How to build your weekly review?

Time is so precious. There are so few hours in a day and so many distractions. Today, more than ever, it’s a huge challenge to cope with everything we have to do, not to mention what we would love to do.

I believe that managing our time intentionally is a crucial component of success, and the good news is that it’s a learnable skill.

I’m passionate about productivity. I’ve been working on my system for more than 20 years. I’ve tested many tools and concepts, and only a few have resisted time.

I could summarize my productivity system in one sentence, four habits and five tools. The weekly review is one of my four habits.

I discovered it 19 years ago with “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. Since then, I do it regularly, and it helps me live more intentionally, get clearer, and achieve many projects that were close to my heart.

How to build your weekly review?

Why do I do it?

I always love to ask myself why I do it? This question leads me to innovate, eliminate, and keep going with what works. The weekly review enters into the last category and brings me three main advantages:

To avoid getting out of control.
There are no systems that work without maintenance. Stop reviewing, stop servicing, stop cleaning, and quit everything becomes a mess. I owe most of my achievements to consistency. Consistency has a double effect: It supports the routine, and in the long term, it builds the magic of compound results.

To live more intentionally.
All distractions, inputs are pushing us to live reactively. Requests, entertainment, and social media, all come more and more quickly to us. They have the potential to fulfill all our time, but we all want to achieve our dreams.
The weekly review ensures a time where I can analyze the last week and reprioritize the next one. Am I climbing the right wall?

I also use it as a creative time. I collect inspirations, quotes, and sentences. As I empty my Evernote inbox, I review them and select the one I want to dig into.

Discover my Resource guide: The 11 books that have influenced my career the most. (Including my favorite of all categories)

To gain clarity.
Clarity leads to execution. The clearer my big picture is, the easier it is to execute.
Often we hear from writers that It’s not good to write and edit simultaneously. So, it’s a bit the same, I think once of what I need to do, and then I have a week to make it.

I gain clarity by bringing all my inbox to zero. Regardless of how busy is my next week, I feel better.

How I do it?

My weekly review is planned on Friday afternoon, where I review professional and personal information. This is a good time to close the week and anticipate the next two ones. Here is my process.

Review my life plan/my yearly target
I open my Evernote file, read my yearly targets, and update what I’ve done last week on them. Sometimes I progress, sometimes I regress. But I confront myself with reality and try to improve the next week.

Review my calendars
In my Bullet Journal, I start to review my three to five main goals for the week. Have I progressed as planned? Then I check my Outlook calendar for the last week and the next two weeks to come. I capture in my Bullet Journal the main actions to plan for the next two weeks.
It encourages me to anticipate mentally and to make space, if needed, on my schedule.

Review my Bullet Journal
I take all my notes when I’m in a meeting on a physical notebook.
It allows me to remain focused, avoid the distractions of a computer, and retain the information better.
Every day in the morning during my daily review, I capture the important points from my journal. So I close the week also by cleaning this inbox.

Review my saved message in Microsoft Teams
The new tools of collaboration are incredibly useful. They help to collaborate faster. At the same time, they are even worse than emails. Immediacy is built as their core function.
To take the most of Teams (collaboration) but keep control of my time, I cancel all the notifications from the tool and consult it only when I’m available.
If an answer requires deep thought, I save and treat it during a dedicated time or, at the latest, at the end of the week during my weekly review.

Review my emails
I have a zero-inbox mail personal policy. Every day, my inbox is clean, but it does not mean that I have treated all the messages and especially the complex one. I have three folders only.

1. Arrival: All my emails are coming there. I review them two times a day. If less than 2 minutes, I answer; if complex, I save in my Review folder.
2.  Review folder: The file I review mainly during my weekly review. Is there something urgent still to be treated? I execute or plan for the next weeks.
3.  Yearly folder archive: Everything which is treated goes there.

Drafts
An app that allows me to capture and take notes very quickly on my iPhone.
Capturing without a following is a waste of time, so I treat this inbox. I send to Evernote and tag what I want to keep and retrieve.

Evernote
My digital memory. I have around 10,000 notes. Everything goes there.
And here, I also have an arrival file and a cabinet file.
During the weekly review, my job is to review the arrival file, tag the notes, and move them into the cabinet file.
This process ensures that I can retrieve quit every data in less than 60 seconds despite the number of notes available.

Incoming physical mail
I have three physical files: Incoming, ongoing and to classify.
I review and treat all of them and scan the ones I need to keep to Evernote.
I throw away the paper.

Nozbe
It’s my personal task manager. If an idea becomes a project, it moves from Evernote, Drafts, or my Bullet Journal to Nozbe to be executed. It works on the GTD model (Getting Things Done).
I start my weekly review in Nozbe with a template where I follow the process described above. It keeps me focused and guarantees that I handle all aspects.
In the end, I clean my Nozbe inbox and move tasks to projects with a timeline.

Hurrah, I’m done!

The weekly routine encompasses the sign of a valuable activity.
Like before a workout or a run, it’s often hard to start, but you always feel better after.
This is the feeling I get after the weekly review.

Ready to attack your next week?