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In the next few weeks I’ll be posting a lot more screencasts on this blog to demonstrate some features of Screenflow but also show my screencasting skills.

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Weekly reviews can be like lifting a load off your shoulders. They unfortunately can also be frustrating. One key I have learned is to be honest with yourself. I use Remember the Milk to manage my GTD aspirations. I can set a task in a list to repeat, but sometimes it doesn’t even belong in that list to begin with. For example, I have a few things I’d like to do on a regular basis but don’t think I can do if I don’t put them on a list.

When I have a spare moment I would like to research Greasemonkey scripts. I put it on a list that really relates to another project but is somewhat related to Greasemonkey scripts. At first I set it to repeat each week. I wanted a constant reminder so that sometimes I would make time to do it. More often than not I postponed or completed the task without doing it. Once a month or so I would actually do it. I decided to make it repeat monthly since I usually did it only once a month. It lost its urgency on a once a month list. It would come up in the queue and it was even easier to write off. Then I lost interest in staying on top of it. Once you skip tasks so easily it becomes easier to skip others, sometimes other tasks that are really important and really need to be done.

The solution:
I moved it to my someday maybe list. It didn’t belong on the list it was on. If I do my weekly review properly then I am reviewing my someday maybe list each week. I don’t need to put it on another list and then to set it to repeat. Just put it on the someday maybe list and think about it each week, do the research when you can, skip it when you can’t devote the time, but it will always be on the list, waiting for you to Get Things Done. Maximize your time by being more efficient.

I have been doing a pretty good job of doing my Weekly Review. I enjoy my Weekly Review. It gives me a sense of control. I know what is on the horizon and what trouble awaits me. It helps me organize my day and week. I have been able to keep it around 30 minutes.

Today my weekly review took almost an hour. It might be because it is the first big one of the year I have done. It also reminded me of how easy it is to have too many things going on at one time. How good is it to be organized for productivity if you can’t actually accomplish and DO those things?

Today I moved a bunch of things to my someday/maybe list. I made sure each task was completely documented but I put them on my someday/maybe list. This way I don’t have to do anything but occasionally glance over them to see if I have a moment now and again to do one or two of them. This also helped me to focus on the real tasks I needed to do.

This also allowed me to remove some things from the someday/maybe list that are really not that important and are so far off in the horizon that I don’t want to even give them my thoughts. When I simplify I produce. I must simplify and I must produce.

What do you do for your weekly review? *echoes*

The Weekly Review is not just about your work. To be really effective it should incorporate your work and social life. This Lifehacker post talks about just that. I often struggle with putting things like “add expenses to budget” in my GTD framework. I want to be reminded of them each week but I don’t have to do something each week for them. This article on Lifehack talks about the kind of not so work related things you could put on your Weekly Review. Should I put go to the gym on my calendar? I don’t find it motivates me more but do I consider it downtime and therefore a necessary balance to create in my GTD life? These are the types of considerations discussed in the articles. At what point does your calendar become unmanageable with so many little things clogging it up? Make your Weekly Review work for you and not against you. Try something different and add a few of these things to your Weekly Review.

I have been implementing GTD, Getting Things Done. Everyone does it a little differently but the general idea remains the same. After capturing everything in some form of a basket and getting it out of your head and into some organizational structure you must actually do the things on your lists. The Weekly Review is an essential step to this process.

Many people find the Weekly Review to be difficult to make room for. I like doing the Weekly Review. I don’t find it as hard to do as say, all the things on the lists I make. It makes me feel organized and aware of everything on the horizon. Once I feel that way, I feel in control and able to begin work. When I struggle to start working I usually find my Weekly Review hasn’t been done yet or that it was not done adequately. Each week I am going to search for articles about different ways to do a Weekly Review.

What works for one will not work for everyone. What works for me right now will not work for me always. I intend to build an arsenal of methods for doing a Weekly Review.

I like simplicity. This first post will reveal the simplest method I have found. If I have nothing extraordinary to do in a week, this methods works everytime so far. It also comes from one of my favorite sites, Lifehacker, simplify your life by becoming more efficient. See what you think.

http://lifehacker.com/software/getting-things-done/getting-into-the-weekly-review-habit-278118.php

I have become a fan of Getting Things Done and using productivity as a way to clear your mind out and reduce anxiety by collecting everything that is cluttering up our minds. I am currently using Gmail and Remember the Milk. I tried Mail.app and Mail tags but I think Gmail does it better. Maybe as I get busier I’ll find other ways that meet my needs better, but this solution is simple and free and it works.

My productivity tip

If you like the following sites, subscribe to them in an RSS reader. Try Google Reader to get started. It is free and works well. Instead of having to go to each site separately to see if there are new articles or updates, the reader goes to the sites for you and gets the newest updates. You just have to go to your readers homepage and you can read all these sites from there. It is much easier and certainly faster.

• Lifehacker is a great site about productivity but not related solely to work, it includes life as well, hence the name.
• Zen Habits is a cool site about living more simply. By doing this you wind up being more productive. It too covers much more than just work related productivity.
• 43folders is the grand daddy of GTD sites, yes it is even more useful than David Allen’s own GTD site. This is for the hardcore fans but for those softies among us, there are always tricks we can learn from and especially heads up on new software.
• Remember the Milk is a zippy little web based application, AJAX based, that is simple and straightforward to use, but offers incredible power and flexibility. You can integrate it with Gmail to streamline your “stuff” collecting efforts.
• Gmail really offers the best in a free solution. Search don’t Sort is the mantra. Why delete emails when you can archive them, tag them, and find them among thousands of others, at any time. You can use POP to download your copies locally if you are worried about “living in the clouds”.
• Of course it wouldn’t be a productivity list without David Allen in it. He is the original creator of the Getting Things Done system. It works wonders and truth be told can be flexible and modified to meet your needs.
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