Weekly Review Rituals

C

ckennedy

0
I'm wondering what rituals people have developed to help "ease the pain" and ingrain the habit of the Weekly Review.

I usually sit down in a coffee shop on Sunday mornings with a latte, classical music on my Ipod and work through my review start to finish-A Ritual I've enjoyed and looked forward to each week.

I'm finding Sunday mornings harder to manage with child-rearing duties, so I'm playing with moving it to another day of the week.

In short, I'd love to hear about:

What day/time do you do your WR?
Do ou have a special setting that works best for you?
What other rituals have you develped that help?

Cheers
Craig
 
The most effective time for my review is usually late Friday afternoon. Any project-related work that isn't done by then isn't going to get done before the weekend anyway, so it's a good time to empty my inbox, straighten my desk, and otherwise get things in order. At the same time, people are still around, which makes it much easier to bang through two-minute items like phone calls.

If Friday doesn't work, I usually try to take care of it on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. If that doesn't work, the chaos that greets me Monday morning is a good motivator to both (a) do the review right away and (b) make sure to do it on Friday next time.

Katherine
 
Weekly Review Rituals - different for clergy

I am a minister of a Protestant church. Friday is a key day to get sermon written, etc. so I struggle with best time to do weekly review. Sundays is day with family and by evening I am tired. Monday is day off, usually, so it doesn't feel right to do weekly (work) review, but often do weekly Personal/Home review. I look forward to seeing what others find helpful in their lines of work!
Jim H.
 
I do my weekly review on Friday mornings, 11.00 a.m.
My rituals/routines are: first thing on Friday I do my grocery shopping (I can pretty much make my own schedule as I'm self-employed).
Get back around 9.30 a.m. put shopping away, then have a self-indulgent and unhealthy breakfast involving more caffeine and sugar than the rest of the week put together!
Then I water my plants, then go to my desk, put on something cool to listen to, like Charles Mingus or Chet Baker, and start the review, which usually takes about 1.5 hours.
This schedule means that if there's something important I've forgotten, I can still get it done, and if not, I can truly begin to relax and wind down for the weekend by spending the afternoon on stuff from my Action list that I find enjoyable. Often I'll spend that afternoon progressing a particular project.
The only disadvantage to using a Friday is if I'm going away for a long weekend, then I just skip a week, and nothing bad seems to happen! So far...
 
For me, it's no pain, but I have a tickler reminder to review my Someday/Maybes, Projects, and Next Actions every Saturday. I usually do this in the afternoon, after a big lunch.

Why do you need such comfort to perform your weekly review? I ask honestly; the concept is totally alien to me.
 
I'm also a pastor and reserve Fridays for sermon prep, or study if I'm not preaching on a given week. I usually do my WR on Wed. afternoon or Thurs. morning. Each time, when I get to reviewing upcoming calendar data, I make my appointment for the following week's review. I usually end up doing it in my office. That can be quite pleasant, but I often end up wrestling with interruptions. I've tried doing it at a coffee shop, but I usually end up with wanting to check my info with something back at the office, so it's not always as effective as I'd like.

Frankly, my biggest problem is letting myself get distracted by doing things that aren't part of the review, doing tasks which are late, or take longer than 2 minutes. I'll often go 2 hrs, & not get to reviewing my projects & someday/maybes. So getting it efficient is my challenge.
- Eric
 
I see the weekly review as a time to only shuffle content among my Someday/Maybe, Projects, and Next Actions lists. I don't let myself work on any NA tasks during this time.
 
Eric said:
Frankly, my biggest problem is letting myself get distracted by doing things that aren't part of the review, doing tasks which are late, or take longer than 2 minutes. I'll often go 2 hrs, & not get to reviewing my projects & someday/maybes. So getting it efficient is my challenge.
- Eric
Click to expand...

Did you ever heard of a tehnique called 'time boxing'? Try it, I do suggest, to get a better grip on this one. Regarding interruptions in your office: I think it's vital for any CEO to manage it so that you have your time of undisturbed productivity.

On the original topic...

I do it excactly the same way as Tess Marshall. I am also self-employed. Minor difference in concept & execution: I do the shopping on Thursday evening as part of my weekly improvement, whcih basically means I clean the house.
 
More information on time boxing?

Hi there,

I would love to hear more about the concept of time boxing. Would you be so kind as to provide a link or summarize this for me, please?

Thanks,
David
 
an hour and a half?

I do my review on Friday afternoons as well. It usually only takes me half an hour. I process what little paper there is to process as I keep on top of that each afternoon before I close the office. I review my calendar for the past two weeks and the next two weeks to jog my memory as to any follow up or preparation actions I need to include. I then review both my Action lists and completed actions for same. I then review each and every project that I am currently working on so that I can be assured that there is a next step included on my action list. Finally I review my someday and waiting for to see if something needs to be addressed in the upcoming week.

Finally I do a mind dump, but I must admit that since consistently doing a weekly review for some time, there is very little left in the mind to dump.
 
Student's weekly review

As an older full-time student gearing up for a master's program, I have a more flexible schedule than most, but that means I have to be really disciplined to make sure the weekly review gets done -- even during finals week.

Basically, I start my review about 6:00 am Thursday morning with a cup of tea and jazz or classical music. I do my daily review first to clear out the inbox, then start my weekly review. In general, it takes about two hours.

One trick that really helps me is keeping a list of how many consecutive weekly reviews I have done. I file that list in my Thursday tickler folder (marked with a post-it flag so I can always find it easily among all those numbers), and I get to add another one to the total each week. Since I started doing this, I have done 16 straight weekly reviews. For some reason, getting to add that next number to the list really motivates me. Probably some deep psychological explanation for this, but I don't want to know what it is...

One other thing I noticed is that the more you do them, the easier they are. I find I have no trouble being up and ready to go at 6:00 am every Thursday - I actually look forward to my weekly reviews much more than I did when I first started doing them.

Practice makes perfect, I guess ;)
 
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