This article was originally published in The Simplifier #4.1.

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Making the Most of Your Week with Planning & Review

by Shawn Tuttle

"I’ve watched enough Discovery channel – it’s my turn!"

That’s the last thing you remember thinking before being pushed out of a plane over the Amazon jungle with a parachute strapped to your back.

Whether trying to increase your client-base, landscape your yard, or navigate your way out of the rain forest, periodically sizing up your surroundings and mapping the next leg of your journey is crucial for success.

While jungle survival demands more frequent assessment, in normal life, a Weekly Planning and Review (P&R) session is just the tool to keep you on track.

Weekly Planning and Review

Why is the P&R session so important? No matter your intention as you start your week, distractions happen. Whether of critical importance or time-wasters, distractions pull your attention from your desired destination. Planning and reviewing gets you back on track.

Planning – Assessing your current projects in the context of new priorities, next week’s schedule, and shifted resources keeps the "real" in reality.

Review – Acknowledging your progress gives you well-deserved satisfaction and informs you in determining next steps.

Pre-requisites to doing your own P&R

You’ll want to have the following underway before doing a P&R session:

Goals. Big or small, desirable destinations are crucial! They provide energy in the form of motivation to help you persevere when the going gets rough and the ants get gigantic. Learn more about setting goals here.

A master project list. If the goal is to cross the tributary of the Amazon River, then projects are the stepping stones bridging the shores. You can think of the master project list like a bookmarking of all the projects and commitments in your life. This doesn’t mean that you’ll work on all of them every week, but your list will help you keep your eye on what’s important to you–now and in the future.

If you don’t have a master project list, no problem! It’s easy to create. Simply list all of your projects, sub-projects and commitments. The list is likely to be long. For example five of mine are:

-Create workshop handouts
-Write newsletter article
-Farmers Market Board Member
-Complete 2009 tax return
-Plant spring veggies

No matter whether your list is on paper or on computer, make sure that it’s easy to access and update.

Once you have goals to work toward and projects to help you make progress, then it’s time to try the Planning and Review session.

My challenge to you: Commit to Weekly P&R for one month (that’s just four times) as a trial run. Put it in your schedule as an appointment and treat is like you would a date with the most important person in your life. If you use a digital scheduler, you can set an alarm for a reminder. I believe you will see such positive results that you will eagerly continue with it.

Let’s get to it. We’ll start with the beginner’s level challenge…

Level #1 Assess your status and check your route (15-30 minutes)

1. Update Master Project List
   • Remove completed projects.
   • Add new projects (you might also add these during the week as they pop up).
   • Decide which projects to work on next week.
2. Identify the next action item for each project chosen.
   • Put these next actions on next week’s ToDo list.
   • If it’s something that needs to be scheduled, then schedule it.
3. Scan next week’s schedule for reality check.
   • Are there any appointments that you still need to prepare for (that aren’t on your project list)?
   • Do you need to schedule post-meeting download time?
   • How about clean-up or catch-up time?

If all this is new for you, just do the above status assessment and route check. Leave the below levels out of the equation until doing the first one becomes easy.

Once you’ve mastered Level #1, you’re ready to add the next level to your weekly session.

Level #2 Do a freshness review (10-20 minutes)

Tools get rusty and dull without regular maintenance; then, when you go to use them, you may find that they aren’t sharp enough for the task at hand. That’s why it makes perfect sense to integrate a freshness review into your weekly session.

• Review undone tasks. Can any be deleted? Do any need to be broken down into smaller actions? Are any formerly "not that important" tasks rapidly reaching critical status?
• Review your “Waiting for” / “Pending” files. (These are where you track ToDos that you’ve delegated to another or things you are waiting for, for example, you signed up for a workshop last week and still haven’t received a confirmation or been sent the directions.) Is any follow up necessary?
• Review "Current projects" files. Are any no longer current?

Level #3 Ascendance to Nirvana! (30-60 minutes)

This is super-advanced. For the Natural Professional, this sort of mastery of the elements starts to automatically integrate into your flow. But for the rest of you, it might be a good idea to set time aside weekly to keep up on these – keeping in mind the below warning. (If this stuff feels way beyond your reach, perhaps you haven’t tried my Zapper.)

• Desk clear.
• Paper inbox emptied.
• Email inbox emptied.
• Other horizontal surfaces clear.

Warning: While it is very enticing to skip directly to Level #3 because we see the clutter and are faced with it daily, doing this totally defeats the purpose of the weekly P&R session. By all means, schedule time to clear the backlog off your desk and out of your inboxes, but do not sacrifice P&R to do so! When we are busy, the first activities we tend to chuck out the window are those involving Planning and Review. This is such a shame because they are so incredibly important for getting where you want to go!

Done regularly, P&R sessions will help you hack your way through the jungle more quickly and easily. You’ll feel more peace while getting more done. You’ll be more confident in your progress. Your loved ones will be healthier, happier and more attractive. Sex will be better, the sun will shine more brightly, world peace will reign!… OK maybe not all that, but there’s no doubt that Weekly P&R keeps you on track to where you want to go.

It can be easy to forget that you design your life by your goals. No matter how focused you are, your momentum is not immune to distractions–they are a fact of life. Regularly reassessing your status and the projects on your plate help you keep from getting tangled in the vines of distractions and dismay. Jumping out of a plane and into the Amazon might not be your thing, but whatever your goals, remember that there are methods at your disposal that will make them easier to achieve.

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Shawn Tuttle is founder of Project Simplify.