My Weekly Review Process

One of the most important and valuable activities that I do consistently in my life is a weekly review. It allows me to regularly refocus and recenter all aspects of my life from the day-to-day all the way up to life trajectory. Having this review system/structure in place forces me to collect everything that accumulates during the week, reorganize, clear my plate, check-in with myself, and make sure I am headed in the direction I want to be.

My process was inspired by David Allen’s Getting Things Done weekly review checklist. Over time, I have adapted it to my own life and what I want out of it. The following checklist is the result and it takes me about an hour every Sunday morning.

Inbox Processing

Review open browser tabs

I’m one of those people that is prone to collecting and hoarding open browser tabs on my phone. They may be interesting articles that I want to read later, new books that have been recommended to me, or other random input items. By reviewing and closing them all each week, I make sure that nothing gets lost and I start the week with a blank slate.

For articles, I either read them right then and there or I put them into my “Read/Review” list to look at later. Lots of browser tabs fit into the “may or may not be useful to me” category. I’ll usually scan these and either just trash them or read later. For books that I’d like to read, I add them directly to my “Books to Read” list. I add quotes or other interesting tidbits to either my physical journal or my digital one.

Collect sticky notes

I always have a pad of sticky notes on my desk. These are great for quickly capturing little notes, ideas, or reminders. Again, I have a tendency of hoarding these instead of putting the thoughts into their proper places. During my review, I check if each sticky note is still applicable and, if it is, put it in its rightful spot depending on what the thought is.

Collect Google Keep notes

Google Keep is basically my digital sticky note pad. It serves the same purpose as my sticky notes but for when I am not at my desk.

Review pocket notebook

Another spot for writing down small thoughts, reminders, notes, or ideas. I carry a cheap little notebook in my pocket as well as a nice pen. This notebook is also where all of the new Arabic words I hear out in the wild go. Each week, I go through it and add new words to my flashcard deck and transfer everything else to their more permanent homes.

Clear Obsidian Inbox

I use Obsidian as my notes app. Usually, I put notes in their proper folders on creation but sometimes I need to think a little bit harder about where the note should go. The weekly review is the time to do it.

File or delete items in Downloads folder on desktop

Again, this is another place where “stuff” tends to pile up and get lost. I go through the folder file by file and either delete or properly file every item until the folder is empty.

Getting Current

Fill out brag document

Inspired by Julia Evans’ blog post, I write down all of my important accomplishments and activities I did in the previous week. I wrote in depth about this system.

Balance ledger

I use beancount to track where every dollar or dirham of mine comes from and goes. I usually send myself a WhatsApp message whenever I buy something that includes the price and what it was. I collect all of these messages and properly put them into my ledger each week. I also check the balances on all of my accounts and make sure they agree with my ledger. I wrote about this system in depth as well.

Backup files

I keep a local backup of all my important files on a hard drive, just in case my laptop dies (she is getting old). By doing this weekly, I will only ever lose a week’s worth of work, at most. This gives me such a huge boost to my piece of mind because I have a lot of important things on my computer.

Upcoming

Make new week in journal

I recently changed my task management setup and went back to my physical Moleskine notebook. I generally live life one week at a time. On one page is my calendar for the week that has all important time-bound tasks and activities on it. Things like birthdays, holidays, classes, or meetings go here. I also use each day space to track my habits and goals.

Evaluate and move tasks forward

The other side of my weekly planner is a big task list. No, there’s no further organization than that. The page is titled TASK LIST and each task is a bullet point. When it is done, I draw a big horizontal line through it. Obviously, I don’t complete every task every week and things need to be moved forward to the current week.

I go through each task and ask, “is doing this still important to me?” If so, I strike it out with an arrow at the end, and rewrite it in the new weekly page. If not, I strike it out with an X at the end to indicate that it was cancelled or abandoned. Writing out each task multiple times certainly isn’t efficient but it makes me think about whether everything on my task list is really something that I want to spend time and energy on.

Capture actions about preparations for any upcoming events (from calendar)

On the new weekly page, I look at my online calendar and transfer important tasks over to the journal.

Review Someday/Maybe lists. Check if today is someday.

I keep a big list of things I might like to do one day but I don’t want them cluttering up my to-do list. Things like ideas to write about, places to visit, tattoos to get, or other random ideas go here. I review this list each week to see what thing I’d like to work on if I have any leftover creative energy during the week to explore something new.

Wellbeing Check-in

Do a VSPIRE check-in

I was introduced to this framework by a previous Peace Corps Morocco staff member, Oumaima Elghazali. I’d like to write a more in-depth piece about this but the gist is that I see how I am doing on multiple wellbeing fronts: Vocationally, Spiritually, Physically, Intellectually, Relationally, and Emotionally.

I go through each pillar and rate myself on a subjective scale of 1-10 based on the previous week. I write a few sentences about why I chose that rating. Then I think of one or two actions that I can take to increase one element of my wellbeing. I highly recommend this activity to others. I’ve learned quite a lot about myself by doing this over several weeks.

Goals

Take a look at your Goals list and Personal Logic Model. For each shift:
- How is it going?
- Did you accomplish your Process goals? How come or why not?
- Are you making progress on your Outcome goals? How come or why not?
- Do any goals need to be adjusted?
Answer: Do any shifts need to be ended? Added?

This is another one I’d like to write more at length about. I have one large document for my current goals. It lists all of my shifts that I am currently undertaking. Shifts are medium to large changes that I’d like to make in my life. Each shift is supported by Process goals, Outcome goals, and/or Output goals.

Process goals are shorter term goals for how I am going to make progress on a particular shift. These usually include a phrase like “I will [do something some amount of times] every [time period].” Outcome goals are traditional SMART goals that support the larger shift.

By looking at my goals each week, I can see if I am moving towards or away from them and why. From this, I can make adjustments into the new week.