My weekly Review Habit

A simple framework for reflection and planning.

Every Sunday morning, I take 2-3 quiet hours to think about how my week went (reflect) and how I will approach the next one (plan). Reflection & planning give structure to my week and life. Without them I drift, react, and lose sight of long-term goals.

A minimal framework

I start with an Obsidian template (I use Obsidian for note-taking, which covers journalling, planning, and writing how-to docs), the template has (roughly) the following structure:

# OKRs
[.. lists of goals ..]

# Reflections
[.. thinking in writing about the past week ..]

# What have I done?
[.. Toggl screenshot of weekly tasks in time ..]
[.. Toggl screenshot of piechart of project-time ..]
[.. Reflection about how it went ..]
[.. An update on past week's list of items to work on ..]

# What's Next?
[.. list of broad tasks for next week ..]

# Tasks
## Monday
[.. list of tasks ..]
## Tuesday
[.. list of tasks ..]
.
.
.
## Saturday
[.. list of tasks ..]

# Backlog
[.. list of deferred tasks ..]

The template should be filled top-to-bottom as I plan and reflect. However, the OKRs section is (purposely) rarely changed. By having the OKRs pre-populated on the top of the doc, the session begins with purpose in view.

Reflections

Next, I examine the Toggl weekly web view report which tells me where the hours actually went and if there are any voids caused by procrastination or drift (I use Toggl for pomodoros and time tracking per task and project).

With the data fresh, I write a short narrative of the week in "Reflections". A few honest paragraphs capture what exceeded expectations, what stalled, and why.

What have I done?

Next, I use the "What have I done?" section to create nested bullets of updates grouped by project. They are blunt verb-first summaries that make progress (or the lack of) obvious. Numbers follow words. The same Toggl export gives the percentage breakdown per project. I paste the chart under the bullets as a second lens on effort versus output.

Next, I review last week's task list, strike through what's finished, and tag anything still open. This clears mental residue before planning forward.

What's Next?

Now I ask, "what goes in the bag for next week?", I start by revisiting my broad OKRs and picking top priorities. I choose the few tasks that push OKRs hardest, list them, then explode each into smaller actions and map them onto Monday through Saturday. The plan is specific enough to start each day quickly and loose enough to bend when life intervenes.

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That's the routine: review the past with data, write a narrative, close the loop, draft the next chapter. It works for me because it's fast, repeatable, and keeps goals in sight. The writing is mostly driven by lists - they're easy to re-order and understand. Once I'm done, I have a rough idea of how the upcoming week should look, though the plan may shift for any number of reasons.

Your context will differ—maybe you want to plan on a different day, using another app, or shorter steps. Adjust freely. This write-up was inspired by Ben Kuhn's post of the same name (https://www.benkuhn.net/weekly/) - worth reading to see another perspective on the practice.