GTD Weekly Review is Key to Your Success

The GTD Weekly Review is the time I look forward to in my week, a time to consider my commitments and achievements, reset my mind and plan for the week ahead! I want you to benefit from it too so I share my GTD Weekly Review checklist!

Your GTD Weekly Review in 3 steps

#1: Get Ready

Before you start, we need to put you in the right conditions to do this!

• Tell people you are not to be disturbed for 90min whether at your desk or at home!
• let’s face it: you will struggle to commit to the Weekly Review each week. Find the best time that suits your work & life, whether that’s Mondays or Fridays and schedule it in your diary as a recurrent meeting! I find that I need 90min but great if you can do it all under 1 hour! This isn’t the time to DO the work so you should be able to complete this checklist in 90min.
• The Weekly Review as a habit: This is not the time when you should be thinking about how to do the Weekly Review. Simply adopt this same process and checklist below to make it a habit, each week.

Let’s start the Weekly Review!

#2: Get Clear

1. Collect Loose papers & materials and any notes.
2. Get all your inboxes and @in-basket to zero: that includes voicemails, paper in-box, snail-mail, email, wallets, inbox at home, etc.
3. Empty your head with any thoughts, commitments, ideas and add them to your @in-basket.

#3: Get Current

1. Review @Actions list.
2. Review @Deferred (if you are using the Outlook GTD add-in).
3. Review last week’s calendar data.
4. Review upcoming calendar for the week.
5. Review @WaitingFor list.
6. Review Projects and Larger outcome lists.
7. Review any relevant checklists.
8. Purge completed tasks and synchronise (in particular if you are using a smartphone).
9. Review/Purge Project lists.
10. review Someday/Maybe lists.

Now, Get Going!

Your GTD system is up to speed again and before you go and do some work, take a moment to consider the following to ensure you are not only Efficient but Effective!:

• Step back and review how balanced your activities are to be Effective towards your Goals.
• Update your Effectiveness Weekly Journal to capture top3 Important/Not Urgent items and top3 Important/Urgent items for last week. This will be useful to help you monitor your Effectiveness.
• Choose no more than 3 strategic Important/Not Urgent items (tasks only, not projects) and ensure they are scheduled in the week ahead. I book blocks of time in my diary each week for Important/Not Urgent activities.

That’s it, you’ve completed your GTD Weekly Review! Now it’s time to reward yourself! Take a little walk, grab a coffee!

Do you have any other tips to share on how to make the most of your Weekly Reviews? Share them below!

Other Resources:

Learn more about GTD Weekly Reviews from DavidCo.com
GTD Weekly Review checklist to coach you
Another GTD Weekly Review Checklist template from D.Mark Jackson