… starting from the point where the story stopped.
Reflecting – the power of the Weekly Review
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.David Allen
According to the author, Reviewing your system on a regular basis, reflecting on the contents, and keeping it current and functional are prerequisites for that kind of clarity and stability.
In other words, to support appropriate action choices
, your system must be kept up-to-date.
This is what this step – reflect – (and chapter 8) is about.
What to look at and when?
Your calendar (and daily tickler folder; see part 7) and your actions lists are the two things in the system you’ll need to refer to more than every couple of days.
Of course, the former needs to be trustworthy and the latter current.
As for the other lists, you will have to access them based on the context – The Right Review in the Right Context
as the author puts it.
A few seconds a day is usually all you need for review, as long as you’re looking at a sufficient amount of the right things at the right time. David Allen
Updating your system
The biggest challenge then is to keep the trustworthiness of the whole organization system
. The problem is that There is simply no way to [capture, reevaluate, and reprocesse] while you’re trying to get everyday work done.
You will need some dedicated time to get up to the project level of thinking, the so-called Weekly Review.
- Weekly Review
- Whatever you need to do to get your head empty again and get oriented for the next couple of weeks. It’s going through the steps of workflow management—capturing, clarifying, organizing, and reviewing all your outstanding commitments, intentions, and inclinations—until you can honestly say, “I absolutely know right now everything I’m not doing but could be doing if I decided to.”
The first part is to get clear, that is to go through the first three steps – capturing, clarifying, and organizing – to ensure that all your collected stuff is processed.
The second part consists in getting current. David Allen describes many steps in detail, but the idea is simply to eliminate outdated reminders in your system and get your active lists up-to-date and complete.
The last part is about getting creative, which seemingly happens to some degree automatically, as you get clear and current.
The many years I’ve spent researching and implementing this methodology with countless people have proved to me that the magic key to the sustainability of the process is the Weekly Review.David Allen
The next horizons review
This review is about refreshing your visions, values, and objectives that ultimately drive, test, and prioritize your decisions.
You need to assess your life and work at the appropriate horizons, making the appropriate decisions, at the appropriate intervals, in order to really come clean. That’s a lifelong invitation and obligation to yourself, to fulfill whatever your unfinished destiny or intentionality happens to be.David Allen
“When? How often?”Only you can know.
To be continued…