I have Friday of each week scheduled as a time for my weekly review, as a recurring Nozbe task of course. This is a great time because you have just finished all of your work for the week, but if you need to send reminders or contact someone they are still at work. You can reflect on what you’ve accomplished during the week, and in doing so do a better job of planning for next week’s work. Another reason is related to an important premise of GTD. Having completed your review, you can now go home and rest and have fun knowing that everything is ready for next week, and you haven’t forgotten anything.

During a weekly review, I set aside time to go through every project and look at each task in the project to determine if the task is still relevant and actionable (if not I delete it), is the context still accurate, and should the task be moved to the next action list. If a dated action has slipped, I’ll update with a more appropriate date, or remove the date altogether if it has lost relevance.

This is also the time I close projects that are completed or put projects on hold that contain tasks that are not actionable at this time. I really appreciate being able to archive (complete) a project to put it on hold and then reactivate it when it starts again. And Nozbe puts it right back in the project list where I had it when it is reactivated.

I also use this time to look over every task in my “Waiting For” context, though I also do this several times a week to stay on top of things that others have promised to do, and send reminders as appropriate.

I also update tasks as I work on them by putting an * and the date before a new entry right in the task. Here’s an example.

Contact Hariette and request a change in content to 2 day basic Unix and VI Editor and 3 day Basic Shell Scripting *9/30 request from Susan and Kathy *9/30 Hariette will check with instructor and get back by 10/1 *10/2 awaiting final content in writing.

And as soon as I complete a task, I click on the convenient project link at the bottom of the task to go back to the project and grab another task to move to the next actions list. That is one good reason for leaving completed tasks in the Next Actions list until the next day, when they are automatically removed. This could be enhanced to remove them whenever you move out of the Next Actions list, e.g. clicking on the Projects, Contexts or Calendar tabs.

There are times when I feel like I need a review during the week, but instead of using work time, I will occasionally review all of my projects when I have some down time waiting for something, at home, in the car (not while moving), etc. and I usually use iNozbe from my iPhone for this review. I would recommend that a scroll bar be added to the task editing screen in iNozbe as some of my tasks with updates are lengthy and there is no way to move through a longer task in the iNozbe edit screen, even though they can be viewed in their entirety.

That’s it for me. I think the weekly review is already easily accomplished with the current interface, but I’m looking forward to the suggestions others leave and can’t wait to see the new Nozbe and native app for the iPhone. Keep up the great work and get well soon Michael! John

I find it hard to remember to do my weekly review or sometimes I remember and am just not motivated enough. So yeah basically, this is a problem area for me. I agree with John in that the current interface is pretty well suited for weekly reviews, but I feel a reminder system should be put into place. If Nozbe could be set to email me my next actions once a week (bi-weekly, monthly, or whenever i choose), I could take it from there.

I am also lacking in discipline here, but I do like John’s thinking. That Friday review along with a Monday morning agenda for the week sounds like something that would work well. But I really need the reminder to help with my effectiveness.

I do a weekly review. If something, “big”, changes, I make a Project and its actions, and do a global review to all projects / contexts. But this is very rare.
I do it Friday afternoon or night; the principle is simple: when I start in the job Monday I start working in full! And if I have things to do in the weekend, they also are “fresh” in my mind, due to the review.
If not possible to do it Saturday, I do it Sunday or Saturday; depends of where I am or what I am doing.

I review all Projects, then all Contexts, creating Actions if needed, ordering Actions and creating Next Actions. Then I go to Calendar and Next Actions and reorder the Actions (but without the idea that I do this first, and that second; I have at the top the 3 to 5 mores important actions, and so on, excluding meetings…So I can choose one of the most important according with my tiredness or mood).
In this review I also think more profoundly in each Project and its performance and take new Actions for improvement. Also I go to “someday maybe” and those kinds of Actions/ Projects. As also review some aspects of my personal life and health, house, etc., that I must care, and write plans and actions.

Interface: I have no way to analyse my performance (in Nozbe) in the past week, and this is important: first because I have to do reports, second because I could have a more realistic critical approach to the next week. Not only for my actions and projects, but also by Delegated persons and contexts (most people does not have Nozbe, yet, and I have to create a Waiting For Context for each one).
Ideally having a matrix with projects and actions in Lines and Contexts, Tags, Delegation, Next Actions, Calendar in Columns could give a great view and make the review be faster; with sums of hours of each column, would be great. With a smaller font size, of course. If actions that have for “x” months never are chosen, maybe a red colour noting that (are a potential “someday maybe”).

I organized my thoughts a bit after writing my reply, and posted on my blog at http://johnkendrickonline.com, if you’d like a bit more detail.

Hey Michael! Sounds great! Please invite me along for the ride. It would be my pleasure and honour to be part of the testing team. Slanj! Paul

OK, finally I have some time to share my Weekly Review (WR) approach. Apologies
for not having bandwidth for this before but the combined might of having a new course to tackle and being struck by a nasty virus wiped out any chink of time for this.

Anyway, as Sinatra would croon, this is My Way…

To answer your specific questions, Michael:

(1) Do you do it weekly, bi-weekly, daily, every other day? What’s your mileage?

It’s currently a once-a-week affair. And usually three to four hours.

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(2) When do you do it? Mondays, Sundays, Fridays, in the middle of the week?

Currently on Mondays, BUT I’m starting to plan a migration to Fridays. I was much inspired by John K’s comments about getting clear on this before the weekend and then grab some of that zen-like peace and stress-free downtime.

On ongoing project to make the change but I think I’ll find it easy to do a full WR on Friday afternoons.

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(3) What do your review? All your projects in Nozbe, some of them, or you don’t look into Nozbe at all?

Finally, I have managed to migrate all of the GTD elements of my PROJECT management into Nozbe.

I do use Nozbe closely tied to Netvibes to create a “dashboard” system, so I use both for my WR.

I also have other tools that manage the “programme” and “strategic” elements of my life, and these are also part of my WR.

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(4) What are the steps you’re taking to perform your review?

a – I include many elements from Covey’s and Goldratt’s work in my planning and review. So, it always begins with a review of my values, mission, goals,

compass roles and big rocks to get clear on what the focus of the next week should be to keep these alive. These are in my personal KM system. I may do some refinement of these, as needed, bringing in some TOC approaches. The key elements that relate to live projects will be transferred into Nozbe to manage forward.

b – I use a ticketing system (for quality issues) in a different Web 2.0 tool, so I review all completed and open tickets, transferring any related actions into Nozbe.

c – I review our time system, which automatically collects and tags time spent in each offline and online tool, allowing me to see the productive places and the time-stealeers from the past week. I’ll factor this in when I’m reviewing context in Nozbe later.

d – When I am focussed on the project level, I will then walk through each project, reviwing it’s Project Brief (a streamlined form of the PRINCE2 tool)

that I keep as a Note in Nozbe. (All of my vital notes have a “KEY Note” context, to keep it easy to filter and focus).

e – Now refreshed with the intent of the brief (and its place in the larger plan) I review the current list of actions, pruning and adding, refreshing next actions needed to drive it forward that week and time-tagging some that have a must-do element. If any of the actions relate directly to my “big rocks” for that week, I’ll tag these with that as context. (If anything must be completed on the day of review, I tag it with a context of “today”).

f – Once I have repeated with all projects, I refresh my horizon view, which in Nozbe is deal, using the calendar tab. All of the time-tagged actions will now be in place and I can see how the week ahead (and weeks/ months after that) are shaping up. This may prompt a decision of two to refine timings (to streamline resources, e.g.)

g – I then walk through each context to get a feel for the loading of key resources (like virtual assistant services, e.g) and overall demand for specific places to visit (like errands collected together for favourite stores, e.g.) and the tools I’m likely to need to be ready to roll (an online tool or an office service, e.g.) Special contexts get special attention – “Big Rocks”, “Today”, “Waiting On” (as a prompt to chase if needed) and a range of ones in format “Agenda????” (for each key colleague or team I plan to meet with). I can make changes, or just align myself to how I’ll map out my week.

h – I lastly look at the Next Actions (NA) tab – bringing some drag-and-drop order to it, roughly as I think they may pan out across the week and grouping some actions together that make sense. At that point some NAs may be demoted to actions.

That’s pretty much it. It’s great that all of this sets up the main “widget cranking” plan for the whole week, and accessible from any browser window or my iPhone.

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(5) How would your perfect review look like?

I’ve spent a lot of time on my WR approach and will likely always be pruning, adding, polishing.

a – For Nozbe’s part, and any future develpment that brought in the 20k, 30k, 40, 50k feet perspectives that David talks about would be hugely valuable. I do rely on other tools for that right now. At the moment it’s mainly runway and 10k in Nozbe.

b – More oomph in the horizon reporting would be useful. The calendar tab is good and could be developed to bring more power to horizon reporting.

c – Other tricks I’ve seen (e.g. in Simple-ology and PlanPlus) are “Wizard” approaches to daily/ weekly reviews. These guide the user through key elements

of a good review and plonk all of the info harvested into the right place in the underlying database (sometime via temporary holding bins as the process is walked through). Very powerful and does get around the discipline/ uncertainly that people often experience as problems with planning/GTD.

d – I don’t know if there is any appetite at all for building in task dependency tools to Nozbe? For some projects that can be valuable, allowing the user to create gaant-like relationships between actions in a project, and take account of any time tagging to let us see big-picture problems in managing a project. (Great as part of WR). This is heading off in the “MS Project et al” direction and I could understand if Nozbe steers away from this, as simplicity would likely go with it. (Unless you have a new magic trick or two for us?)

At the ground level it would assist with WR immensely if some additional tools were added. These would of course also be valuable at other times but are particularly valuable in WR context:

- For all views (Next Actions, Projects, Contexts) far more flexibility on the sorting of elements. I love the drag-and-drop option but there are (many) times when it would be great to see these in order of (1) A-Z (2) Z-A (3) Most-Least Open Actions (4) Least-Most Open Actions (5) Custom – reverting to drag-and-drop order.

- For Projects view, I’d like a one-click tool to show me just the projects with no “Next Action” allocated.

- For each Project in Projects view, I’d like to see a project-level message board, so that the (virtual) team can engage in online discussions around the project.

- For (Next)Actions, comment threads (for all project personnel) to maintain status, progress notes, as relevant to part-completed actions

- For (Next)Actions, project notes dropdown, so that (one, some, all) project notes can be directly associated with each.

- For (Next)Actions, multiple contexts (very like the GTDinbox add-on for Google Mail).

- For Next Actions, a nicely-AJAXed selection window triggered as soon as any Next Action is marked “complete”, allowing the user to select another action from that project as the new Next Action

- For Actions in the Project view, It would be useful to be able to add a new Context on-the-fly as it is needed.

Think that’s all for now. Very excited to see what new delights Michael and his team have come up with for us all!

Paul

I love this idea of Paul’s, this would be truly cool!!! “For Next Actions, a nicely-AJAXed selection window triggered as soon as any Next Action is marked “complete”, allowing the user to select another action from that project as the new Next Action”