The Weekly Review is an absolutely essential step to continuing on the path to getting things done. I was pretty consistent in doing it at the beginning of my drive to implement GTD. Then I had a falling off as they say. I began again and felt really good and in control of my time and projects.

Recently I had a lot of work to do and projects to complete. While I like routine and try to faithfully do the weekly review, I barely did one for the last 2 weeks. Why? Because I was busy getting things done. I had 2 projects that were pressing and needed to be finished so I think I did a mini mental weekly review.

I just made sure that I could really clear everything off my plate this past week so I could devote my entire week to finishing my projects. Isn’t that what the weekly review is for? At first I thought, no don’t skip the weekly review, it’s a bad habit to get into. But then I thought, well if I were skipping it to make room for skiing or Facebook, then yes, it is a bad habit, but it was for real live work.

Lesson learned: Be flexible. If you do GTD to get things done, then don’t stop yourself from getting things done just to strictly adhere to a regimen.

The Weekly Review, do you fear it? Do you do your Weekly Review? What do others do for their Weekly Review? Here are 5 more links to help you do your Weekly Review:

1. http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/the-five-ws-of-a-weekly-gtd-review/
2. another one
3. another one
4. another one
5. another one

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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