7Breaths

gtdfrk over at Getting Things Done has a post of his weekly review checklist. He wonders about other peoples weekly reviews so I thought I'd post an outline of my current one. I keep this of course in OneNote and have just copied it over, so some formating etc is missing but the basic scheme is still there.

I like to have done all my processing already done before the weekly review. I used to spend so much time emptying my inbox and processing stuff that had accumulated that I found I had less time than I would have liked on the actual planning stage of the weekly review. I therfore try to process my inputs each day during the week and do a final processing several hours before sitting down to do my weekly review which I use for "Planning Not Processing".

Here's whats in my Checklist:

'PLANNING not Processing'

YOU ARE REVIEWING AND PLANNING NOW

PREPARE
Ensure Daily review already done .
Disconnect from the net
Sit & Think
Final Mindsweep and keep open

REVIEW WHERE YOU ARE:

Review previous weeks schedule
Did you keep your commitments
Did you work on all your roles
Did you use your time effectively

Review next weeks schedule
What commitments do you have
Are you prepared for these
Support Material
Agenda

Review Current 90 day goal list
Do all goals have supporting projects
Are you moving towards succcesful completion
Do any more projects need starting this week

Review Project list
Ensure all projects have a next action
Ensure all projects have a role assigned
Schedule time to work on each project
Any stagnating projects
Shedule time
Dump
Someday / May be
Is there a balance of roles during the week


REVIEW WHERE YOU ARE GOING:

4 week Brief Overview
Any commitments upcoming which need work now
Birthdays / Aniversaires
Events
Holidays
.....

Review Someday / Maybe list
Can anything be moved to active
Can anything be dumped

Review Dream list

Read and commit to yearly goals

FINISH

Process the mindsweep
Look at the coming week again
Visualise Successful Action
Reconnect to the net
Relax & Enjoy

In my last post I can't do it all... I began to discuss the problem I was having with my workflow - that of taking on too many projects. Jeroen commented regarding using the GTD Horizons of Focus during the weekly review to help decide what you should or should not be doing, whilst SpiKe had not found this approach useful. I've blogged about Higher altitudes previously and have tried to apply Davids horizons to my own life. I found the levels he used did not fit with my thinking - so have slightly adapted things to give me a little more focus - I've tried to represent things in this diagram.

• I began by looking at my long term goals and vision - I've labeled these ambitions. These are not written down - after all if you need to write down your lifes vision to help you remember it, it can't be that much of a vision.

Next I have decided what I need to do in the next year to move me towards my ambitions. I've made a checklist of these so I can reward myself for checking them off as the year goes by - just "cranking widgets" on a bigger scale.

For each yearly goal I then set 90 day targets to move towards acomplishing the goal. I find 90 days long enough to get some significant work done, but short enough to allow me to see progress to my yearly goals.

Each 90 day target can have several supporting projects ongoing at the same time, and of course each project will have next actions.

When I do my weekly review I ensure that each 90 day target has active supporting projects - if not I will decide what I need to do and start a project off. This helps keep my focus on doing what I want to do. After ensuring all 90 day targets are moving forwards I then check my projects. What projects do I have which do not seem to support a 90 day goal. These are the "reactive" projects I've picked up during the week. I very carefully review these and ask "What's in it for me?". Sometimes Projects need to be done which don't fit in with your goals, but often just the practice of reviewing them in light of your 90 day targets makes you realise that you should be re-negotiating or dumping the project.

By applying this method I've reduced the number of projects I have ongoing at a time. However I still find I can take on more than I can do if I don't consider the actual time I have to spend each week working on them - this will be the theme of my next post...

Projects:

Sometimes we set a project - but don't seem to move to getting it done. At the most basic level we have to understand what a project is and make sure our projects match this - your project may not be progressing as you would like because it does not fully fulfil the criteria for being a project.

First let's look at what a project is. I like to work with the definition:

"A project is a temporary endeavour which is undertaken to create a unique outcome and is characterized by progressive elaboration towards it". Let's look at that in a little more detail

"Temporary endeavour" -i.e. it is time limited with a start and an end point.

We can see that a project should have a start and end time. Too often in the past I failed to set a time limit to accomplish a project- with this any sense of urgency was lost and often the project was allowed just to sit fairly inactive in my project list. If a project does not have an obvious due date set one anyway. Remember Parkinson's Law " Work expands to fit the time allocated to it" - try and keep a tight deadline - it will act as an incentive and concentrate your work on the project.

"Unique outcome" - the outcome should be different in an unique way from what you already have.

What unique outcome are you aiming for? How is it different from the situation you start in? How will you know when you accomplish the outcome. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve the better. Try and be as specific as you can. I will be posting about defining individual projects in more detail soon.

"Progressive elaboration" - The planning of the project should evolve as it moves forward to the final outcome.

A project is not a static creation - it evolves as you progress through it. You may define a next action which initially seems the next logical step but then find you are just not doing it and the project begins to stagnate. There could be many reasons for not doing the next action but one that you need to consider is whether the next action is still appropriate for the project. If a project is not moving on ask - is this really the next action needed? Don't define a project and try and stick rigidly to your initial plan - always be willing during the weekly review to go back and brainstorm the project again, you may well come up with a different way to get it done.