Monday, June 19th, 2006...10:54 am
The Brain Dump and the Weekly Review
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This past weekend, I had a really solid Weekly Review. Every six months or so, I have a longer, more in depth review. In this review, I do the following:
- Sit with Moleskine and fountain pen, and have a brain dump. Get everything out of my head and onto paper.
- Organize these items by context and due date.
- Combine them with the items I already have in my hard landscape, and review for any updates and new actions.
- Create all new actions in my system.
- Pull out the folder with my goals and mission, and review for updates and adjustments that arise due to new desires or a new set of circumstances. I believe one should review their mission at least once a year. I look at mine twice a year.
Everyone does their Weekly Review differently. This process takes anywhere from a couple of hours to an afternoon, depending on the volume of “stuff” I need to process.
I post this today in order to start a discussion…
How do you execute your weekly review in reference to your projects, actions, contexts and goals?
All of us can benefit from the perspective and experience of others. Please feel free to share your method in the comments section.
- Jason
7 Comments
June 19th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
My weekly review takes place (typically) late Friday afternoon.
I first do the gathering - everything to the inbox and a braindump (on plain notebook paper).
Next I process the inbox. Items into project/archive/reference folders, scan receipts/checks for business. Add/modify calendar and contact information. Typically more braindump and processing.
When processing I add items to my lists (Projects, Someday/Maybe, Archives, To Buy, To Get). So, once processing is done I run down each of these lists (now just a text file) and “X” out completed items that were missed during the week. I prefix important items with “[HOT]” to make them more visible.
I have two issues that I need to remedy soon:
1. Rather than simple lists I need to migrate to a more context-centered approach.
2. I need to figure out how to manage my digital assets (mostly a folder on my desktop FULL of links).
** I look forward to hearing about others reviews. I find mine productive but I feel like I’m missing some “best practices” that could make it even more efficient.
June 19th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Let me take a stab at this question by narrating my own experience. Perhaps others have gone through a similar process of experimentation…
I’ve just started doing a weekly review in earnest. Right now, my first truly complete inventory of all my commitments (made a few weeks ago) is still fresh enough in my memory to make me want to keep my system up-to-date. Before that time, I didn’t really feel like doing the weekly review, since I knew that my lists weren’t complete anyway. Now, however, the incentive for doing a weekly review is getting everything back to a pristine state.
In the past, I always had trouble linking actions with projects in the weekly review. It was a huge pain to get all my next actions up to date (i.e., to make sure everything was moving forward). For a while, I tried the Mac program kinkless GTD, which does a great job of linking projects and actions, but since I’m not at my Mac most of the day, the success of this method depended on a nightly sync between my paper lists (index cards) and kGTD. If I missed this sync for a day or two, the whole system got out of whack. I guess I wasn’t systematic enough about updating. Sometimes I would add actions to my paper lists and sometimes I would add them to kGTD, making a sync even more difficult. By the time the weekly review came around, I didn’t feel like doing the work necessary set things right, so I just kept trying to make do with frayed and partial lists (and all their attendant anxieties).
Recently, I’ve had success implementing a kinkless solution on index cards, so that everything is in one place and can be updated on the go. This has made all the difference in my weekly reviews. Basically, I use an index card for each project. On the card, beneath the desired project outcome, I list one or more next actions. I put a big checkbox beside the current next action. (On the back of the card, I can brainstorm other future actions or jot down reference info.) For single actions that are not part of a project, I use one card per action.
During the week, I keep my cards sorted into piles by context (calls, emails, home, etc). The result is a nice little book of actions (with colored cards as dividers). If I complete a task on a project card, I check off the box, cross off the task, and jot down the date. If I have time, I assign a new next action and return the card to the relevant context. If I don’t have time, I put the card in my inbox, ensuring that I will assign a new next action in the evening. This is an almost automatic method to keep projects moving.
For me, the result is infinitely simplified weekly reviews. For review, I pull out all my project cards and see which ones are moving and which ones aren’t. Deferring a project is as easy as putting a card into a deferred file. I consider each card one by one, seeing if a project needs further clarification and assessing its relevance to my responsibilities and goals. Why am I doing this? Do I need to be doing this? Since I save all completed actions and/or project cards for the week, I can also easily review what I’ve accomplished. A brain dump onto index cards leads naturally into new projects and actions. Though I haven’t done it yet, I’m planning to photocopy my project cards during the weekly review as a backup and ongoing record.
(Point of clarification: Generally, I have only one active next action on each project card. However, I get around the limitation of one next action per project by marking other current next actions with a circle, instead of a checkbox, and copying them to individual cards. During weekly review, I sync any completed actions cards with the appropriate project card to ensure that I have an up-to-date record of completed tasks on the project card itself.)
June 19th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
A month or two ago, I printed a bunch of index cards with a Weekly Review checklist on it. I may be running out of them in the next few weeks, and I’m already thinking of ways to streamline this checklist, but what I have is almost straight out of the box from David Allen’s suggestions. I do this every Saturday morning, so I combine my weekly review with other weekend rituals that I’ve found save me time and help me plan ahead for the upcoming week:
Weekly Review Checklist
Collect Loose Papers
Process Notes
Review Previous Calendar Data
Review Upcoming Calendar Data
Empty Head
Review Action Lists
Review Waiting-For List
Review Project Lists
Review Relevant Checklists
Review Someday/Maybe List
Balance Checkbook
Plan Next Week’s “6 Things”
Other Weekly Items:
Do Laundry
Check car’s tires & fluids
Lay out next week’s clothes
Weekly grooming (beard, neck)
June 19th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
I pretty much follow the David Allen checklist.
Matt makes a good point, though, in that how your system performs during the week makes a big difference in how effective your weekly review becomes.
My biggest issue had been tracking projects. Most of what I get at work is a project in the GTD definition, often with a potential of 30-40 next actions.
My biggest challenges with projects and next actions were to be able to see the entire project’s potential next actions and knowing where each of the next actions were in process.
A blog - perhaps this one, and I apologize for not remembering where I saw it - suggested using MindJet MindManager and use one project per map. Then - the key point - match up the project items with the next action categories. Consequently, each project has a calls, e-mail, office, waiting for, etc., category for it so that the next actions and their location can be identified.
I also have a “To Be Done” category in the MindMap where I can just dump any idea I have as to what might need to be done for the project. I also have a ‘Completed’ category so that the completed items have a place where I can easily sum up what has been done on the project so far.
The pro version, which I own, has the ability to interface directly into Outlook. This allows me to take a possible next action and turn it into a real next action in the task area in Outlook. By placing the task into Outlook and dragging the task in MindManager over to the right MindManager category (e.g., ‘Waiting For”), I can immediately see where the tasks are that I have designated as “next”.
Three big advantages: complete view of the entire project, a place to easily put all possible actions associated with the project, and tasks that show up in the action area of Outlook tasks and schedules for the project.
If anyone knows of the blog entry that provided that tip and can pass it along here, I’d really appreciate it.
Scot
June 19th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
I have a fairly simple system. I keep a running “brain dump” in a notebook, where I write down all my projects, actions, half-baked ideas, goals, etc. as they come up. Some of the stuff on that list is actionable, some isn’t. I keep it with me at all times and I’m always jotting down new items as they come to me.
On Monday I go through the list and cross of things that are done or that I’ve decided not to do. I then make a list of the things I’m going to do that week, translating some of the more abstract items into action when I can. I put the list in my planner, and cross items off as I do them. what gets put on the list depends on priority and how much time I have.
I haven’t found it useful to keep separate lists for phone calls, or things to be done at the computer, etc. I like just having one big list. The only separation I make is that I keep personal items at the back of the notebook (starting at the last page and moving in) and work items at the front of the notebook.
At home, I spend Saturday or Sunday morning going through my inbox full of mail and other junk that needs to be dealt with. I add things to my master list if they’re not on there already, and pay bills.
June 20th, 2006 at 2:33 am
Well many if not all of you sound much more organised than I am - with a three year old daughter at home there is no way that I have the luxury(?) of allocating half a day to sorting or thinking or organising a brain dump. I will leave those sort of time frames to the singletons. I use Outlook at work for all business related tasks/projects etc, etc and at the moment a pocket Moleskine captures all other ideas which subsequently, if work related get transferred to Outlook or remain in the notebook. I find I review on a ‘running’ basis and update on the same system that way the “review” tends to be very regular and consequently fairly brief. This does not remove the neeed to stop and take stock from time to time and whether things are progressing as planned and in the right direction (taking stock obviously takes a little longer!!. In no way is my system ideal and I occasionally struggle to make it work but I am very aware of avoiding the trap (very easy to fall into) of spending so much time and effort looking for the “ideal system” and tweaking and maintaining the one I think I am going to use for now that I actually don’t get anything done!!! Luckily from that perspective working in the dreaded finance industry gets you back in focus pretty quickly as people expect prompt reaction.
The downside of all this “under pressure” approach is a frequent loss of short term memory………once something is done it is wiped, making it quite difficult to recall later. Thinking about it that might be more directly related to the way we are trying to live as a society……man was not designed to achieve everything in a lifetime (we won’t go there as that it is a major debating point in its own right).
June 21st, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Thanks for sharing, everyone. It is really neat to see how different people approach their weekly review.
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