Run a weekly review that keeps your system up to date and your priorities in front of you.
Priya set up a task system, and three weeks later she noticed it slipping. Her next actions list had items on it that were already done. A few tasks had crept back into her email flags. Her waiting-for list said the agency owed her visuals, but they had arrived the week before.
Nothing was badly wrong. But she started to doubt the list, and when she doubted it, she went back to keeping things in her head.
Every task system drifts over time. Drift has three causes: new commitments arrive faster than you capture them, finished items stay on the list, and your priorities shift but the lists stay the same. When you start to doubt your list, you go back to keeping things in your head, as Priya did. The fix is a regular session that brings everything back in line.
That session is the weekly review. David Allen, who wrote Getting Things Done (GTD), calls it the critical success factor in GTD. It is the core of reflect, the fourth of the five steps from lesson 2.2. Capture and clarify happen every day, but they only deal with what arrives. The weekly review deals with everything, once a week, so you can trust the whole system again.
Allen's version has three parts: get clear, get current and get creative. This course adds one thing to the third part: the weekly planning from module 3. The review is the natural moment to plan the week ahead. Each part has a short list of steps. Once you've done the review a few times, the whole thing takes under an hour.
Get clear means collecting everything that has piled up and processing it. Start with physical things. Go through your bag and your desk, and put loose papers, receipts, business cards and notes into your inbox. Then empty every inbox you have: email, your task app's inbox, and any notes you scribbled during the week. Use the clarify step from lesson 2.2 on each item, the same way you do every day.
Then do a short mind sweep, as in lesson 2.4, "Set up your system in one sitting". Write down anything on your mind that isn't in the system yet. The most useful items often come from this step, such as something a colleague mentioned on Wednesday that you never wrote down, or an idea you had on the train. At the end of get clear, everything you know about is either in the system or deliberately thrown away.
Get current brings your lists up to date, starting with the calendar. First look back through the past week's calendar. Look for follow-ups from meetings that you never captured, and for promises you made in calls. Then look ahead about two weeks for anything you need to prepare, book or buy.
Next, go through your next actions list. Tick off what is done, delete what no longer matters, and check that each remaining item is still a clear next action. Then check that each project on your projects list has at least one next action. Lesson 2.3 showed that a project with no next action is a stuck project. Last, go through the waiting-for list. Check whether anything has arrived and whether anything needs chasing. For any overdue item, add a chase to your next actions.
When Priya did this part of her review, the agency visuals came off her waiting-for list. She also found a project, "Q4 report template updated", that had had no next action for two weeks.
In Allen's version, get creative means going through your someday list to see whether anything should become active. It also means leaving room for new ideas and projects. Two minutes on the someday list is often enough. You might move one item into projects, delete a few that no longer interest you, or add something new.
The course adds the weekly planning from module 3 here. Check whether the three priorities from lesson 1.3 are still the right three, or whether something has changed. Choose next week's two to four outcomes, as in lesson 3.1, "Plan the week before it fills itself". Put those outcomes into time blocks before anything else goes in (lesson 3.4). If you have done the energy map from lesson 7.4, put deep work into your best energy windows.
Also compare last week's plan with what actually happened, and decide whether anything in your system should change.
The review only helps if you do it every week, so give it a fixed time on your calendar. Friday afternoon works well for many people. The week is fresh in their minds, and they leave work knowing next week is planned. Others prefer Sunday evening or Monday morning. Pick a time that is realistic for you and protect it.
Allen's three parts give the structure, but write your review in your own words, using the names of your own lists and tools. A checklist helps for the first few months, until the steps become automatic. Keep it short: a checklist with thirty steps will be skipped on a busy Friday, and one with ten or twelve will get done.
Marcus wrote his checklist on an index card that he keeps in his notebook. It has twelve lines:
Clear the inbox tray Empty email to zero Sweep chat threads for promises Mind sweep Review calendar past and future Review next actions Review projects Review waiting-for Review someday Check priorities Choose outcomes Block the week
It takes him about 45 minutes, on a Friday at 4pm.
Your activity is to write your own version, in your words, using the three parts as the structure. Aim for ten or twelve lines, use the names of your own lists and tools, and book a fixed time in your calendar to use it.
Write a weekly review checklist of twelve steps or fewer in your own words. Group the steps under get clear, get current and get creative.
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