It is another busy week coming up.

One where my productivity system will be tested. Along with my patience for it.

The one thing that holds everything together? The weekly review, but checking items off a list doesn’t solve the problem.

That realization was enough to tweak my setup and make this process something that is harder to skip.

Most people credit David Allen with formally creating and popularizing the weekly review as part of his Getting Things Done (GTD) system.

I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t read it. I own a copy, but found the beginning incredibly dry and never gave it a second change. I’ve grasped enough to know that the GTD system is not for me in total.

Like many other productivity systems though I’ve stolen bits and implemented them into something that works for me. Sometimes.

I listened to a podcast recently with the title “Do I need a better planning system?” With Cal Newport and guest Sarah Hart-Unger. Worth a listen, but they talked all about what makes a system a system. What components there are and the key aspects to making sure you are focusing on the right things.

That is important to me this week. There is no time for dilly dallying.

The weekly review is something I’ve done on and off for the past few years.

Sometimes I’m religious about it, other times it falls out of grace and I manage without it.

For weeks like this, it is a non-negotiable.

I need to be on top of my game.

Sarah argues that a planning system needs three things.

In a way, my setup is not dissimilar.

Looks like this:

As I write this on a Sunday, I have yet to do any one of the 6 steps...I don’t feel behind today, but as Sundays go, I’ve let the day run on vibes.

I accomplished a lot on the YouTube channel, finishing up titles and thumbnails for my next video and cleaning up administrative tasks associated with moving this newsletter to beehiiv, which is my new favorite place to hang out on my desktop.

I love that it is not another social media algorithm for me to manage. While that might hinder growth over the short term, I’m gaining confidence this was the right decision.

I’m writing this a week in advance and loving every minute of it.

Anyways, back to the task at hand, that I’m now actively avoiding as we creep towards dinnertime.

I review my e-mail once every two weeks and clear out my gmail account. My Apple Mail is a disaster. I am highly effective at clearing out gmail with keyboard shortcuts, so if I need a quick win for the day I will start there.

I delete and archive a ton of email.

I get so much AI junk that people want to feature on the channel that I would never accept as a sponsor(though like MKBHD, it might be an interesting idea to say yes to every one of these for a month and document how shitty it is to deal with these companies as the actual video idea 😅).

Otherwise Notes is the most logical place to start.

I’ve been using daily notes in Apple Notes to journal every morning for the past two weeks. There are often a lot of video and newsletter ideas hidden in those notes.

I need a better way to resurface them, but for now, good old manual review will do.

I’ll take those ideas and create individual notes for them and add them to my reminders ideas list.

I have a simple brain. If it is not in reminders, it won’t get done.

I’ve recently reorganized my Apple Notes smart folders. That’s a topic for another newsletter, but I’m working to better differentiate these items with tags as soon as I have the idea, rather than retroactively.

Next up I take a look at my to-do list in parallel with my calendar.

The calendar has all our appointments for the week and work schedules if myself or my wife have to work late, important for kid coverage.

Since I schedule reminders on my calendar for the YouTube channel and newsletter this is best done side by side for me.

This is where I get clear on my week.

Notes are important because they become reminders, reminders get scheduled on the calendar and with my limited time I have to try to be realistic about what I can get done in a given week.

That is the entire system at a high level.

It is not perfect and I am not perfect at implementing it.

There are weeks I do it and weeks I skip it, but over the years I’ve noticed when I do a weekly review, the weeks tend to feel less stressful and I am more in tune with my life.

I found the biggest impact once I stopped checking boxes and started being intentional in my review.

Are you doing a periodic review of your notes, tasks and calendar? What has worked for you?

Let me know with a comment or reply!

AI without context is a waste of time