Weekly Review
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30s Summary
Field tested strategy to save up to 4 Hours per week
Weekly Review
Summary: Field tested strategy to save up to 4 Hours per week.
Main Outcome: Enhanced time management.
Top Benefit(s): Better prioritization and goal achievement.
Next Steps: Implement a weekly review process in your routine.
Duration: 45 minutes
Target Audience: Professionals
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Weekly Review
Advice on setting realistic and achievable goals, even in high-pressure environments.
Overcoming Anxiety at Work
Summary: Strategies for reducing workplace anxiety and creating a secure environment for all employees
Main Outcome: Reduced workplace anxiety
Top Benefit(s): Improved overall mental health and productivity
Next Steps: Implement stress-reduction techniques and monitor their effectiveness
Time to Complete: 30 minutes
Target Audience: All employees, Mental health advocates
2 Choose the right process based on your available time.
| <45m | <15m | <5m | Step | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Build your priority list | 1 | 1 | Brainstorm ("Present") | |
| 2 | 2 | Goals ("Future") | ||
| 3 | 3 | Previous weekly review ("Past") | ||
| 4 | 4 | Clean Up Calendar | ||
| 5 | 5 | Measure Capacity | ||
| 2. Sort out all priorities | 6 | Sort out all priorities | ||
| 7 | Adjust workload and make S.M.A.R.T | |||
| 8 | Flag/commit actions: TO DO vs NOT DO lists | |||
| 3- visualize | 9 | visualize your week | ||
| 10 | 8 | 3 | Adjust priorities and workload | |
| 3- Plan your priorities | 11 | TO DO list create time slots in calendar | ||
| 12 | NOT DO: cancel, reschedule, decommit, delegate | |||
| 13 | Clean Up Calendar | |||
| 4-Reality Check | 14 | 5 | 1 | Visualize with your gut |
| 15 | 6 | Visualize with your hurt | ||
| 16 | 7 | 2 | Visualize with your brain | |
| Benefits | Weekly Planning | Daily Planning | Daily Visu |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | <45min | <15min | <5min |
| Saving | 6Hrs / Week | 1Hrs / Day | 30-50% less stress |
| Step | 16 | 8 | 3 |
| Ensures alignment with your annual goals (higher productivity) | xxx | xx | x |
| Reduces your level of stress, anxiety and triggers | xxx | xx | xx |
| Helps you to SAY NO more often without feeling guilty or scared of | xxx | xx | x |
| Increases your work life balance, more time with family no thinking of work | xxx | xx | xx |
3 Weekly Review Process (45 min)
Best for Weekly Planning reviews (Friday night or Monday morning)
| <45m | Step | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Build your priority list | 1 | Brainstorm ("Present") | Close your eyes, breathe deeply 3 times, then ask yourself "what are my top priorities next week?" and write answers as they come in a note. |
| 2 | Goals ("Future") | Look at your agreed upon goals (monthly, yearly) and ask yourself: "What would be an action I could spend time on next week to contribute to achieve these goals?" And add what comes up to the previous list. | |
| 3 | Previous weekly review ("Past") | Copy/paste open actions from last weekly review (not completed actions) to the previous list | |
| 4 | Clean Up Calendar | For upcoming week, remove overlaps, and reschedule/cancel/delegate lower priorities accordingly. | |
| 5 | Measure Capacity | Review your calendar for next week and count how many hours ("N") have no scheduled timeslot yet and which therefore are currently available to schedule. | |
| 2. Sort out all priorities | 6 | Sort out all priorities | highest on top; lowest on bottom |
| 7 | Adjust workload and make S.M.A.R.T | for each task, make is SMART(*) and add in adjacent column the duration in Hours to complete the task. |(*) Specific; Measurable; Agreeable (with other stakheolders involved); Realistic; Time bound | |
| 8 | Flag/commit actions: TO DO vs NOT DO lists | Starting from top, add up combined time of all actions until you reach the number of hours available N and draw a line to split the list oftaks in 2. -TO DO LIST (above the line): All the actions adding to this time N: you will commit to achieve those (color code in green) -NOT DO LIST (below the line): All others actions are either optional ("Orange" color code) or will have to be cancelled, rescheduled or delegated ("Red") | |
| 3- visualize | 9 | visualize your week | **the goal of visualization is to identify events that will trigger higher levels (stress, anxiety, anger...) and adjustyour calendar to reduce both the instances and intensity of these triggers.** Close your eyes, and imagine you are at the movie theater, watching the movie of your upcoming week. Focus on how it feels in your stomach/guts (keep your eyes closed). Make a mental note of those events that are likely to "trigger" you. Visualize what you would like to see or hear thatwould reduce the level and instances of triggers. |
| 10 | Adjust priorities and workload |
Adjust your priorities to reduce, manage these potential triggers: 1) if stressful, plan time in Calendar to prepare more or calm yourself down (walk, meditation, read a list of your wins...). 2) if misaligned, seek clarification from stakeholders; 3) If positive (energizing, motivating...), take a mental picture and wish yourself to retrive it when preparing the event ** the power of visualization is that you have time to manage your potential trigger when you are not triggered so they do not happen; for more info on how to manage triggers, contact our website.** |
|
| 3- Plan your priorities | 11 | TO DO list create time slots in calendar | Create timeslots for each priority/ task from your TO DO LIST |
| 12 | NOT DO: cancel, reschedule, decommit, delegate | For NOT DO tasks, provide notice to affected Stake holders accordingly, which will reduce the level of stress coming from letting others down, because there is still time for all stakeholder to adjust their course of actions. Successful strategies: decommit, deprioritize, delegate, reschedule, cancel, do nothing (30% get solved by others who dont really know how to manage their time) | |
| 13 | Clean Up Calendar | Ensure there is no overlap; Protect timeslots for "Recovery timeslots", "Strategic Planning", "lunch", "Weekly Review", "Daily Review", "Personal Development"... and all your recurring routines. |
|
| 4-Reality Check | 14 | Visualize with your gut | Same as #9: **the goal of visualization is to identify events that will trigger higher levels (stress, anxiety, anger...) and adjust your calendar to reduce both the instances and intensity of these triggers.* ** Close your eyes, and imagine you are at the movie theater, watching the movie of your upcoming week. Focus on how it feels in your stomach/guts (keep your eyes closed). Make a mental note of those events that are likely to "trigger" you. Visualize what you would like to see or hear that would reduce the level and instances of triggers. |
| 15 | Visualize with your hurt | Look at your calendar, and imagine you spend 100% of your time as planned. What are the most valuable achievements? When you think of your annual goals, visualize those that will be moving forward with the actions you are planning to? When you think of the lessons learnt from last week, what are you learning that would require some adjustements for your upcoming week? | |
| 16 | Visualize with your brain | Look at your calendar, and imagine you spend 100% of your time as planned. What are the most valuable achievements? When you think of your annual goals, visualize those that will be moving forward with the actions you are planning to? When you think of the lessons learnt from last week, what are you learning thatwould require some adjustements for your upcoming week? | |
4 Weekly Review Process (15 min)
Best for Daily Planning reviews in the morning
| <45m | Step | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Build your priority list | 1 | Brainstorm ("Present") | Cose your eyes, breathe deeply 3 times, then ask yourself "What are my top priorities next week?" and write answers as they come in a note. |
| 2 | Goals ("Future") | Look at your agreed upon goals (monthly, yearly) and ask yourself: "What would be an action I could spend time on next week to contribute to achieve these goals?" And add what comes up to the previous list. | |
| 3 | Previous weekly review ("Past") | Copy/paste open actions from last weekly review (not completed actions) to the previous list. | |
| 4 | Clean Up Calendar | For upcoming week, remove overlaps, and reschedule/cancel/delegate lower priorities accordingly. | |
| visualize your week | 8 | Adjust priorities and workload | Adjust your priorities to reduce, manage these potential triggers: 1) if stressful, plan time in Calendar to prepare more or calm yourself down (walk, meditation, read a list of your wins...). 2) if misaligned, seek clarification from stakeholders; 3) If positive (energizing, motivating...), take a mental picture and wish yourself to retrieve it when preparing the event. **The power of visualization is that you have time to manage your potential trigger when you are not triggered so they do not happen. For more info on how to manage triggers, contact our website.** |
| 4-Reality Check | 5 | Visualize with your gut | Same as #9: **the goal of visualization is to identify events that will trigger higher levels (stress, anxiety, anger...) and adjust your calendar to reduce both the instances and intensity of these triggers.* ** Close your eyes, and imagine you are at the movie theater, watching the movie of your upcoming week. Focus on how it feels in your stomach/guts (keep your eyes closed). Make a mental note of those events that are likely to "trigger" you. Visualize what you would like to see or hear that would reduce the level and instances of triggers. |
| 7 | Visualize with your brain | Look at your calendar, and imagine you spend 100% of your time as planned. What are the most valuable achievements? When you think of your annual goals, visualize those that will be moving forward with the actions you are planning to? When you think of the lessons learnt from last week, what are you learning that would require some adjustements for your upcoming week? | |
5 Weekly Review Process (5 min).
Best for Daily Visualization in the morning (for the upcoming day) or at night (for the past day)
| <5m | Step | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|
| visualize your week | 3 | Adjust priorities and workload | Adjust your priorities to reduce, manage these potential triggers: 1) if stressful, plan time in Calendar to prepare more or calm yourself down (walk, meditation, read a list of your wins...). 2) if misaligned, seek clarification from stakeholders; 3) If positive (energizing, motivating...), take a mental picture and wish yourself to retrieve it when preparing the event. **The power of visualization is that you have time to manage your potential trigger when you are not triggered so they do not happen. For more info on how to manage triggers, contact our website.** |
| 4-Reality Check | 5 | Visualize with your gut | Same as #9: **the goal of visualization is to identify events that will trigger higher levels (stress, anxiety, anger...) and adjust your calendar to reduce both the instances and intensity of these triggers.* ** Close your eyes, and imagine you are at the movie theater, watching the movie of your upcoming week. Focus on how it feels in your stomach/guts (keep your eyes closed). Make a mental note of those events that are likely to "trigger" you. Visualize what you would like to see or hear that would reduce the level and instances of triggers. |
| 7 | Visualize with your brain | Look at your calendar, and imagine you spend 100% of your time as planned. What are the most valuable achievements? When you think of your annual goals, visualize those that will be moving forward with the actions you are planning to? When you think of the lessons learnt from last week, what are you learning that would require some adjustements for your upcoming week? | |
6 Process (refer to template ).
“Read Me First” that details the process
| Title | Weekly Review process |
| Title | 45 minutes |
| Link | 6 minute Tutorial video |
| <45m | <15m | <5m | Step | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Build your priority list | 1 | 1 | Brainstorm ("Present") | Close your eyes, breathe deeply 3 times, then ask yourself " what are my top priorities next week?" and write answers as they come in a note. | |
| 2 | 2 | Goals ("Future") | Look at your agreed upon goals (monthly, yearly) and ask yourself: " What would be an action I could spend time on next week to contribute to achieve these goals?" And add what comes up to the previous list. | ||
| 3 | 3 | Previous weekly review ("Past") | Copy / paste open actions from last weekly review (not completed actions) to the previous list | ||
| 4 | 4 | Clean Up Calendar | For upcoming week, remove overlaps, and reschedule/cancel/delegate lower priorities accordingly. | ||
| 5 | Measure Capacity | Review your calendar for next week and count how many hours ("N") have no scheduled timeslot yet and which therefore are currently available to schedule. | |||
| 2. Sort out all priorities | 6 | Sort out all priorities | highest on top; lowest on bottom | ||
| 7 | Adjust workload and make S.M.A.R.T | for each task, make is SMART(*) and add in adjacent column the duration in Hours to complete the task. (*) Specific; Measurable; Agreeable (with other stakheolders involved); Realistic; Time bound | |||
| 8 | Flag/commit actions: TO DO vs NOT DO lists | Starting from top, add up combined time of all actions until you reach the number of hours available N and draw a line to split the list oftaks in 2.
-TO DO LIST (above the line) : All the actions adding to this time N: you will commit to achieve those (color code in green) -NOT DO LIST (below the line) : All others actions are either optional ("Orange" color code) or will have to be cancelled, rescheduled or delegated ("Red") |
|||
| 3- visualize your week | 9 | Visualize your week | **the goal of visualization is to identify events that will trigger higher levels (stress, anxiety, anger...) and adjust your calendar to reduce both the instances and intensity of these triggers.** Close your eyes, and imagine you are at the movie theater, watching the movie of your upcoming week. Focus on how it feels in your stomach / guts (keep your eyes closed). Make a mental note of those events that are likely to "trigger" you. Visualize what you would like to see or hear that would reduce the level and instances of triggers. | ||
| 10 | 8 | 3 | Adjust priorities and workload | Adjust your priorities to reduce, manage these potential triggers: 1) if stressful, plan time in Calendar to prepare more or calm yourself down (walk, meditation, read a list of your wins...). 2) if misaligned, seek clarification from stakeholders; 3) If positive (energizing, motivating...), take a mental picture and wish yourself to retrive it when preparing the event ** the power of visualization is that you have time to manage your potential trigger when you are not triggered so they do not happen; for more info on how to manage triggers, contact our website.** |
|
| 3- Plan your priorities | 11 | TO DO list create time slots in calendar | Create timeslots for each priority/ task fron your TO DO LIST | ||
| 12 | NOT DO: cancel, reschedule, decommit, delegate | For NOT DO tasks, provide notice to affected Stake holders accordingly, which will reduce the level of stress coming from letting others down, because there is still time for all stakeholder to adjust their course of actions. Successful strategies: decommit, deprioritize, delegate, reschedule, cancel, do nothing (30% get solved by others who dont really know how to manage their time) |
|||
| 13 | Clean Up Calendar | Ensure there is no overlap; Protect timeslots for "Recovery timeslots", "Strategic Planning", "lunch", "Weekly Review", "Daily Review", "Personal Development"… and all your recurring routines. |
|||
| 4. Reality Check | 14 | 5 | 1 | Visualize with your gut | Same as #9: **the goal of visualization is to identify events that will trigger higher levels (stress, anxiety, anger...) and adjust your calendar to reduce both the instances and intensity of these triggers.** Close your eyes, and imagine you are at the movie theater, watching the movie of your upcoming week. Focus on how it feels in your stomach / guts (keep your eyes closed). Make a mental note of those events that are likely to "trigger" you. Visualize what you would like to see or hear that would reduce the level and instances of triggers. |
| 15 | 6 | Visualize with your heart | Look at your calendar, and imagine you spend 100% of your time as planned. What are the most valuable achievements? When you think of your annual goals, visualize those that will be moving forward with the actions you are planning to? When you think of the lessons learnt from last week, what are you learning that would require some adjustements for your upcoming week? |
||
| 16 | 7 | 2 | Visualize with your brain | Look at your calendar, and imagine you spend 100% of your time as planned. What are the most valuable achievements? When you think of your annual goals, visualize those that will be moving forward with the actions you are planning to? When you think of the lessons learnt from last week, what are you learning that would require some adjustements for your upcoming week? |
|
| 1. Build your priority list | "Recovery" timeslots | **Value: reduce stress of feeling always late, especially when distractions and urgent requests hit; gives you an opportunity to rest at the end of the day and not accumulate stress from one day to another (helps with sleep)** Create in your calendar for the last hour of your workday, a recurring 1-hour timeslot called "Recovery," and do not plan over it until the day starts. This timeslot acts as a buffer that works as follows: -you go through your day as planned; when the "urgent" ask or distraction comes your way, you can either: -spend time on it NOW and move all other timeslots of the day down, which will consume the "Recovery" timeslot -or continue with your day and add the urgent task in the TO DO list for the "Recovery" timeslot; when you come to the "Recovery" timeslot at the end of your day, use a timer and spend time on the highest priorities first -if you had no distractions or urgent asks when you start your "Recovery" timeslot, you can choose to either finish your work earlier or work ahead and start one of the timeslots for the next day. |
| Emails management | -Create timeslots just for email management, and close your email box the rest of your time to reduce distractions -For example, use 3 timeslots for email management (9-9.30; 1-1.30 PM; 4-4.30 PM) so 4 hours is the maximum time you won’t see your emails -Process: a) Read new emails and move them to one of your folders (example 1: NOW/SOON/Maybe Later; example 2: Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3, Priority 4; example 3: emails from management, emails from team, emails from key stakeholders, others...). Important to not act on these emails yet. b) Open the folder with the highest priority level, and start with the most important, then the next one until either all emails are dealt with or your timer is off, and you get to the end of the timeslot. c) Celebrate what you have achieved, and visualize yourself doing the other priorities in the next timeslots (to reduce underlying stress). |
|
| Notification Management | The main reason we spend too much time on emails is that we do not want to miss emails that would make us look bad or could impact our performance or how others perceive us. We end up feeling we need to answer any email in a matter of seconds, which comes with a high price (stress, lower productivity...). Meet with your key stakeholders and ask for their support to better manage your time and priorities. For example: -Make them confirm that it is acceptable for you to not read emails for 4 hours, turn your notifications off... -Agree with them about the process if they need to reach out to you within 4 hours (a phone call, come to your office). -Add to your email signature a statement explaining your process to your stakeholders so they know how to reach out to you if it is really urgent. -Plan to follow up with them in your next 1:1 meeting to get their feedback on the new process and adjust accordingly. **This buy-in and support from management will help you feel stronger when it comes to saying no to distractions and protecting your time.** |
|
| Use of color coding and categories in calendar | As much as possible, create recurring timeslots that in theory allow you to meet your highest priorities and goals. Use "category" in your calendar to assign color codes to your events. It allows you to visually assess where you spend your time and ensures you spend enough time on your critical categories ("Lead Gen, Lead Conversion" for Salespeople; "1:1, Personal Development" for Team Leaders...) and also ensures you spend the right amount of time for the right categories. | |
| Track your time for 2 weeks | Sometimes, we are not good at time management because we do not know how long things take. One solution is to track your time for 2 weeks: 1. Use an app like Toggl. 2. Develop the daily habit of adjusting the timeslots of your calendar (time and description) for the past and at the end, compare the time spent to your initial schedule and learn from your time stealers. 3. List your time stealers and quantify them by thinking of your last 2 weeks. A simpler alternative is to estimate the time tasks take when you start a task and compare it at the end with the results. |
|
| no overlap | Ensure there is never ever any overlap so you avoid multi tasking (which consume 30% more energy and is <30% less efficient) | |
| Daily planning review < 15 min | Spend 15 minutes in the morning to go through a similar process to the weekly review, but for the day | |
| Daily visualization <5 min | Spend 5 minutes in the morning or at night to acknowledge your potential triggers (for the upcoming day) or reflect on the triggers for the past day. Because your are not triggered during this process, you can learn to better manage your triggers. |
Template for Weekly Review
| Goal/Category | Action | Workload | Priority | Comments | Next week commitment | capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goal/Category | task 1 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 2 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 3 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 4 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 5 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 6 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 7 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 8 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 9 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 10 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 11 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 12 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 13 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 14 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 15 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 16 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 17 | 0 | 10.5 | |||
| Goal/Category | task 18 | 0 | 10.5 |
Sample showing TO DO and NOT DO lists
| Goal/Category | Action | Workload | Priority | Comments | Next week commitment | Capacity | TO DO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replacement Gerardo | Support HR for offboarding and replacement | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9.5 | TO DO | |
| Replacement Gerardo | Interview replacement Gerardo | 2 | 1 | 2 | 7.5 | ||
| Clinic C crisis | Support Brett | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6.5 | ||
| meet/exceed Sales quota | pipeline problem solving {miss 2M$} | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4.5 | ||
| Networking | Meeting CEO Company B | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3.5 | ||
| Team productivity | Meeting with team on accountability and Weekly review;plus prep | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.5 | ||
| deploy new product 1 | meeting with distributor BCD for contract revire + contract prep | 2 | 3 | 2 | -0.5 | TO DO? | |
| meet/exceed sales quota | weekly review of KPIs | 1 | 3 | 1 | -1.5 | ||
| Prep Town Hall | Prep slide deck | 1 | 3 | 1 | -2.5 | ||
| Product A | Decision / brainstrom : Shall we keep distributor ABC? | 2 | 3 | Part of strategic/Vision | 2 | -4.5 | NOT DO |
| Product 2 | Decision/brainstrom : Go/Stop project? | 2 | 3 | Part of strategic/Vision | 2 | -6.5 | |
| support adoption of new CRM | status meeting with Sales tram | 1 | 3 | 1 | -7.5 | ||
| support adoption of new CRM | status meeting with IT team | 2 | 3 | 2 | -9.5 | ||
| Prep Town Hall | Prep slide deck | 1 | 3 | 1 | -10.5 | ||
| Product A | Decision/brainstrom: Shall we keep distributor | 2 | 3 | Part of strategic/Vision | 2 | -12.5 | |
| Project 2 | Decision/brainstrom: Go/Stop Project | 2 | 3 | Part of strategic/Vision | 2 | -14.5 | |
| support adoption of new CRM | status meeting with Sales team | 1 | 3 | 1 | -15.5 | ||
| Coaching | Coaching Prep/follow up | 1 | 4 | 1 | -16.5 | ||
| Mid Year review | Review new process + pass #1 for team ratings | 2 | 4 | 2 | -18.5 | ||
| Networking | Meeting CMO Company C | 1 | 4 | 1 | -19.5 | ||
| Personal Leadership plan | track my time | 1 | 4 | 1 | -20.5 | ||
| Coaching | Coaching Session | 1 | 4 | 1 | -21.5 | ||
| Coaching | Coaching prep/follow up | 1 | 4 | 1 | -22.5 | ||
| Mid Year review | Review new process + pass #1 for team ratings | 2 | 4 | 2 | -24.5 | ||
| Networking | Metting CMO Company C | 1 | 4 | 1 | -25.5 | ||
| Personal Leadership plan | track my time | 1 | 4 | 1 | -26.5 |
Insightful? Potential positive changes for you?
What are you willing to commit as next steps?
Meet The Author
Ludo Pasquereau
The Founder of Wiser Sooner Coaching
Founder of Wiser Sooner Coaching, Ludo is an ICF Professional Coach (PCC) with over 25 years of experience in leadership roles for project management and business development in engineering-focused industries. Most of Ludo's clients develop the skills and confidence to improve their performance and be
more authentic under pressure, at work or at home.
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