Let’s start at the beginning: what exactly is a Weekly Review? In this guide, I’ll reframe what a Weekly Review is and what it’s for – from a gargantuan endeavor to a short, quick, and easy habit that you’ll look forward to completing. It burdens them with the fear that the linchpin of their productive life – what productivity guru David Allen calls the “master key” to personal productivity – is missing. This tension – between the need to perform this valuable habit, and the impossibility of doing so – creates an incredible sense of guilt and even shame in so many people I work with. Who has the time to undertake such a herculean feat in the midst of an already jam-packed week? If you think you have to review every life goal, big and small, short-term and long-term, just to get clarity for tomorrow, of course you’ll avoid it. They think it’s an “overhaul” of their productivity systems, which likewise requires hours of concentration. They think it’s a comprehensive “life review,” requiring hours of intense introspection.

I think I know why: most people’s idea of what a Weekly Review entails is fundamentally misconceived. Here’s a recent Twitter poll in which only 38% of people said they regularly completed one, and this is for a productivity-obsessed audience: Even hardcore productivity geeks find it incredibly difficult to maintain the habit. We’ve all heard it, but in my experience, strikingly few stick to it. We’ve all heard countless times that we should take some time each week to review our schedule and priorities for the week.

There is a secret to radically improving your productivity – it’s called a Weekly Review.

Gtd weekly review todoist