The blog

One of the most valu­able com­po­nents of a struc­tured, effec­tive, per­son­al way of work­ing is the week­ly update.

If you in your every­day life com­plete and add tasks to your to-do-list, cre­at­ing a con­tin­u­ous in and out flow of tasks, it is in itself a good thing. But it often tends to result in a sit­u­a­tion where only the tasks of imme­di­ate impor­tance are com­plet­ed, for exam­ple the most recent­ly added tasks or those some­one recent­ly remind­ed you to do.

There may be tasks here and there in the to-do-list that you added a cou­ple of months ago, which are of vital impor­tance for your busi­ness, but which you couldn’t do any­thing about at the time. Now might be the right time to com­plete such a task and if you do not at reg­u­lar inter­vals go through your to-do-list, it can eas­i­ly get lost in the crowd.

This is where the week­ly run-through comes in. Decide upon a series of con­trol activ­i­ties that you set aside time to per­form every week. Cre­ate a sim­ple check­list you can fol­low so you won’t miss anything.

The run-through may for exam­ple con­tain the fol­low­ing activities:

The Vision

First, skim through the vision you are aim­ing at when it comes to your busi­ness and/​or your pri­vate life. If you are work­ing in a big orga­ni­za­tion it may be eas­i­er to check that every­thing is cor­re­spond­ing in accor­dance to the long term strate­gic goal relat­ed to your own department/​division/​section.

Reflect upon whether the work you have done the past week has been in the direc­tion of the vision. Would you like to focus on some­thing par­tic­u­lar in the com­ing week to put you on the right track again? Is the vision still attrac­tive to you or maybe you have gained new expe­ri­ences which have made you think twice about this long term goal? You might want to adjust the course slight­ly. Or, are you prac­ti­cal­ly there already and there­fore need to cre­ate a new vision? Adjust the vision if you think it is necessary.

What you have got to do

Pull out your to-do-list. Go through all the to-do-tasks and decide which of them that has to be actu­al­ized and there­fore has a high pri­or­i­ty, which ones that are already com­plet­ed, and which ones that has to be removed from the list. Also add new tasks you come to think of while doing this.

What you expect from others

Open your ​”wait­ing for”-list. Go through all the notes on what oth­er peo­ple said they were going to get back to you with or what you have asked oth­ers to do. Con­sid­er if you have to do some­thing to remind them, for exam­ple call or send an email. Remove those notes were the oth­er part has done what was agreed.

Your ongo­ing projects

Go through your overview of your ongo­ing projects and add pos­si­ble to-do-tasks, that is, the next step in each project. Which projects have come to a stand-still, which are com­plet­ed and which ones have popped up with­out you hav­ing added them to your project-overview?

“Some day” or maybe-things

Go through the list of tasks you might even­tu­al­ly do some day, but aren’t cer­tain you ever will get to. One exam­ple might be all those bril­liant ideas that you get now and then, but which have to ​“fer­ment” before you can put them into action. Add, remove, check, actualize.

Your ref­er­ence material

Go through the part of your sys­tem con­sist­ing of ref­er­ence mate­r­i­al that stand in line to be looked over and throw away what has become out of date and irrel­e­vant. If you have got a sus­pen­sion fil­ing sys­tem, you can for exam­ple mark the upcom­ing fold­er with a piece of blu-tac which you move up one fold­er every week. If you are work­ing with ordi­nary binders, sort out one flap a week (of all the flaps you have got in total in your bookshelves).

Your net­work

Go through your con­tact list accord­ing to the sur­names that start with the let­ter that is next in line (that is, one let­ter each week) and con­sid­er if you need to define a task regard­ing keep­ing con­tact with each per­son at least one time every quar­ter, ter­tial or half a year (if you won’t meet sooner).

Your agen­da

Go through the month that passed in your agen­da and one month ahead, and add any pos­si­ble tasks you come to think of when brows­ing what you just did and what’s com­ing up, to the to-do-list.

But why?

The advan­tage of going through the entire to-do-sys­tem once a week is that you feel con­fi­dent that every­thing you need to remem­ber is on the list. You can also safe­ly add tasks you come to think of but don’t want to do right now, since you know you can trust that you will be remind­ed of them at least once a week so that you won’t miss the right oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­plete them.

To be in con­trol of every­thing all the time is a utopia, but to be ful­ly updat­ed at least once a week makes it pos­si­ble for you to focus on your long-term goals, con­fi­dent­ly know­ing that the short-term details are tak­en care of.

What suits you?

There are prob­a­bly more appro­pri­ate activ­i­ties to add to the week­ly run-through. Which ones would you like to have on your checklist? 

Please leave a com­ment below.