The GTD weekly review, step by step
The weekly review is the hour that keeps a Getting Things Done system true. Skip it for a few weeks and your lists stop matching your life. Then you stop trusting them, and then you stop looking at them.
Most people who give up on GTD did not give up on capturing or on next actions. They gave up on the review, usually without noticing. Below is the review in the order that works, with what each step is for, so you can tell which ones are safe to rush and which are not.
Three parts: clear, current, creative
The review has three jobs, and they run in this order for a reason. First you get everything out of your head and into the system, so the rest of the review works on the full picture. Then you bring every list up to date. Only then, with nothing nagging at you, do you look ahead and think about what you want.
- Clear your head Write down everything on your mind that is not already in the system. A trigger list helps here: a list of prompts (bills, family, health, the car, people you owe a reply) that jogs the things you would not think of on your own.
- Empty the Inbox Decide what each item is: a next action, a project, something you are waiting on, something for later, reference, or rubbish. Empty means decided, not done.
- Review your next actions Tick off what you did. Delete what no longer matters. Reword anything vague enough that you would skip past it.
- Look back at last week Read last week's calendar. Meetings leave follow-ups behind, and this is where they get caught.
- Look at what is coming Read the next two or three weeks of your calendar. Anything that needs preparing gets a next action now, not the night before.
- Check Waiting For Anything overdue gets a nudge. Anything that arrived gets ticked off.
- Go through every project Each active project needs at least one next action. A project without one is not moving, however important it feels. Check the outcome is still the one you want.
- Look at your higher horizons Your areas of responsibility and your goals. Is an area going quiet? Is there a project that serves nothing you care about? More on horizons.
- Skim reference Look through your reference material and checklists. They often turn up an action you had not captured.
- Read Someday/Maybe Promote anything whose time has come, and delete what you have stopped wanting. A someday list nobody reads is a graveyard.
- Get creative With everything current, ideas come more easily. Capture any new projects or plans that come up.
- Final sweep Anything new that surfaced during the review goes to the Inbox, so you finish with nothing held in your head.
How long it takes
Plan for an hour. The first review takes longer, because it is catching up on everything that drifted while you were not reviewing. After that the time depends mostly on how many projects you have, since steps 7 and 8 are where the thinking happens.
If you only have twenty minutes, do steps 1, 2 and 7. Clearing your head and the Inbox protects what is coming in, and the projects step protects what is already moving. The rest can wait a week. All of it cannot.
Keeping it going
- Give it a fixed slot
- Put it in your calendar as a recurring appointment, at a time when you have some energy left. Friday afternoon works for many people because it closes the week; Sunday evening works for others because it opens the next one.
- Do the same steps in the same order
- A review you have to design each week is one you will put off. A checklist you follow is one you can do tired.
- Pausing is fine. Skipping is not.
- Half a review on Friday and the other half on Monday still keeps the system true. Skipping it three weeks in a row is how a system dies.
- Keep a daily review too
- Five minutes each morning on today's calendar and what you mean to get done makes the weekly review shorter, because less has drifted.
The weekly review in Relay
Relay runs these twelve steps as a guided review, in this order, one screen at a time. The trigger lists for clearing your head are built in, and you can edit them. Projects with no next action are grouped as stalled where you will see them, and a project that does not link up to an area or goal carries a note saying so.
You can pause part way and pick up where you left off. Relay keeps a note of how long each review took, and if you connect your calendar it can add a recurring one-hour Weekly Review block on the day and at the time you choose.
Run your next review in Relay
Relay takes you through every step above in order, so you do not need a checklist open beside it. Bring your system across from Nirvana or Todoist, or start with an empty Inbox.
30 days free, no card needed. Start in your browser or install the app.