative part) but given the current state of my professional life that's the way it is. I have to keep this quote from David in mind: "Any reviewing is better than none at all. Don't let yourself keep from getting back in the game because you don't feel like you're doing it 100%." I also have to remember that the professional chaos I am currently enduring will die down and that I am lucky to have a trusted system to absorb and filter it.

One more quote applicable to my current circumstances that I ran across over the weekend: "I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done." (Buddha) This reminds me that I should not beat myself up for not doing a WR or something else and instead be thankful that I have the intellect, skills, tools, and opportunities to accomplish everything I have so far accomplished in life!

I have two tips for this month's calendar focus:

1. At least once a month during my WR I print out calendars for the current month and the next three. Then I review them, highlight important items, and make sure I have projects and time on my calendar to accomplish them.
2. Block off time for yourself! Once I finish this post, the rest of my lunch and the following 30 minutes will be spent updating and reflecting on my Areas of Focus mind map. If I hadn't thought ahead and blocked off some time either (a) someone would have scheduled a meeting for me or (b) I would have done some of the lower priority work that has shown up.

Mike

 

[DenaDahilig]

#1 Kicked my butt right at the beginning of the month, but it's DONE!

My tickler had fallen out of use... not any more.
I wasn't processing hand-written notes as quickly as the "easy" stuff... those are now all done.
Dates were missing off of my calendar and there were a couple of recent near-misses... NOT going to happen again!

So... good review. Except for the butt-kicking part. Yeah. That's never pleasant.

Dena

 

[FrDavid]

WR #1 (Nov 2014)

Good--thorough review.

I have been more intentional about protecting "doing" time. That has been helpful.

I have been more intentional about naming projects with the goal in mind. An outcome approach has really helped me tighten up my project list.

What's worked well during busy times? A mindsweep and mini review each morning.

 

[SiobhanBR]

WR #1

I did do this last Friday but wasn't able to post. It was a great review but a combination of things means I have so much on my plate right now and I will not be in the office at all next week due to a week-long "locked in an office to work on a specific project" mandated meeting (can you even call that a meeting?). So last Friday I created a mini-NA list (I wrote in on paper in my Field Notes book) of all the things I wanted to get done this week, before being gone for a week. This is a short week (yesterday we did not work for Remembrance Day) but I'm hoping to power through at least most of these items. It's still a very long list...

• Do you have enough "doing" time to get to the things that really matter for you between now and the end of the year?
  • Never. But I do look at free time for the upcoming weeks and will block time for doing if I see things getting crowded. One tip - when a meeting is cancelled I will often leave the time blocked on my calendar. This has two purposes - gives me some doing time and there is a record of the original meeting and that it was cancelled.
• If you have a role to play in any upcoming holidays, is that under control?
  • Under control? Not really. But I love, love, love the holidays and don't generally get stressed over it. I've already bought too many things for my son (whose birthday is New Year's Eve so it's way too easy to rationalize buying extra) and I've scheduled chocolate-making day. We have started pulling decorations out of the garage and storing them on the porch, because I hate doing that when it is ridiculously cold, which it soon will be.
• What has worked well for you during busy/crunch times of the year that you can share with the Connect group?
• How do you keep yourself balanced and healthy when you are crazy busy?
  • I have a lot of stress-busters and can usually remain fairly well balanced. But I've been up against it this fall with being sick and under-staffed and with my son just starting school. Eating well and exercising are critical - I've really missed exercising while I was sick, but the third part of this is to get enough sleep and I've been focusing on that for the last two months. I get massages at a nice spa where I can relax before and after and it's covered by benefits (have one tonight!). I have hobbies that commit me to participate (I play in an orchestra so although I certainly don't practice as much as I'd like, I do go to all the rehearsals and concerts; I am going to finish my 10th novel with NaNoWriMo by the end of November).
  • Seems odd, but by taking care of me and taking the time to do the things I love, I am able to be more productive when I do work and am better able to prioritize what to work on.

 

[DenaDahilig]

#2 with Giant Overhaul of Projects

I had this sneaking suspicion that one of my areas of focus was overtaking my life... So, I set up a giant magnetic white board and got to work:

• Bought 8" strips of lined, colored paper and tiny round magnets from a school supply store
• Labeled strips with the project name and cut to size... 1" = 1 hour of time needed to complete
• Green = Career Projects
• Blue = Personal Projects
• Pink = Volunteer Projects
• Orange = Systems (archiving, filing, learning tools, etc.)
• Yellow = Long Term Projects

And, sure enough, there was more pink on the board than green and blue combined. That's NOT a healthy balance.

One of my pink strips is "Projects Delegated" with a little note listing the 4 large projects I should delegate. This is where the universe kicked in...

This morning I got an email from a member of my volunteer organization asking if she could chair one of the bigger of these projects. And I hadn't even ASKED anyone yet! I'd barely even had my coffee! So... Yes! Oh YES!!! (And then I did the Happy Dance.)

Perspective in review is a great clarifier of priorities... and a HUGE call to action, don't you think?

Dena

 

[Hrlakat]

November WR #1

Howdy everyone from sunny offshore Africa! Today I had a block of uninterrupted time to do a WR - my last one was in early October after I got to the job site (I'm an operations engineer starting up a new offshore facility). I'm glad I took the time, as I actually got a few things done while I've been here, and I was able to "prime the pump" of things to do ahead of returning home this coming week.

It's been an interesting seven weeks - especially in light of this month's questions:

? Do you have enough "doing" time to get to the things that really matter for you between now and the end of the year? Probably not - during the WR I "triaged" my personal projects list so I can hit the ground running when I get back. I am taking two solid weeks off, so that is how I plan to manage the "doing". First order of business is cleaning up the personal emails - I did a lot of housekeeping before I left, so it has not gotten too out of control.

For work - well my "new" work GTD system (outlook/onenote - personal is Omni / ipad) is a bit of a mess. I set it up before I left, and really wasn't able to get the review time / one hour of email time each day out here. Email was triaged for the past six weeks - I have 1300 unread emails to go through so that's a bummer but at least I'll have a loooong flight.

? If you have a role to play in any upcoming holidays, is that under control? Yes, as that was negotiated before I left. All I have to do for Thanksgiving is grill steaks - we do a surf and turf vs. a turkey. Expecting it to be a very relaxing day. Started ordering gifts online, and I did make the list before I left so all I have to do is execute.

? What has worked well for you during busy/crunch times of the year that you can share with the Connect group? For me, going into crunch times with as clean a slate as possible helps curb the chaos. I take it as a given that email will get out of control, so I don't worry too much about the sheer numbers unread etc, I triage my inbox and do try to delete as much as I can in the moment etc. to keep it somewhat under control. I delegate/offload/defer as much as I can, to free myself up to focus on what needs to get done to get out of the busy/crunch.

? How do you keep yourself balanced and healthy when you are crazy busy? Maintain my sleep patterns. If I don't get adequate sleep for two or three nights, my brain will start to shut itself off and then I know it's time to sleep before I come down with something. I also keep up with my vitamins and stretch as much as I can (I get enough exercise in the field).

Enjoy the week!

Heather

 

[mwinn]

WR #1 for November

Wanted to post I got it done! Work is crazy & I travel for Thanksgiving Friday.

Good review, and glad to have the decks clear! Hope to be able to post more consistently & in more depth going forward.

 

[CJSullivan]

WR #2 - good garden-variety review this week and I found after a day or two that there came to the surface a 40,000 ft (sorry, "Level Four"!) issue, if not a Level 5 issue -- freed up, no doubt, by the clarity on the lower levels... So the holidays for me are going to be a good chance to dig in through journaling and visualising and the like...I'm excited by the prospect of perhaps taking things in a slightly different direction, both with the business my husband & I share and also with our music (we're currently working on our 2nd CD). It's time to shift things around a little bit, and I'm in that space before a change manifests where I have no idea what's going to happen! The Land of Possibility: an exciting and a slightly daunting place at times!

 

[ollie_r]

WR #2

Finished my weekly review last Friday. We got to check of multiple projects off as "complete". My Projects List swelled up to over 80 during summer and it has come back down to around 30 now. Many of the remaining personal items are about concrete home improvement projects and Christmas prep.

I want to do another mind sweep today because my list doesn't feel complete yet.

• What has worked well for you during busy/crunch times of the year that you can share with the Connect group?

During crunch-time I tend to swing back and forth between focus and cleaning up. I focus on important projects for a few days in a row, and then I do a day or two of cleaning up loose ends, doing paperwork, working off of my context lists, catching up on read/review, etc.

• How do you keep yourself balanced and healthy when you are crazy busy?

My spouse and I are working together in a home office and we made it a point to notice when the other is spending too much time without break on the computer. We bring each other fresh water (and coffee ) or pull each other away from the computer for a break outdoors.

I wonder if this would be a workable solution in a traditional office environment, where two people partner up to watch each others balance and well-being.

I think the important part is noticing when there is too much of one thing, and then making sure to counter-balance against it, when the time is right. Having another person accountable for that helps with the noticing part, because we tend to downplay how worn out we are.

 

[MikeP]

WR #2

This Weekly Review started at home on Sunday. After I caught up email processing I reviewed sent / received email and past / future calendar. I wanted to complete it in the same day but family and personal projects took precedence so I did the list review this morning at the dealership while my car was inspected and serviced. Sadly the dealer was pretty quick so I didn't get to the creative part of my WR checklist again.

Working remotely reminded me of how empowering this can be, especially for me. I am a very quiet, focused person and have trouble with interruptions. It was very pleasant and productive to do part of my WR off site in a quiet location. I'm going to start a list of places to do my WR that are more conducive to my completing it. I'm thinking of the local library and the less popular conference room out in our warehouse for starters. I don't think a restaurant would work for me and my car dealer is a little too far away for this exercise.

I really miss the "get creative" part of my WR and think I could do more on this section at a "secret and secure" location (so long as it has a good Internet connection) even though there are things I would miss by not doing it in my office. (Heck, I have done my last 2 or 3 WR at home so I'm not getting them done in the office anyway, I just need a way to reduce / eliminate interruptions and distractions)

Mike

 

[Oogiem]

So, I set up a giant magnetic white board and got to work:

• Bought 8" strips of lined, colored paper and tiny round magnets from a school supply store
• Labeled strips with the project name and cut to size... 1" = 1 hour of time needed to complete
• Green = Career Projects
• Blue = Personal Projects
• Pink = Volunteer Projects
• Orange = Systems (archiving, filing, learning tools, etc.)
• Yellow = Long Term Projects

I LOVE the idea of seeing your time commitments in projects with colors. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and also re-energized at the same time after a wonderful Livestock Conservancy conference and need to get a handle on how the stuff i learned might change how we manage the sheep flock and also what I need to do to get things more under control. Good friends just had their house burglarized and lost a lot of stuff. And they aren't evne sure what all is gone because they did not have a really good inventory. So that long term lower priority project moved way up on our list now that sheep things are a bit more relazed for at least the next 2 weeks.

 

[Jenn]

WR # 2 for November (# 39 of 2014)

My weekly review slipped from Friday to Monday this week as I prioritized some "me" time over the weekend. I knew I had a few things to complete on the weekend and these were a priority so I got them done and scheduled the review for Monday instead.

It actually worked quite well on a Monday AM - odd as they are usually very busy. Perhaps the calm before the storm.

Now I have a clear plan for the week and have done my calendar review through January to make sure I'm ready for year end!

Jenn