Workload & wellbeing
Do a weekly review
A weekly habit to close the loops, see the week ahead, and decide what it's for
Once a week, clear your inboxes, look back and ahead on your calendar, update your list, and decide what next week is for.
- 20 to 30 minutes a week
- Just you
- Weekly
- Make time
Why this can work
Loose ends can wear on you even when you're not working on them. A regular review is the one time each week you look at everything, so the rest of the week you can trust that nothing has been forgotten. Finishing by deciding what next week is for turns it from tidying into steering.
Read moreHow to do a weekly review
You’ll come away with clear inboxes, an honest list, and one sentence about what next week is for.
- Block the same time each week.
Twenty to thirty minutes. Friday afternoon suits many people because the week is fresh; Monday morning suits others. The consistency matters more than the slot.
MonTueWedThuFri9 am11 am1 pm3 pm20 min, yours5 pm1.3 hrs a month, for you17 hrs a year you didn’t have beforeSame slot so it stops being a decisionTip: Treat it like a meeting with someone you'd hate to cancel on.
- Clear your inboxes.
Email, chat, notes, scraps of paper, the photo of the whiteboard. You're not answering everything, you're deciding where each thing goes: done now if it takes two minutes, onto your list, onto your calendar, or gone.
- Look back, then ahead, on your calendar.
Last week's meetings often left promises behind; catch them now. Next week's show what needs preparing, and where there's no room at all.
- Update your list.
Cross off what's done, add what's new, and make sure every project has a clear next step. Anything you're waiting on from someone else gets a line too.
- Decide what next week is for.
One or two sentences: the thing that would make next week a good one, and when on the calendar it will happen.
Tip: Write it where you'll see it first thing Monday.
Good times to repeat it: every week, at the same timebefore a week offafter a week that got away from you
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Expect it to take closer to an hour while you catch up. After that it shrinks, because there's only a week to look at.
What might make this harder
Busy weeks are when it pays most. Do a ten-minute version: inboxes and next week's calendar only.
Questions people ask
What is a weekly review?
A regular block, usually about half an hour, to clear your inboxes, check your calendar and task list, and decide what the next week is for. The habit comes from David Allen's Getting Things Done.
When is the best time to do a weekly review?
Whenever you'll reliably protect it. Friday afternoon helps you close out the week; Monday morning helps you start it. Pick one and keep it.
How long should a weekly review take?
Twenty to thirty minutes once it's a habit. If it regularly runs much longer, trim the steps rather than skip the review.
What should I ask myself in a weekly review?
What got done, what's still open, what's coming, and what would make next week a good one. The last question is the one that turns a review into a plan.
Why this works, and where it comes from
Plenty of weekends are spent with work still humming in the background: an email you meant to answer, a promise from Tuesday's meeting, a deadline you half remember. The review is less about getting organized than about being able to stop. Once you've seen everything and decided what happens to it, most of it can be put down.
The weekly review comes from David Allen's Getting Things Done, where it's the habit that holds the rest of his system together. Allen's version moves through getting clear, getting current and getting creative, and it's thorough. You don't need the whole system for the habit to help. A regular half hour of looking at everything, then choosing, does much of the work.
The most valuable step is the last, deciding what next week is for, and it's the one people skip because it doesn't feel like tidying. Without it, next week gets decided by whatever arrives first on Monday. With it, you start the week knowing the one or two things that would make it a good one, and you can see early when the calendar leaves no room for them, while there's still time to ask for help.
If your review keeps turning up the same overflowing list, the habit is doing its job: it's showing you there's too much. More reviewing won't fix that. Take the list to your manager and ask which parts matter most. Dreading the review because of what it shows is worth taking seriously, since that feeling is about the job rather than the habit.
Other simple things to consider
What to do next
More in Workload & wellbeing
A few minutes that compound
Do it with Truest and it goes on your permanent record, in a Career Vault your employer doesn’t own.
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Written by Truest, based on Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (David Allen). Last updated September 25, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.