Weekly Review Support Group - WR Avoiders Anonymous

  • Thread starter Thread starter taxgeek
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I did it!

I'd been off the WR wagon at work for something like a month. Finally, Monday, I just sat down and Did It. Found one past due NA of the "oh, shit" variety -- done now. Dropped an amazing pile of stuff out of my head. Felt much better.

While not part of my work WR, I also succeeded in beating my personal email inbox (aka my nemesis) down to just eight messages. Now to get the home WR going as smoothly. The high distraction quotient at home makes getting through it a real problem. Of course, another part is simply that I haven't been doing it, so I have 8 phone messages (probably all telemarketers, except for the one that isn't and that I'll regret not having listened to for two weeks), six inches of mail + other paperwork in the inbox, and of course there's the ever-fluctuating personal email inbox, aforementioned. Anyone have tips for the WR done at home?
 
Completed my weekly review, and it took about an hour and a half. Got a bunch of NA's out of my head and in my system. David says the review will become second nature, and today is the first time I felt like it was. My mind was reviewing project status right after lunch before I even brought up the document to launch into the review.
 
just gotta share...

The home inbox and answering machine are EMPTY!. Boy, that feels good, and I haven't even finished the review yet.
 
Hi, I'm Joe, and I'm a weekly review avoider.

[Hi Joe!]

Hi everybody. Well, I just did mine also last Friday. Amazing to get all those lists down and reorganized. I was on top of getting my inbox to zero almost everyday, which helped tremendously.

What helped even more is getting my email inbox to zero EVERY DAY, usually several times a day. I save important emails as MS word files to relevant electronic folders, in the relevant areas as needed. Having a subdivided file system on my computer is at least as important as having one for paper. While the paper one is flat and A to Z, the electronic one is very hierarchical, based on what it is or pertains to (Correspondence, presentations, grants, publishing papers, experiments, schedules, boss, etc). It is reliable, so I trust it, and since I trust it, I can use it to save things because I know where I'll be able to find it again!

Then being so compulsive about my email led me to be compulsive about my lists, both project and context lists. So getting through the review was easier.

Now I DIDN'T do the higher elevation stuff yet. But as it comes together and gets easier, I will.

Thanks for listening. I'll pass.

[Thanks, Joe!]
 
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I fell off the wagon! Two weeks in a row, I've MISSED the review completely!!! (where's a crying smiley when you need one?) But I have soooo much to do, and my boss is cracking down on my billable hours. :roll: So maybe I'll do an ultra mini review, like 5 minutes. Or something. Grrr . . . <puts thinking cap on>
 
Taxgeek,

I feel your pain. I'm in the same bind right now, and I'm about to do a mini review this morning. I've found the best mini-review goes like this:
-Make sure everything (inbox, email, voicemail) is processed.
-Go over my calendar just for the previous week and the next week (as opposed to the previous 2-3 weeks and the next month)
-Review my action lists and waiting-for list, crossing off completed ones, reviewing those that are on there to be sure they're true NAs
-Review my project lists briefly just to be sure there's not a project without an NA
-Briefly glance through my Someday/Maybe list to see if any of those projects or actions need to be immediately bumped to a current list

Basically, I skip the weekly mind-sweep, pare down the calendar review, and pare down the project list and SD/M list review. I can usually get through it in about 30-45 minutes, and it lets me be more productive for the rest of the week until I can do a full WR. And losing 30 min out of a billable day isn't bad, especially if the rest of my day becomes more billable because I'm not staring at a couple of stacks of paper wondering what to do next.

Good luck.
 
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