The weekly review
Every system drifts. Learn a 40-minute weekly review that clears your lists, learns from last week without blame and plans next week with realistic estimates.
Weekly review
A regular appointment with yourself, usually 30 to 60 minutes, to clear what piled up, look back at what happened, look ahead at what's coming, and choose what the next week is for. The idea was made popular by David Allen's book Getting Things Done. It is the step that keeps every other habit in this course working.
Thursday, 12:00 to 12:40, same café table every week, with a notebook and a short checklist.
A 40-minute review in five steps
- Clear (10 min)
Go through the capture list, loose notes and flagged messages. Each item becomes a task, a calendar entry, or goes in the bin.
- Look back (5 min)
Scan last week's calendar and session notes. What got done? What slipped, and what got in the way?
- Look ahead (10 min)
Check the next two weeks: deadlines, events, travel, anything that will eat time or needs preparing.
- Choose (10 min)
Pick one to three priorities for the week (lesson 4) and make sure each has a clear next action (lesson 5).
- Block (5 min)
Put focus sessions for those priorities in the calendar (lesson 6), in your best hours (lesson 3).
Check yourself
Nasrin sits down for her first weekly review. She spends 70 minutes re-colouring the tags in her task app and moving lists into folders, then runs out of time. What went wrong?
- Nothing: a tidy app is the foundation, and the planning can wait until it's perfect
- She should have spent even longer, since a first review always takes a whole afternoon
- She skipped choosing priorities and blocking time, the steps that shape her week
- Weekly reviews don't suit people who use apps, so she should switch to paper
Show the answer
She skipped choosing priorities and blocking time, the steps that shape her week
Yes. Tidying the system can feel like progress while nothing about next week gets decided. The review earns its time in Choose and Block.
THE ESTIMATE TRAP
The planning fallacy
People reliably underestimate how long their own tasks will take, even when they know similar tasks ran over before. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky named this the planning fallacy. We imagine the smooth version of the task and forget the interruptions, the dead ends and the tired afternoons.
In one well-known study, students predicted when they would finish their thesis. On average it took them far longer than predicted, and fewer than half finished by the date they had given.
Last 4 tasks estimated actual
Slides 2 h 3 h
Report draft 4 h 6.5 h
Reading notes 3 h 4 h
Budget 1 h 1.5 h
-------------------------------------
Total 10 h 15 h
My ratio = 15 / 10 = 1.5
Next week I 'need' 8 h of focus work
→ book 8 × 1.5 = 12 h, or cut the list to what fitsPersonal correction factor: about 1.5×Your own past is a better guide than your hopes. Track estimate vs actual for a few weeks and use the ratio in every review.
Check yourself
Pouya's last three monthly reports each took about twice as long as he planned. This month he feels sure it will go smoothly, so booking the usual 3 hours is sensible.
Show the answer
False
False. Feeling sure this time is exactly what the planning fallacy feels like from the inside. His own track record says about 6 hours. He should book close to that, or decide in advance what he'll cut.
LOOKING BACK
Review the system, not your character
The look-back asks what happened and why, not what's wrong with you. Three questions are enough: What worked? What got in the way? What one change will I try next week? One change at a time lets you see what actually helps. As lesson 7 showed, blame only adds a feeling to escape from.
Not "I was lazy again." Instead: "Afternoon sessions kept losing to meetings. Next week: thesis sessions at 7:30am, before anyone is online."
Check yourself
Which part of the review is this?
- Turning the sticky notes on your desk into tasks, or binning them
- Noticing that Tuesday's sessions kept getting eaten by meetings
- Spotting a friend's wedding next Thursday
- Picking the two projects that matter most next week
- Booking three morning thesis sessions in the calendar
- Processing the capture list from this week's sessions
Show the answer
Clear: Turning the sticky notes on your desk into tasks, or binning them, Processing the capture list from this week's sessions
Look back or ahead: Noticing that Tuesday's sessions kept getting eaten by meetings, Spotting a friend's wedding next Thursday
Choose and block: Picking the two projects that matter most next week, Booking three morning thesis sessions in the calendar
Check yourself
Oliver's review shows he planned five thesis sessions but did two. Two were lost to meetings that ran late in the afternoon, one to feeling wiped out. What's the best single change for next week?
- Move thesis sessions to early mornings before meetings, and plan four, not five
- Plan eight sessions next week so he can make up for the three he missed this week
- Conclude he isn't a disciplined person and drop the thesis sessions altogether
- Skip next week's review, since this one only made him feel bad
Show the answer
Move thesis sessions to early mornings before meetings, and plan four, not five
Right. The look-back found a cause (afternoon meetings), and the change goes after it. Planning four is honest about his real capacity, so the plan is likely to hold.
Lesson recap
- A weekly review has five steps: clear, look back, look ahead, choose, block.
- The planning fallacy makes us underestimate our own tasks; use your own estimate-vs-actual ratio.
- Look back at the system, not your character, and change one thing at a time.
- Give the review a fixed slot, keep it short, and don't skip it after a bad week.