The purpose of this whole method of workflow management is not to let your brain become lax, but rather to enable it to be free to experience more elegant, productive and creative activity.
You must be assured that you’re doing what you need to be doing and that it’s OK to be not doing what you’re not doing.
Reviewing your system on a regular basis reflecting on the contents and keeping it current and functional are prerequisites for that kid of clarity and stability.
There are two major questions
- What do you look at in all this and when?
- What do you need to do, and how often to ensure that all of it works as a consistent system?
What to Look at, and When?
A few seconds a day is usually all you need to review, as long as you’re looking at a sufficient amount of the right things at the right time
Look at your Calendar First
Cause it defines the hard boundaries of your day that you can’t afford to miss.
Then Your Actions Lists
If your calendar is trustworrthy and your actions lists are current they may be the only things in the system you’ll need to refer to more than every couple of days.
Right Review in the Right Context
If you are with someone, than look at your accumulated agendas for the person, or if you are at hardware store look at actions with the hardware store context.
Update Your system
If your lists fall too far behind your reality. You won’t be able to fool yourself about this.
The magic key to the sustainability is the Weekly Review.
The Power of Weekly Review
It keep everything current and fresh, so that you can keep trusting your system.
What Is the Weekly Review?
The Weekly Review is whatever you need to do to get your head empty again and get oriented for the next couple of weeks.
Three-part drill that can get you there are :
- Get Clear
- Get Current
- Get Creative
Get Clear
Gather up all the loose ends that have been generated in the course of your busy week. To get Clear -
→ Collect Loose Papers and Materials
→ Get “In” to Empty
→ Empty Your Head.
Basically Capture all your open-loops.
Get Current
Eliminate outdated reminders in your system and get your active lists up-to-date and complete
Here are the Steps
→ Review “Next Actions” list
→ Review Review Calendar Data
→ Review Upcoming Calendar Data
→ Review “Waiting For” list
→ Review “Projects” list
→ Review “Waiting For” list
→ Review and Relevant hecklists
Get Creative
If you in the process of reading and applying any of these techniques have had nay kid of “Aha!, That reminds me off..” or “Hmm, I think I might want to…,” then you are already demonstrating the naturalness of the process.
Here are some triggers that you might find valuable to finish off this process.
→ Review “Someday/Maybe” List
→ Be Creative and Courageous
You have some creative, thought-provoking, risk-taking ideas you can capture and that to your system.
The Right Time and Place for the Review
David recommends that you block out tow hours early in the afternoon of your last workday
- The events of the week are likely to be still fresh enough or you to be able to do a complete postmortem.
- You’ll still have time to reach out to people before they leave for the weekend.
- It’s great to clear your mental decks so you can go into the weekend
But It all depends on your personal workflow that when and where will you do the Review.
The “Bigger Picture” Reviews
At some point you must clarify the larger outcomes the long term goals the vision and principles that ultimately drive, test, and prioritize your decisions.
Urging you to operate from higher perspective is, however it implicit purpose — to assist you in making your total life expression more fulfilling and better aligned with the bigger game you’re all about.
“In Order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion” — Albert Camus
We can always use a refreshed view of our visions, values and objectives, indeed. But in my experience you’ll resist that conversation with yourself if you don’t think you’re handling he world you’ve already created for yourself very well!
An additional aspect of this future-thinking dynamic is the value of staying immensely flexible and informal about goal setting.
That’s all nice and good, but it’s 9:22 AM, Wednesday — what do you do?
This is brings us to the next step Engaging.