Weekly Reviews, Processing <2 minute items.

The point is that you should do the review and finish it. There will probably be interruptions of all sorts (phone ringing etc), but as long as you can get back on track and finish the review you're fine. If there is the odd
 
I prefer to stay in "Review" mode and don't switch to "Doing" mode. That allows me to go faster through all my projects and be more concentrated on the outcomes.
 
I don't follow the two-minute rule at all; I've always found it too distracting and I often wonder if it's based on the time that it takes to process an item on paper, rather than electronically. Entering an item into my system takes perhaps ten seconds, an investment that doesn't seem all that bad even if the item would just take two minutes to complete.
 
I've found it really helps to clear all processing the day BEFORE the review, so separate the processing (and therefore odd bits of doing too) off from the the review process.
 
2 min rule

The 2 minute rule is one of my favourite things about GTD. And I have learned that it suits me better (like Victoria) to process my in tray the day before my weekly review.

I ONLY review during weekly review - I don't do any action (although when I first started doing reviews I was doing action all over the place and then moaning about not completing the reviews in a timely manner!). If I find something that I know needs to be actioned immediately, I write it on a notepad in front of me and action it as soon as I finish the weekly review (this is one of the tips I got from Meg's guided weekly review webinar recently).
 
I'm with you!

Getting in to empty the day before the review is probably the single most important tip I heard that made it easy for me to LOVE my WR and really make it a habit.

Something else I've been doing lately is daily mind sweeps. I have lots to think about lately, fell off the wagon a little bit, and the daily mind sweeps have really helped me.

I love what I've learned from Connect...the coaches and the forums.
 
The last item on my weekly review checklist is &quot;Do 2 minute items from review&quot;

As I'm going through my weekly review, I often come up with 2 minute actions which I immediately add to my next actions list (electronic).

After I've finished my main project review, I print out my next actions lists with the 2-minute actions at the bottom (paper for quicker updates during the week).

I don't get to mark my weekly review as "done" until all of those 2 minute actions have been completed.

One benefit of this system is that not only do I feel good about finishing my weekly review, I've also make progress on a couple of projects!
 
Steven Edwards;111402 said:
For those who process In the day before the WR, how many items do you usually have?
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To me, this seems like a strange question, because to me the two are entirely independent. I process all my inboxes etc at least once per day, usually multiple times unless I am extremely busy. And my weekly review really has nothing much to do with this at all. I always do the daily processing first, though, just like any other day.

I interpreted the original question as pertaining to new ideas (for tasks, projects, goals etc) that come up as a direct result of the weekly review itself. As I said earlier, I usually prefer to just make notes of those and deal with them after the weekly review, just as if they were new input.
 
I, um, ahem, haven't really been doing weekly reviews as such, but I'm going to comment anyway.

Maybe at a time like weekly review, if you don't want to follow a 2-minute rule, you might still want to follow a 30-second rule, or at least a 10-second rule. If it's going to take 10 seconds to write it down anyway, why not just do it? Or you might not. Writing it down might feel like continuing the review, and getting up to put it into a system on the other side of your office or something might feel like changing contexts.

During processing I might do something more like a 5-minute rule, if I don't feel rushed.
 
Folke;111403 said:
To me, this seems like a strange question, because to me the two are entirely independent. . . . I interpreted the original question as pertaining to new ideas (for tasks, projects, goals etc) that come up as a direct result of the weekly review itself.
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The two are indeed independent. Since two people said they process the day before their WR, I was just curious how big their Inboxes usually are. (I process periodically throughout the week, so the two hours I block out on Sunday mornings is usually enough for me to finish.)
 
Steven Edwards;111407 said:
Since two people said they process the day before their WR, I was just curious how big their Inboxes usually are.
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I have a few inboxes that are such low priority, I only process them a couple of times a week. Nothing urgent ever comes into them, so I have no attention on them. But even with my normal daily inboxes, I try not to process them at the same time as the review as the mindset is different.
 
processing before WR

Hi Stephen
I work away from my home office 4 days a week so I can have up to 100 emails in my inbox at home that I need to process properly before the WR. On the day of the WR I might only have a few but I still don't look at them once I've started the review process.

I would prefer to get my in box to zero every day (like I used to) but most nights I don't feel like doing email processing and I have at least read everything on the iPad.

Hope this helps :)
Cass

Steven Edwards;111407 said:
The two are indeed independent. Since two people said they process the day before their WR, I was just curious how big their Inboxes usually are. (I process periodically throughout the week, so the two hours I block out on Sunday mornings is usually enough for me to finish.)
Click to expand...
 
Steven Edwards;111407 said:
Since two people said they process the day before their WR, I was just curious how big their Inboxes usually are
Click to expand...

It varies a lot, my e-mail inbox generally is getting between 50-100 items a day. I try to process it daily but often can't get it much below about 40 before I have to go do something else. My paper inbox is bursty, I can get a pile of stuff in it that can take me a long time to process and I can go days with nothing new added. When I get a big bunch of stuff it can take me an hour or 2 to process it all. I can get inputs via phone that can take me only a minute or 2 to process. I also have inboxes and action support that contain stuff that is much larger than paper, for example a ram crayon and harness, or a sponge insertion tool, or a box of ear tags and applicator. I just got a new computer, it wouldn't fit into my inbox but it was clearly an item that needed to be processed into a project of "New computer up and running with all my standard software". I've never counted how many items I process each day from my inboxes, it's just too variable.
 
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