No time to review? Do this

October 31, 2021

Do you review your tasks and your agenda every week?

If not, make that a habit sooner rather than later.

People will tell you that you should do lots of things. You should wear sunscreen every day. You should exercise to get your heart rate up at least 45 minutes every day, too. And you should regularly reach out to friends you haven’t spoken with in a while. All these shoulds can feel oppressive and can stress you out.

The thing is, weekly reviews will actually lower your stress level and make you feel like you have more time. They will make you feel less overwhelmed.

But what if you know that reviewing weekly would help, but you can’t get yourself to do it?

I discussed this problem with a coaching client this week. They want to review weekly, but don’t usually get around it. They know reviewing will make them feel better, but they also feel that they just don’t have the time for it.

This is a common problem. Here’s my response:

How much time do you have? Can you find 15 minutes?

You’d be surprised at how much clarity you can create for yourself by spending just 15 minutes reviewing what’s on your plate and making a few decisions what you will and won’t spend time on in the coming week.

In 15 minutes, you won’t have time to do a full weekly review in the way that I teach it in my courses or in my coaching program. But you can do a mini-review. You can see which deadlines are coming up, you can estimate how much time you’ll have available for working on important tasks, and you can pick a few important tasks to work on.

If you have 30 minutes, you can spend the extra time cleaning up your task manager. If you have 45 minutes, you can probably process your email inbox too.

The key is not to get sucked into doing work. Reviewing is organizing; it’s not completing tasks. It’s preparing yourself to work more efficiently in the coming week.

Has it been a while since you reviewed? Then take 15 minutes now. You just spent the time reading this email, so surely you can spend another 15 minutes doing at least a mini-review.

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