Last updated Sep 20, 2022
A weekly review is an important habit for staying on track. Even if you capture everything in a good system, you won’t stay organized long without system maintenance. Things change fast. So, you’ll need to adjust your plans and priorities. If you wait too long to review (monthly or quarterly), you might miss important shifts. A weekly review hits the spot: often enough to stay on track, without an overwhelming amount of catch-up to do. Here’s how to do a weekly review with Teamup to stay present, creative, and focused on what matters.
“You will invariably take in more opportunities than your system can process on a daily basis. …That whirlwind of activities is precisely what makes the Weekly Review so valuable. It builds in some capturing, reevaluation, and reprocessing time to keep you in balance. There is simply no way to do this necessary regrouping while you’re trying to get everyday work done.” -David Allen
Do a Weekly Review with Teamup
Following the method explained by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, a Weekly Review has three steps: Get clear. Get current. And get creative.
Get clear
Gather all the open loops. Collect notes, messages, inputs, mail, bills–whatever needs to be added to your universal in-tray. Do a mind sweep to get any mental items out of your brain and into your system. Then get the in-tray to empty: process each item and put it where it belongs.
Get current
Review your system to clean out what is outdated or irrelevant and make necessary adjustments. Then, check your Next Actions list (or any To Do list) and mark off completed items. Add new reminders, information, or updates. Review your schedule in both directions–the last few weeks and the next few weeks. Toggle sub-calendars and use filters to see what’s current in each context; quickly move events as needed. Review the Waiting For list, if you have one. Check in on your goals and projects; update, check off, or add items to your schedule as needed.
Get creative
The Weekly Review is about “creating the space to catalyze and access new, creative, and valuable thinking and direction….The challenge is not to be creative–it’s to eliminate the barriers to the natural flow of our creative energies.” -David Allen
Review your Someday/Maybe list or parking lot for any items that might be ready to move forward. Give yourself time to explore the ideas that you’ve triggered during your review.
Make it a consistent habit
“…do whatever you need to, once a week, to trick yourself into backing away from the daily grind for a couple of hours–not to zone out, but to rise up at least to the horizon of all your projects and their statuses, and to catch up with everything else that relates to what’s pulling on your attention.” -David Allen
It will take some time to build the habit of doing a Weekly Review, but it’s worthwhile. You can create a weekly template to make it easier, and schedule your Weekly Review as a recurring event so it shows up when you need to do it. Get started with a free Teamup calendar today.
