Weekly Review - GTD® Series Part 3 - Episode #267 of CloudFocus Weekly

Machine transcript generated in 2026 from the episode audio (Whisper speech-to-text with automatic speaker separation). Speaker labels are automatic and may be wrong in places. Timestamps shown every few minutes.

00:10 Jason Atwood: This is the 267th episode of CloudFocus Weekly for the third week of July 2017. This episode is titled Weekly Review, GTD Series, Part 3. I'm your host Jason Atwood, join me co-host. question. Justin Justin have you been how's your joy going? It's going good. It's yeah Looking forward to football season coming up soon.

Justin Edelstein: Yeah, we have some getting excited Yeah, I'm getting really pumped, you know Good times nice good times great.

Jason Atwood: I'm out there though In 90s is it yeah that's been some 90s really and that big storms gonna come tomorrow so All right, so this is the third of the series. of all things GTD. So for those of you newer to the GTD world, I would define the week review as someone who has done 700 of them or something as a time to Stop the world. Stop the motion in the ocean. Don't actually do that because we'd all die. And take some time to yourself and really go through a process On a much more detailed level, I think my weekly review and my tool of choice, talk about that next week, has 21-ish actions. Some of them are silly because they're just, I put them in a sort of like little... like respite so I can keep going and oh I got that little fun one some of them are brand new I added one the other day's so I really still even changing my way to add the other day check my iPhone voicemails because I'll get a voicemail I'll like look at it and then I'll just like I don't do anything with it.

Jason Atwood: So I have to go back until I did I actually deal with that voice. I don't get a lot of voicemails, but one slipped through the crack the other day. Someone called, left a message and I looked at it. But then once you look at it, the little little light goes off and so I just went. So it's just a way to make sure that if, you know, I should have captured it. Should have thrown it into some. into my tool, but I just didn't. And so now I just go through and just look and go, okay, just like I call in here. I call into work every week and just make sure that's empty.

Justin Edelstein: I do not. Well, that's why your inbox is full. I never check my voicemail here at work. If you've called me on that phone. You've made a mistake. I don't even know how you have that number that number doesn't even exist. It doesn't it does exist for me So I exists I

03:40 Jason Atwood: As we were talking about getting on and off wagons on and off. I know week review is something that you have in your past Been a struggle it has and now is probably Your power point your resistance my power point your power point is a power It's your GTD Nirvana? It is. Why don't you talk a little bit about it? So, you have a win, how,

Justin Edelstein: Where. Yeah, so it's a weekend thing for me. I don't put, it is structured insofar as that it is in my tool of choice, which is the same as yours. No coincidence. For sure. and It does have many actions, I don't think it has 21, but it has more than 15. So it's probably between 15 and 20-ish, fine. Some of them are, you know, taking some advice and words of wisdom just to get into it. the first task is very, very simple. Which is? I tweet that I'm doing it. Oh, that's right. Yes, you do that. I do that every week. If you follow me on Twitter, you will see every week on the weekend, generally on a Sunday in the morning, you will see that I am doing my weekly review.

Justin Edelstein: You can check if I'm doing my weekly review if you just look at And I'm in the weekly review and I get to check off the first things. It's really simple and easy. I tend to Because I know generally what I want look at and review In a less structured way. I tend to do a lot of things Prior to the weekly review just a pre not really not really pre review but more like Whereas in my review, I more just want to look at things and not necessarily do things. Right. We'll talk about that, I think, as we go, as we go on in this podcast, what the purpose of the weekly review isn't necessarily to get things done, oddly enough. It's more to review and plan and move forward. It's all like pre-empt on Saturday with things that Maybe belong in a weekly review like go check and look at certain things reports or you know Flag emails or what have you just to see if there's anything that I need to like really do But I tend to again Sunday morning Put on a little music Make sure that that's flowing.

06:50 Justin Edelstein: Tweet out that I've started my weekly review and then hop right into it from there.

Jason Atwood: Mine is start mood music. So then I'll just pick whatever I want to play and start in. And then I get into the beginning of my thing. is going through all the inputs and I put some ice in there. You know, whatever. And I have apparently have a lot of them because I consider them places that there might be hidden things. Things that that could slip through. So I will check home voicemail, work voicemail. I have my phone voicemail, I empty my wallet, right, in case I stuff something in there during the week. knowing I go to the box. I look at my tool of choice. I look at my man. I look at my man. I,

Justin Edelstein: The first, you know, of mine, how many, a

Jason Atwood: Again, for the week review and maybe for the capture is there are so many inputs to life. All my mail goes into my physical inbox on my desk, and one of my tasks is to clear that out. So at the the I You know how much of I that. That's why I have all the steps is because I know I'll get through them all But I might take two hours to do it or three or might go to the gym and come back and finish it off Because it's all the steps are not they're not Independent I just need to get through them. I feel terrible if I do I don't not do it We give you but sometimes I'm traveling and just pound through it on the plane, home. Cause I got an hour and I got no other time to do it.

10:43 Jason Atwood: Okay, so I can't check my work voicemail and I can't do this and I can't do that and I can't, I know I'll get to it next week. Like,

Justin Edelstein: Tell me. That's why I do a lot of Saturday stuff. Like I, I mean, if someone were to ask me like, when do you do your weekly read? Say I do it on Sunday mornings. Right. All right. I do it on Sunday mornings because I wake up and she's sleeping I got nothing else to do I'm just going to do my weekly review I can just I lay on the couch So I'm literally laying there with my laptop on my gut. And I've got music either playing via Alexa or via Apple Music just straight out of the laptop. And... Again, going back to why I do some of this stuff on Saturday is I purposely capture things that I know I want to do within a week. and I put the due date on Saturday.

Justin Edelstein: Because I know I'll have that time to do it on Saturday. In that tool of choice. That's right. I will do it Saturday. Things that just end up in my inbox with no date, those get cleared out during the weekly review. Not necessarily looking at those at that moment in time. Right. Those are things I've literally just. thrown against the wall. Right. And during my weekly review, I get to see what sticks. Right. And if some of it doesn't stick, I just check it off. Like, yep, did that. Cool. Fine. I don't even want to do that. Some of it gets turned into a project with a next action. Some of it gets thrown into another project. Others is just checking on. things. But I want to make certain that when I am doing my weekly review that I'm not necessarily interrupt.

Justin Edelstein: I don't like being interrupted. I like to just get through it. So I like to say it takes me about an hour. Sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on the week, depending on what's going on, depending on the upcoming week. and what is going on in my calendar and the calendar is a big part of my week of review because I'm looking at you know what what did I just do last week like wow that was a blur right what I do let me reflect on that for so so that is

Jason Atwood: That's part of the actual week review that David Allen you know you're supposed to go previous and next and it's in mine my habit is to do three back. As far forward as I feel comfortable. I have the same,

13:46 Justin Edelstein: I go one back, but I go forward usually a couple months.

Jason Atwood: And do it week by week, do you go day by day, do you go month by month, how do you do that? I view my calendar in weeks. In weeks, okay. Yep,

Justin Edelstein: And I swipe through, my week starts on Sunday. Okay. I think yours is Monday. Yeah, Monday. So, my week starts Sunday. I go Sunday to Saturday, swipe, and looking at all my calendars layered on each other. Work, home, shared. Basically three calendars. right and I'm just trying to, you know, I basically go out. I say like, you know, two, three months, but I'm kind of just looking for like, where is this dying off? Right. Like, where is it trailing off where there's like nothing on the calendar? Well, and the nice thing about and I'm surprised you only back one week, but we'll talk about that. Yeah, I only go back to the previous week.

Jason Atwood: So well, so if you're doing on a Sunday, you only look at the week that that from Monday to Sunday or do you go back the week before that?

Justin Edelstein: So I will go back, no, the previous week. Okay. So if I'm doing my weekly review, and today is Sunday, I'm swiping back one week,

Jason Atwood: Which is last Sunday. And then you're looking at last Sunday, and then you look at this week, the week you just had. Well, how many days you looking at so I'm looking at 21 days saying could I look at seven? Well, then you're only looking back that one week. I just said I go back one week.

Justin Edelstein: Okay, how what about that was not hard I'm going back.

Jason Atwood: It's whether you're looking do you consider the week the day you're doing your week of you on as part of your current week? No No.

Justin Edelstein: No, no, no. No, no, no. No, because your week is Monday through Sunday.

Jason Atwood: My week is Sunday through Saturday. Doesn't matter. I'm looking at 21 days. I'm looking at seven. I go to... That's all. I hit... I don't care what you hit. I'm going back seven days. Yeah, I would... That was something you might want to go back more than once because I have found... that, again, you don't look at it as deeply, but when I go back three weeks, I always find something. So I, again, I look at the week and then I go, you know, whatever, command, back, just swipe. But I go command, back, back, back, or back, back, three backs, and then it's back three. And I just quickly look, and sometimes it's like a vacation goes on or whatever, and then I go, okay, and then I go, and then I actually. I don't actually swipe, I kind of just go day by day and kind of go and just pick through.

Jason Atwood: Again, what you're looking for, what we're looking for is all this stuff that I committed to, did I do, is there still follow ups? I came from that vacation, I said I was going to send somebody a box of chocolates I got on vacation. Like, there's just stuff and it's rare because, A, if I go back three weeks, that means I'm at least looking at every week three times. So it's really rare for someone to kind of not You know not get picked up. Maybe it's a birthday didn't see your babies or I went out with a friend and I'm like Oh, you know what? Maybe I should do another let's do that again.

16:47 Justin Edelstein: Let me ping them I mean I look at my calendar so much That I know like going to going back for me three weeks is a bit over. I mean fine It works for you. Maybe I'll try it this week. I see what happens. Try it. I will but I'll say we kind of missed this in our capture episode now that I'm thinking back a couple weeks The hard landscape of the calendar. Yeah, we'll talk about that in tools. I guess it's it's Could the reason why we're looking at the calendar all the things that you just said it's like You know did anything slip that I or or when i'm looking back at my calendar Oh, whoa, I had a meeting Did I say I was gonna do something in that meeting? Just forces your brain to think about, right, just naturally thinking through, did I, and that's the time to take that step back and say, right, and review it.

Justin Edelstein: Like, did I commit to something during that meeting? Let me go look. Right. Let me just go check. Let me check my notes on that. Oh, I did. Right. By when? Oh, did I capture? Oh, I did. Oh, good. All right. I'm cool. Oh, I didn't? Oh, good thing I reviewed it. Right. Let me grab that now and throw it on Wednesday.

Jason Atwood: I would tell. I would tell. So, as part of my, you know, get my wife to do GTD, which has taken me 14 years, I've gotten down two things. Capture with her. I got her to do capture. We will we and our family say Capture that and that is a thing that happens in the family like all the three of us we talk about How do I like this? Also, it happens in our guests and happens at home I say you got to capture that and out will come phones and like and we use separate tools, but that still happens And I have the tiny little piece of the week review, which is to look, I think I have a look, two weeks or one week ahead every week.-cause like, to me, there's so much stuff coming up.

Jason Atwood: Your life is so complicated. And if you truly treat your calendar like you should, with hard landscapes, that thing is just rife with work and things that you need to be aware of and planning for. And if you're not looking ahead, I mean back is is retro. That's awesome But if you're not looking forward at least two weeks every week you are you're

Justin Edelstein: Failing i'm, sorry There's no way you're not you should not just be doing that during your weekly review Oh, yeah, no like weekly reviews the time to really look at it. You should be doing that all the time.

Jason Atwood: Right. Well, I mean, you're always planning things out for next week. So you're always looking out. But at that time, you are not looking at your calendar. Oh, yeah. Looking at your calendar. I mean, next week.

Justin Edelstein: Right. Well, I mean, that's why I'm, I'm generally in a weekly view of a calendar. Like, I'll never look at my calendar in like a monthly view. There's just not enough detail there. Looking at it in a weekly view gives me enough of a big picture and also enough. detail to let me know like oh here's the things that are actually happening on Wednesday.

19:55 Jason Atwood: So going back to that going back to our first episode on capture like and maybe as a tool maybe as a capture maybe as a weekly view but like the calendar is a great place to capture things like to not tasks but events. and things that you might want to do in the future because I know I was out at this event and someone said, oh, there's this bike race, this like, you know, raising money thing and whatever. Again, don't even don't remember it because I put it in my calendar. It's sometime in October and I put it on the day. I know I'll probably start seeing it whenever, you know, at some point, I'll go my week of review will pounce me three months in advance. I'll see it in August. And then I'll say next month, do I want to do anything with that?

Jason Atwood: But I just threw it on the day because the calendar is as trusted a system for me as the other tool. It actually is. The only thing that's a little different is that the other tool other people control, whereas as our tool, which is what next week, only I control. So one is I know nothing's going to get into my system. But on the other one, there's multiple people can put things in there. Right. So yeah, the calendar I do, I go ahead and I just kind of go until I feel comfortable, basically. So I don't think it's a, I would suggest never going forward one week, two weeks, whatever.

Justin Edelstein: Go forward until, yeah, either. Go forward until you like stop seeing things. Well,

Jason Atwood: That's my thing. It's like, oh, it's trailing off. Or you're like in December and it's July and you're like, oh, okay. Like I've gone too far. Just go until you feel comfortable because sometimes you go ahead and then you see something and then it brings up something else like oh Great. Oh Thanksgiving like I gotta do that If you don't find something while looking at your calendar, you're not doing it, right? Yeah, and your calendars like doesn't know then you're not actually doing the tasks So think is that you you should almost always whether it's here and actually do something about it But you always will find something. That's why generally with you and I will see we'll see when you and I are doing or the other partner are doing weekly reviews, all of a sudden it's a flurry of emails and stuff coming out because you're starting to see stuff.

Jason Atwood: It's like, oh, there's that partner meeting come up. Oh, there's that thing. And, you know, send them emails about what the next action is come out.

Justin Edelstein: By the way, we've, so I, I realized that, you know, while we've been saying, you know, go back and listen to episode 132 for like... We did a whole one on weekly review. We did a weekly review. It's episode 219. Do you want a deeper, deeper dive or you want to re-listen to this one? All right. You can listen to episode 219, which was, you know, I will say it was a little while ago. But that was 83 minutes on weekly review. Yeah, and we also we also talked about the few fighters for Dreamforce 15 during that episode as well So there you go. Well, that's you've written blog posts on blog dot our casink calm about weekly a little weekly review goes a long Way. Yeah was one of them. Wow, you're cross promoting.

Justin Edelstein: Yep. Yep. Yep.

Jason Atwood: Yep Yeah, and I would just say the I guess last thing for week of view because apparently is a lot of content is just don't be Afraid to change it up like it's not It's not something that's just set in stone that is true You should you should definitely tailor it to yourself Because again my week of you shouldn't look like anybody else's because my inputs are different my my actions are different my things that I have in my life are different. It's very customized to me and I keep customizing it to me I will add or delete things. Something's a bit, I don't do that anymore. For a while, I had clear notifications on my iPad because you get all these notifications and sometimes there's something in there. Guess what? I didn't have an iPad for three months, so I took it off because I'm like, I have no iPad to clear my notifications off of.

23:37 Justin Edelstein: Just stuff like that. You can also change your mode. So I have found that... in time at times where it's like I Mean first of all we do review should feel great and you should know just like exercise like it feels great when you're done Right. Yes, but like oh gotta go work out Right. I don't want to go to the gym. Well Know that it's gonna feel good when you're done going to the gym, right? Usually does she was you hurt yourself Same with regular view. It's gonna feel really good when you're done. You're gonna feel super productive. You're gonna feel like, all right, I've got it all planned. I've got it all. In control is what you feel. That's exactly right. Feel free to like, if you're having a hard time getting started on it, like, oh, we Looking over all these things Go to the coffee shop, right?

Justin Edelstein: Take your laptop go to the coffee shop You got nothing else to do when you're sitting there have a nice cup of coffee treat yourself. Yeah treat yourself treat yourself Eat it eat a scone You know right have some tea whatever you want to do plop your laptop in front of you hang out for a while, watch, you'll fly right through it and you'll feel real good afterwards. like the distractions are different and what I can things like running reports and whatever's. Let me dive into these other areas that are more offline. It's also a great place to put things that you want to build habits around.

Jason Atwood: So the partner that should not be named, he puts a lot in his week review that habit forming for their day. If you read them, you'd be like, that's silly. Why is that in your week review? but it's for him to create a habit and to make sure, because again, if you know you're going to do a week review every week, that you can put things in there that kind of make sure that you do them, and they might not actually be week review things. Also, switch it up in terms of time. Sometimes, do a three-hour week review and have it be fun and really just get into it and do a bunch of stuff and stop and do an errand or two. and other weeks do a quick one and just kind of power through like You can't do a week review with people yelling and talking to you.

27:02 Jason Atwood: Because you have to think. So you should have some solitude. That's why going away, and whatever. It's the greatest. I stood out by the lake, and there's nothing there. Close your door. I would say if you're in a pod culture, sometimes trying to do... I used to, when I worked at the company, the show I named, I had my week review have it was Friday mornings. I remember. Yeah. And I closed your door. and and and and and I was there some crazy time. No. And I could close my door and I could be like,

Justin Edelstein: Where no one was bugging me I think is you don't trying to go through all the stuff. If things are fine at a you at that point in time. and I knew what you were doing, because I'd arrive and your door closed and you'd be sitting there doing this. I'm like, alright, he's doing that. As soon as I turn my computer on I'm sure I. I have like 18 emails. Were you doing work and home?

Jason Atwood: Or were you just doing work? I played around a lot with splitting them up. I think at. at but in the beginning I was just doing the work for work. And then the home version at home. I do the home version at home. So I had two weeks previous. So then you,

Justin Edelstein: When you were able to bring a laptop to work to connect up and do your home stuff, you would do it at work?

Jason Atwood: Yeah, so well because then I'd just do the, beA week to do the Right, but you would, I would do it at home at the same and

Justin Edelstein: Of a two year old so it's interesting just to think about those out there you know it's all- I'm compusing right right thinking about your home life at work and reviewing things that you have to do because they do they packed each other so it would have to- thinking through that is is probably weird people to think about like oh I'm at work and I'm

Jason Atwood: Tell me the employee who comes to work and never gets a text throughout the day from their buds about the new thing that came across or doesn't get a text from their SO like the, work life thing is there's no it's all over The map you're at home your boss sends you an email on Saturday you're at work You're, your significant other sends you a text like there's no There's no connection Oh, no jerk and my text. Sorry. I'm sure your sending sending you texts probably so But to me it was just a time is a time I had a nice office? And it was quiet and so it was like a good time to do Q it definitely towards the end of a week seems reasonable I don't think you should be doing it like I don't know Wednesday morning Doesn't seem like a reasonable time to a weekly view.

30:21 Jason Atwood: You want to have a good like chunk? time that you can kind of go through an hour two hours you know something like that and I and I get over in the years I've built up mine I've put in little things I put in little helpers for me to tell me like even like key commands are now in mine so I can actually get to things very quick but I can't couldn't go without it it is All that capture would never work without the weak review. And then you go through and make sure that everything's kind of like buttoned up, that for everything you have in your, your world, that you've kind of made a decision on it. And that's very tough to look at all of your sort of stuff and say, is this something I'm still doing?

Jason Atwood: Am. Am I doing it? Why am I doing it? What is the number? What is the next action? and it's a time also I think to re-negotiate this commitment. Maybe I'm not going to do that thing. I'm not going to go out to lunch with you. Sorry. Anyway, what else? Anything to get anything else? Anything else we could view? We'll go off and we'll come back next week with our tools and tips.

Justin Edelstein: My biggest thing is just to make it easy to get into. Like just make the first couple of tasks super simple so that you can check some boxes. Checking boxes feels good. It's a cycle. Feels good. It's like, yeah, I did that. Cool. Now on to the next thing. I did that. Cool. On to the next thing. Oh, done. Easy. Oh, I'm into this now. And then just like, let that momentum flow and... Also, allow for yourself to be creative in that space. So while you're doing your review and you see things, you should allow for ideas to pop up and you should allow for new creative things that you wanna to do. to be sparked by other things that you see whether it's something that just you know reviewing a note in Evernote or reviewing your calendar and like just seeing something and If it sparks an idea awesome like let that happen That that happens for me a lot during my weekly review.

Justin Edelstein: Oh, yeah all the time Like it's some new some new idea just pops into your head because you're seeing other

Jason Atwood: Go on look at do like you look your calendar two. Weeks out You start seeing like empty spots or you see like oh, I'm going to that trip and then you like oh Let me go look at the hotel I mean That's why my week review ends up being very big is cuz I I'm not strict about the doing because I pick a time that I can But then at the end I feel great So I might have come out of my week review and I might have done a ton of things maybe stupid little things. I also noticed that it's a it's a it's a it's a for me, like the people in my life if I didn't do a week review every week I think you would get a very angry Jason like it really calms me down it makes me feel so in control of things and I can and like that and I do mine Saturday morning like Saturday afternoon I I'm usually just like footloose and fancy freaks I got everything going I got it all happening, like I'm happy.

33:35 Jason Atwood: I also do it Saturday because Sunday in the fall turns into a day I can't do the week review, so I like to get that out of the way. But that would be this thing. All right, well, we'll come back next week in the next episode and we'll talk about all the tools we have not been talking about this whole time that we will actually dig in and talk about all the tools and tips. on next week's episode of CloudFocus Weekly. But until then, hang in there, it's Justin and Jason saying enjoy those cloudy days.