David Allen calls the Weekly Review the “critical success factor” to GTD. Why? It’s the glue that keeps it all together.  It’s also one of the steps people tend to resist the most.  Here are some keys for getting the most out of the Review phase to keep your GTD system humming along.

WHAT TO REVIEW:

There are 11 steps in the GTD Weekly Review.  David Allen recommends leading yourself through this every 7-10 days to get clear, current, and creative.

Get clear – ensure all your “stuff” is processed

Collect Loose Papers and Materials
Get “IN” to Zero
Empty Your Head
[Read more →]

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A Community Contribution from Björn Ljunggren, a GTD Connect member from Sweden. He shared this in our members-only Forums and we thought it was such a great story that he gave us permission to share it with our GTD Times readers.

My little GTD baby is celebrating its first birthday and it is time to look at the giant leaps and small steps taken towards a “mind like water”.

Even though I bought the book in 2007 I just implemented parts of GTD. I fell of the wagon a lot during these first years and had a major crisis in 2009 when my whole digital GTD system crashed together with the hard drive (no backup). It took until summer of 2010 before I was up and running again and decided to go “all in”.  So the system is based on three critical components:

• Complete system both Home/Work
• GTD Connect Member
• Weekly Reviews

Having a complete system is a big task to do, and I guess it is never really “Done”. But I feel very good about my system. I trust it. The GTD Connect community has helped to stay on course and get constant reassurance that I’m not alone in doing GTD when nobody I know is. Thanks Kelly and everyone! I did 49 weekly reviews the first year. Probably the biggest single factor for GTD success. [Read more →]

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Question: Do you review your lists/@folders everyday in the AM, decide what you are going to do, and then leave them or constantly flip through them?  I only ask because it’s 11 separate pages of lists (calls, computer, at home office, etc.)  Is the weekly review when you update with checking things off as you go during the week?

David Allen: You need to review everything on your list as often as you need to, to feel comfortable about whatever you’re doing, and that you’re not missing something that you should be doing instead. As you start doing regularly weekly reviews, it shouldn’t take but a quick glance to know what you’re not doing. I’ve met some people who look thru their digital lists and make a 3×5 card hand-written list of the hottest items, and work from that during the day! Do whatever you need to do, to get to confidence about your choices.

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Residue seems to have the habit of spontaneously showing up, but never going away, by itself. You have to work at keeping things streamlined and current. The mere passage of time can make meaningful things irrelevant. The Weekly Review is psychic spring cleaning.  – David Allen

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If you look at your calendar in detail over the next two weeks, I bet you will think of at least one, if not several, “Oh, that reminds me, I need to’s.”

 - David Allen

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A common question we’re asked is, “What’s the best day to do a GTD Weekly Review?”  Friday is certainly the most common day, but truly, whatever day works for you to get clear, current and creative is the best day!

What’s your favorite day to do your Weekly Review? Take a quick poll:

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One of the things that helps me stay current with my GTD system and not have the Weekly Review feel like a major renovation, is that I review my Next Actions lists whenever I feel like it and as often as I can.  Whenever I coach people who have slipped out of regular reviews (call it daily quick scans and weekly thorough reviews) I see them start to triage all of the “important stuff” onto their Calendar, which they know they will look at.  Then the calendar becomes an fuzzy merge of the stuff that really belongs on the calendar (time-specific and day-specific) with the “stuff-I-put-on-the-calendar-so-it-doesn’t-get-lost-on-a-list.” Inevitably, they find themselves carrying things over from day to day just to keep it alive.

Do you need to review every list every day? Of course not. But use those weird windows of time that show up in your day to pop over to a list for a little visit. You might start to find it’s like meeting up with a good friend who is happy to see you.

More about Kelly…

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A Community Contribution from Erik Hanberg

For me, one of the easiest and yet most difficult concepts of David Allen’s Getting Things Done was thinking of everything as work.

After all, who wants to work all the time? But I quickly learned there was strength in the idea.

As I was implementing GTD for the first time, I understood the concept as a way to make sure that I didn’t lose track of the fun things in life. [Read more →]

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Dear David Allen: What do you recommend to organize the Projects list in order to quickly find a particular project?

David: If you’re using a software application for managing lists, and if it can sort the list alphabetically, then get in the habit of writing the key word about the project first, so you can scan down the alpha listing. E.g. “Finalize vacation” becomes “Vacation – finalize.” That’s what I discovered works best for me. The other question might be: Why do you need to “find the project”? What are you looking for? If you’re doing a thorough weekly review every week, you probably don’t need to refer to the project on a list that often. If you need to refer to your notes and plans about a project, they should simply be accessible in your reference or project support areas by file or folder; and you just refer to those as you need. Another option is to create some sub-categories of projects that you feel you need to review frequently. Nothing wrong with that.

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Question: Where do I put deferred tasks that are due, for example, in three days?   If I’m processing my Inbox on Monday,  and I know the next step to completion is a two hour task, “at Computer” that is due on Thursday, do I make a decision to do it at a specific time, and put it on my calendar? Or do I put it on the @Computer list? Or Something else?

David Allen: In your environment [Editor: David has coached at this fast-paced Fortune 100 company], if you have something that requires two hours of time, and HAS to be done within the next couple of days, I would schedule that two-hour block for yourself and hold yourself to keep your appointment with yourself. That way it gets off your mind the rest of the time. Not a bad idea to do that for ANY action that requires more than an hour of uninterrupted time, in your interrupt-driven kind of world, if it really has to get done within the next week or so. [Read more →]

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