Step 8 - Review Your Stuff Regularly - Simply Get Things Done Course

Step 8 – Review Your Stuff Regularly

(This lesson a part of "10-step Simply Get Things Done" Course)

"In order to trust the rapid and the intuitive judgment calls that you make about actions from moment to moment, you must consistently retrench at some more elevated level. In my experience (with thousands of people), that translates into a behavior critical for success: the Weekly Review.

All of your open projects, active project plans, next actions, agendas, “waiting for”, and even “someday/maybe” lists should be reviewed once a week. This also gives you an opportunity to ensure that your brain is clear and that all the loose strands of the past few days have been collected, processed and organized."

David Allen, "Getting Things Done (GTD) and the Art of Stress-free Productivity"

The importance of a Regular Review – i.e. Weekly Review

I couldn’t agree more with David Allen as I know for the fact from my personal experience – if I fail to perform a good weekly review over the weekend – my week starts badly and I find myself totally lost with the things I started last week… not really knowing where should I go now.

Yesterday was Sunday – my time for a weekly review

As I work on my Tablet PC most of the time, I can work wherever I want and whenever I want. I love the weekends and try to spend them for “recharging my batteries” – i.e. spending great time with my wife and friends, trying to escape for a short weekend trip, etc. but usually on Sunday evening I’m trying to find some time to think about where I am and where I’m going.

It’s usually on Sunday when I find time for my weekly review – if you work only at the office, you may choose to do it on Friday afternoon, Monday morning… it’s totally up to you.

It takes about 1-2 hours for a review to complete

Yes – my weekly review takes me a little more than one hour and a little less than two… it all depends on the kind of week I had, but this is my usual time frame. It’s important not to rush it, not to be disturbed and just do it at a normal pace. It’s important to do it right.

What do I do during a Weekly Review?

Essentially my Weekly Review consists of two processes:

1. Going Through my Productivity System
       
2. Planning my next week

Check 1 – “Going through” my Productivity System

My productivity system consists of three things – my computer’s files, my Email messages and my Nozbe Account. I should actually add my fourth element – Calendar.

I simply go through:

• “Inbox” folder on my local disk
  During the week I save all the files I work on or that I’m being sent in one folder – “inbox” and at each week I go through this folder and clean it up – I move the files to their corresponding folders, making sure I haven’ t forgotten about anything. At the end of this process my inbox folder should be empty.
      
• Unanswered email
  This is very important – I can see where I haven’t responded, what I haven’t done and I can finally respond to these emails or simply create new actions if needed.
      
• “Next Actions” in my Nozbe account
  I’m checking what is urgent and what I haven’t managed to accomplish and most of all, need to decide if something that used to be a “next action” should still remain here or not
      
• All of my projects in my Nozbe account
  Yes, I’m actually going through practically all of my projects one by one to see what’s up there and where each project is heading. Sometimes I’m reordering actions, adding new ones, removing obsolete stuff and marking new next actions.
  
• My calendar
  Since most of my actions that need to happen at specific time are in my Nozbe account and only the very urgent ones are in my calendar, I need to “synchronize” these two – meaning – make sure that nothing will be forgotten.
  
  Site note: We are currently working on better Calendar implementation in Nozbe to make sure the calendar events are easier to be managed, reviewed and synced with other devices. Stay tuned for this new Nozbe update.

After I’ve gone through everything – I Plan

Planning very often happens during the “going through” time but later on it’s time to think things over again and make sure I’m focusing my energy on the important things this coming week. I plan and reorder my next actions and make sure everything I need to do this week is placed there in front of my eyes.

Relax and get ready for the new week.

After I’ve gone through the Weekly Review I try to reward myself by doing something relaxing like watching a movie, or simply going out with my wife somewhere to clear my head to be able to kick off the new week with a focused mind.

The bottom line:

Review your productivity system regularly and never allow your stuff to pile up for too long. A Weekly Review is a great way of closing one week and starting the new one with a clear head and a focused mind. Regular reviews keep your system fresh and leave you with a great feeling of being in control. If you want your Nozbe system to work for you – you need to review your information in Nozbe on a regular basis. I wish you all a great and a highly productive week! 

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Michael Sliwinski is the founder of Nozbe – a simple productivity web application inspired by the concepts from the book by David Allen: "Getting Things Done and the art of stress-free productivity". You can reprint this article on your blog or web site but ask for permission first.

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