Every Monday morning my wife and I take our dog for a walk to a local coffee shop where we'll sip lattes and cold brews while writing in our notebooks.

She likes to draw while I perform an important ritual: my weekly review and plan.

I call it a ritual with intention; the walk, the coffee, the company of my wife, and the stimulation of the cafe all add to the joy I experience during an otherwise mundane process that can be easy to skip when I'm busy or don't feel like taking the time to reflect on the week.

But this weekly ritual is the perfect opportunity to check in with myself and make sure that I'm working on the right things so I can set myself up for success in the coming week.

Otherwise, weeks fly by and it feels like I never get anything done or will never catch up. The weekly review and planning process make sure progress gets recognized and forward motion continues in the right direction.

The whole process takes somewhere between 20-40 minutes and I've always felt like it was time well spent.

The Weekly Review

The weekly review is performed in three steps.

First, I go through my planner–a bullet journal in my case–and tally up all the metrics that I'm tracking. The point is to simply check in to see if my metrics and trackables are where I want them to be so I can know if adjustments are needed in the coming week. Currently I'm tracking deep work hours which is a term from Cal Newport's book of the same title that describes uninterrupted hours of focused attention on tasks that are relevant to your goals. For me this is reading, writing, and making hours.

For you, this might include habits that you're keeping track of or other metrics relevant to your goals such as practice reps, training sessions, or money saved. If you're not currently tracking anything then that's fine, but it does make it easier to visual and comprehend progress when you have something measurable to monitor.

Next, I write down a few wins from the week to recognize, in clear sentences, that progress did occur. It's way too easy to poo poo on yourself and overlook the wins if you don't actively acknowledge them. In the past I would make a wins and fails section but found writing about my failures always took over the review process. Most people would benefit from a bit more celebration and less self-flagellation in my opinion. At least, it's been helpful for me.

Finally, I write down a few 1-2 sentence takeaways from the week. This is where you I might look at some of my shortcomings and see what I can learn from them. It's important at this point in the review to consider actions you can take going forward to either correct mistakes or capitalize on momentum so you can go into the planning phase with some ideas.

That's it for my review process. In the past I had longer, more complex reviews but found those hard to stick with because of the time comittment. This simple 3-step process never takes more than 15 or so minutes and has been the most useful for me so far.

The Weekly Plan

I like to keep the weekly plan simple these days.

First, I draw a box or a column for each day of the week and start by writing down my work schedule as well as any important events and deadlines for each day. This gives me a clear overview of what obligations I'm already committed to at a glance.

Then, I write down a master task list for the week. If there are any unfinished tasks from the week before that I want to carry over I'll write them down here. If I feel like they're not that important I'll skip listing them and forget they ever existed. Just remember, if you're not willing to copy the task over week to week then it's clearly not important enough to take up mental real estate.

Finally, all that's left is to figure out which tasks are your priority and map out where you can fit them in your schedule. It's important for me not to get overzealous here and start mapping out every task onto a day of the week and try to get crazy with my deadlines. When I've done this in the past I fell behind because I set unrealistic expectations on my time and energy.

A general rule of thumb is everything takes twice as long as you think and you'll finish about half the tasks you set out to even on your most productive weeks. That's because people are notoriously bad at estimating how long things take and the future isn't predictable so there will always be unexpected twists in the week's plot.

Therefore, the weekly plan's purpose is to get a general sense of what's in front of you without getting too tactical about how you're going to get it all done. That's better attempted at the daily level where you have a better idea of your energy and time affordances.

As the week progresses I use this weekly spread to log and track tasks completed, metrics that are relevant, and notes about the days. This allows me to conduct my weekly review with ease because everything that happened is on a single spread.

And that's the weekly plan. This takes me about 15 minutes and the whole review and planning process usually taking no more than 30 minutes. It's simple, effective, and has really helped me stay focused on my goals.

One last helpful tip: make this process a ritual. You don't have to spend money going to a cafe but you can make it a process that you enjoy. Put on some music, get out your fancy pen, and think of it as you time.

Treat yourself to a good week–you've earned it.

Prompt:

Conduct a weekly review and plan this coming week. See if it helps you or if you feel like it's a waste of time. You'll never know till you give a shot.