The Weekly Review is a fundamental component in GTD. Next up, when you master the basics, you should start thinking about Focus Horizons. This will take your productivity and your personal drive to the next level.
This is part two of a two-part series describing my Todoist GTD setup. If you haven’t read the first part, I would recommend that you start here: My Todoist GTD setup – Part 1: Projects, contexts, and actions.
Weekly Review
Confession: I used to really struggle with my weekly review. I had trouble starting, and I almost never did a 100% complete weekly review. I had blocked off time on my calendar, and I had my weekly review checklist in Evernote. Yet, for some reason, those Friday afternoons became procrastination time. This all changed when I made it into a project in Todoist.
Struggling to get the big tasks done? Read my blog post: Make room for work.
The weekly review is the one item in GTD that I think a lot of people are struggling with. Take the time, crack the code, figure out how to do this your way.
An essential part of my Todoist GTD setup is the way I have broken down my weekly review. I have set up my weekly review as a project in Todoist. This is a project with recurring tasks, weekly, biweekly, and monthly. I find that this makes it so much easier to get the weekly review done.
Bonus: If you want my Todoist GTD Weekly Review project as a file ready to be imported in Todoist, just fill in your email address and hit the Send button below.
[bctt tweet=””If you are not doing weekly review you are not doing GTD” – David Allen”]
Start the weekend with a smile
Every Friday I will find my weekly review tasks in between my other tasks that day. The practical implication of this is that now I’m able to do the simplest tasks in the morning, something that I find makes me feel productive and sets a positive tone for the rest of the day.
Another benefit of starting the weekly review earlier is that I’m able to deal with any urgent findings as they show up, and still have time to finish my weekly review before I go home. The best thing is that I can leave work with a smile on my face, knowing that I’m in total control.
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It should all start with focus horizons
It may seem counter-intuitive to have this section at the end, but there is a good reason for that. If you are new to Getting Things Done, you probably have not dived into the concept of focus horizons yet. That is fine, just know that when you do, you probably need to restructure most of your projects.
If you have been doing GTD for a while without using what David Allen calls the six Horizons of Focus, you are seriously missing out on one of the most powerful aspects of the Getting Things Done methodology. For more information on focus horizons, read my blog post; GTD Horizons of Focus A Framework for Success.
I have implemented focus horizons both professionally and privately. This means that I have defined my purpose in life as well as what values that are important to me. I have a vision of where I want to go, both in my work and in the rest of my life, and I have a plan for getting there.
To get focus horizons into your Todoist GTD setup can be a little tricky. I have solved it by setting up a project with subprojects to imitate the different focus levels. Due to the highly personal aspects of my Focus Horizons, I have not included any images in this post.
GTD Horizons of Focus – A framework for success
Read More
I hope that you have found these two blog post about my Todoist GTD setup useful. If you have any feedback or questions, please use the comment field below.
I’d be interested in some screenshots of a sample of how you implemented the HOF using todoist (since you’re unable to share your own). I’ve never seen it effectively executed, and with complex setups as such have seen people spend to much time on list maintenance than actually doing the tasks (kind of a procrastination on steroids)
Hi Dan,
Thank you for your feedback.
You’re in luck. I’m going to publish a blog post tomorrow that covers this exact thing. It is the last in a series of three posts about GTD Horizons of Focus.
Stay productive!
Bjørn Christian
I checked out your GTD template. Pretty cool stuff, very useful. However, the main project CSV doesn’t appear to have anything in it. I tried importing it a couple times to make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong, but there’s nothing in it.
Hi Dave,
Thank you for your kind words.
It looks like I have re-structured my project setup and forgot to update the email. I’m sorry!
Just skip step 3, then everything should be OK.
Where is the template? I signed up but can’t find them.
Hi Adolfo,
Thank you for reading my blog. You should get an email with links and instructions. If you cannot find it, please check your spam folder and try one more time. Please let me know If the problem persists.
Regards Bjørn Christian
Hi Bjørn,
I’m always curious to see GTD implementation from fellow GTDers. Have you checked out the official GTD+Todoist guide from GTD website?
Keep up the good work.
Hi Ridwan,
Thank you for reading my blog. Indeed I read the guide just before it was released. The guide explains two options for setting up Todoist for GTD. One is more or less based on the same set-up as I describe. The other is turning things around, using the projects in Todoist as lists. Personally, I think that this can only work if you have a very limited number of projects and actions.