Hi strongbif,

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to these kinds of issues. You might have to try a number of methods.

Do you keep a list of written goals? If you do, you could, (this is merely an example) write down that you will do a weekly review in at least 23 of the next 26 weeks. Now make a list of the next 26 weeks. Each week that you did your review, put a check mark next to that week.

Or, do you have someone who would help you achieve your goals? Give that person 24 dollars (or $240, or whatever works). They can only give you $1 per week and only if you did your review that week. At the end of 26 weeks, they keep whatever's left.

Or, maybe you are too busy. Maybe you need to block time on your calendar and avoid making other appointments on that day.

What are you doing instead of weekly reviewing? If check marks and dollars don't work, maybe something else will. Keep track of what you do when you avoid work or reviewing. Maybe you like to surf the web. Tell yourself that you won't surf the net on Friday until you do the weekly review. After the review you can surf as much as you want guilt-free.

There are no hard and fast rules on this stuff. Maybe you need some deep introspection and journaling. I find that methods that work in one area of my life don't work in others.

When you do a weekly review, how long does it take you to comlete it? I read of some people taking hours. I would definitely resist doing that. Mine usually takes much less than an hour. Often less than 1/2 hour. What I have found is that I sometimes resist doing my review because I want to have all my inboxes processed before commencing the review. It can often take me hours to get all my inboxes to zero. It takes me a lot of effort, when things are busy, to "work from zero base" (David Allen quote). But it is an excellent discipline to cultivate.

Damn that's a good answer, moises!

I just set myself an appointment each Sunday to do it. I then do it at some point during the day (or sometimes Monday night).

I also do a separate weekly review for all my work projects / NAs etc on a Friday afternoon.

It normally takes me less than half an hour to do each. But I do get my inbox to zero (nearly) every day and process all my mail (nearly) every day, so there is normally not too much to actually do.

Doing a little each day really does help. I think if my Weekly review took longer than an hour (or longer than a CD really), I would probably never get to do it. Too many distractions.

Rollasoc

Just want to reinforce what Moises & Rollasoc said. I've found that processing to zero (or pretty close to it) daily keeps me from dreading a huge pile o'stuff to process at the weekly review.

The way I remind myself to do the WR is through setting up a weekly-recurring project (like I would put in a tickler file) on my cell phone's calendar saying "P: Turn on computer (Weekly Review)." It is not specific to that day, but I do it just to make sure I see the reminder to do the WR at least once a week.

Additionally, one thing that has helped me is not to look at the WR as a "to-do" but as a "to have done". Merlin's podcast helped shift my perspective on the WR and all my tasks.

Hope this helps.

Blowups don't worry me BECAUSE I do my weekly review.

I find that because I'm usually getting back to a clean slate at the end of each week, I'm better prepared to handle anything that happens the following week, even if its in the "blowup" range of events.

Basically, at each weekly review, I've looked at the work I've done this week, and what I'm planning for next week, and then I have a good picture of what should be happening. If something unforseen and urgent comes up in the following week, I know that I've got a good picture of what else is going on, so if I need to devote extra time to this unforseen blowup, I've got a good handle on what I'm not doing.

It's kind of like DA's comments your next action doesn't necessarily have to come from your lists, but because you're lists are there, you're confident that this NA is the "right" thing to be doing right now. That was paraphrased, but that's how I've interepreted the comments.

Thus, I find I'm actually better equipped to handle blowups when I do my weekly review, and because I'm reviewing all my active projects weekly, blowups become less of an issue, as I should be aware of what's happening in each of them. By contrast, the times I've fallen off the wagon and not done the weekly review, the blowups happen more often.

HTH,

Adam

For me, the biggest obstacle to getting my weekly review done was that it was a large, amorphous task. Where should I start? How big would it be? How long would it take? It was much nicer to just avoid it than to actually tackle it.

Then I realized that GTD told me how to approach things like this: break big projects into a series of steps. Now, I have exactly 18 steps that I do, in order, every Friday afternoon. I'm very specific -- I specify each inbox I need to look at, each planning tool I need to use, and so forth.

Whenever my review seems big, I just make myself promise to start with step 1. And step 1 usually takes 5 minutes. Then the other 17 don't seem so big! And it all just moves along.

As a positive side effect, having a list of things I do makes it easy to track what organizational tools are and aren't working from one week to the next, and try out new techniques without worrying about forgetting them.