Do you ever find yourself avoiding your weekly review because it takes too long? You’re busy, tired, or have too many other things to finish?
Me too.
Which is why I keep a simplified weekly review list to use when I’m pressed for time or otherwise not up to doing a full review.
I quickly review 4 things:
- Calendar
- Projects and Tasks
- Notes
Here’s what I look at:
- Calendar:
- Review upcoming week to 10 days (appointments, events, scheduled tasks) and note anything I need to re-schedule or prepare.
- Email:
- Respond to short, important messages; flag longer messages and actionable items, or add them to my task app
- Add reference material, content ideas, to my notes app
- Delete (almost) everything else
- Projects and Tasks:
- Review current/most important projects (not all projects)
- Make sure each project has Next Action(s) and add these to my task app.
- Review upcoming tasks: Delete? Defer? Delegate? Change priority? Add additional tasks?
- Notes
- Improve title, clarify key points
- Add tags and/or links
- Add links to relevant notes to upcoming tasks
- File or re-file (in Area of Focus, Project, or Resources)
I give myself 15 minutes and that’s often enough to keep things organized. If I run out of time, I’ll postpone reviewing my notes so I can focus on action items.
How about you?
