Hi everybody,
I have been getting a lot of useful information from this forum and I am very grateful to all the people that write in it.
It is now time for me to make my contribution.
I have developed a "flexible" way of doing my weekly review that I would like to share with you.
The need for the above is that I didn't love doing my wekly review I used to find it stressful, to get tired after the first 30 min and to start being not very accurate after that period of time. The consequence was that I used to postpone it, doing it in a bad way or not do it at all.
First of all let me tell you that I use Outlook without any add-in. I use the "contact as project approach".
I have classified all my projects in business and professional and each of the 2 categories in A, B and C :
.Abusiness project (life or death)
.Bbusiness project
.Cbusiness project (someday maybe)
.Apersonal project (life or death)
.Bpersonal project
.Cpersonal project (someday maybe)
I visualize my projects in a "per category" screen and I have added to it a data custom coloumn that I have labelled as "WK number".
The meaning of the data in this colomn is "number of the week in which the last review happened"
I also visualize my tasks (next actions) in a "per category" screen that shows also the contact (project) the task refers to.
The optimal "1 session weekly review" that I have identified would be:
1. open one by one the .Abusiness project (life or death) and check/modify/create the next actions
2. open one by one the .Bbusiness project and check/modify/create the next actions
3. open one by one the .Cbusiness project (someday maybe) and check/modify/create the next actions
4. open one by one the .Apersonal project (life or death) and check/modify/create the next actions
5. open one by one the .Bpersonal project and check/modify/create the next actions
6. open one by one the .Cpersonal project (someday maybe) and check/modify/create the next actions
7. open the business tasks and check/modify/create the tasks/next actions that do not refer to any project
8. open the personal tasks and check/modify/create the tasks/next actions that do not refer to any project
The above would be the ideal process for strong and focused people (not like me !!!) and considering my volume of projects would probably take me about 1 hour and 1/2 if not longer than that (terribly stressful for me !!!).
What I do instead is doing my weekly review in 15 minutes or less sessions whenever I feel like doing it (multiple times during the week) each session starting from where I left (this is what the "WK number" is for) and following a slightly different process that pays me back with a good level of peace of mind already after step 2:
1. (Abusiness projects)
7. (business tasks not associated with a project)
2. (Bbusiness projects)
4. (Apersonal projects)
8. (personal tasks not associated with a project)
5. (Bpersonal projects)
3. (Cbusiness projects)
6. (Cpersonal projects)
I hope this will help people with my same difficulties.
Ciao
Luca
I have been getting a lot of useful information from this forum and I am very grateful to all the people that write in it.
It is now time for me to make my contribution.
I have developed a "flexible" way of doing my weekly review that I would like to share with you.
The need for the above is that I didn't love doing my wekly review I used to find it stressful, to get tired after the first 30 min and to start being not very accurate after that period of time. The consequence was that I used to postpone it, doing it in a bad way or not do it at all.
First of all let me tell you that I use Outlook without any add-in. I use the "contact as project approach".
I have classified all my projects in business and professional and each of the 2 categories in A, B and C :
.Abusiness project (life or death)
.Bbusiness project
.Cbusiness project (someday maybe)
.Apersonal project (life or death)
.Bpersonal project
.Cpersonal project (someday maybe)
I visualize my projects in a "per category" screen and I have added to it a data custom coloumn that I have labelled as "WK number".
The meaning of the data in this colomn is "number of the week in which the last review happened"
I also visualize my tasks (next actions) in a "per category" screen that shows also the contact (project) the task refers to.
The optimal "1 session weekly review" that I have identified would be:
1. open one by one the .Abusiness project (life or death) and check/modify/create the next actions
2. open one by one the .Bbusiness project and check/modify/create the next actions
3. open one by one the .Cbusiness project (someday maybe) and check/modify/create the next actions
4. open one by one the .Apersonal project (life or death) and check/modify/create the next actions
5. open one by one the .Bpersonal project and check/modify/create the next actions
6. open one by one the .Cpersonal project (someday maybe) and check/modify/create the next actions
7. open the business tasks and check/modify/create the tasks/next actions that do not refer to any project
8. open the personal tasks and check/modify/create the tasks/next actions that do not refer to any project
The above would be the ideal process for strong and focused people (not like me !!!) and considering my volume of projects would probably take me about 1 hour and 1/2 if not longer than that (terribly stressful for me !!!).
What I do instead is doing my weekly review in 15 minutes or less sessions whenever I feel like doing it (multiple times during the week) each session starting from where I left (this is what the "WK number" is for) and following a slightly different process that pays me back with a good level of peace of mind already after step 2:
1. (Abusiness projects)
7. (business tasks not associated with a project)
2. (Bbusiness projects)
4. (Apersonal projects)
8. (personal tasks not associated with a project)
5. (Bpersonal projects)
3. (Cbusiness projects)
6. (Cpersonal projects)
I hope this will help people with my same difficulties.
Ciao
Luca