Ep. 373: Different Ways to Review

Summary

---

Getting Things Done Podcast Ep. 373: Different Ways to Review

Host: John Forrester (GTD®)
Date: July 29, 2026
Main Theme: Exploring alternative approaches to the GTD Weekly Review, personal adaptations, and tools that support effective productivity reviews.

---

Episode Overview

This episode is an interactive GTD Connect Office Hours session focused on creative, realistic, and personalized approaches to the Weekly Review and related GTD practices. The conversation features several GTD community members sharing their experiences, challenges, and insights—including how they leverage digital and analog tools, break the review into more manageable parts, and adapt checklists to their own rhythms. Whether you’re struggling to keep up with reviews, looking for fresh ideas beyond the “one hour, one sitting” method, or want to get more value out of the apps you already have, you’ll find a wealth of practical advice and inspiration in this lively discussion.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of the Weekly Review

[01:31]–[04:16] Ridwan shares his renewed awareness from revisiting old GTD training recordings:

• Splitting the Weekly Review: Ridwan recalls David Allen's advice to split the review into two halves (e.g., “Get Current” midweek, and the deeper review on a weekend).
  • "I could actually, you know, like, split the weekly review into say... two halves maybe to... get the current part maybe on a Thursday or on a Wednesday afternoon and then do the actual review on... the Friday or on the Saturday." (Ridwan, 01:57)
• Dealing with Overwhelm: When reviews are overdue, Ridwan sometimes archives everything and starts fresh.
  • "When it got really overwhelmed, I just, you know, like copied everything, put it under archive and then start it again so it was just easier." (Ridwan, 03:41)

2. Breaking Up the Review — Shared Experiences

[06:14]–[08:32] John describes his process:

• Checklists: He prints his Weekly Review checklist every week and works through it, sometimes in multiple sittings.
• Daily Reviews as a Helper: Daily, lighter reviews help prevent backlog and make the weekly process quicker.
  • "If I'm consistent with doing that when it's time for the weekly review, it goes a whole lot faster because I don't have much of a backlog..." (John, 07:33)
• The “Innocent” Weekly Review: John Forrester humorously reframes the review as not to blame for resistance:
  • "I like to think of the weekly review as... innocent. It's not the one to blame."

3. Anatomy of a Daily Review

[08:51]–[10:49] John details his daily review checklist, which is shorter and focuses on:

• Checking the calendar
• Zeroing out multiple email inboxes
• Ensuring no more than five “must-do” next actions for the day
• Maintaining a concise, actionable list
  • "I make sure that I have no more than five or so next actions that need to be done today... settle those commitments early without worrying about them throughout the day." (John, 09:36)
  • Key Tip: Curated lists help keep decision fatigue at bay.

4. Real-world Tool Adaptations & Hacks

a. Reminders App Power-user

[12:25]–[17:06] Mary shares her deep customization of the iPhone Reminders app:

• Agendas as Lists: Subfolders for people, meetings, daily routines—including personal, professional, and even basic reminders
• Recurring Tasks: Uses “press the button, it goes till tomorrow” for recurring daily stuff, reducing mental load.
• Someday/Maybe & Specialized Lists: Uses quarterly prompts to check on long-term or less urgent items (movies to watch, travel ideas, maintenance schedules).
  • "It's not perfect. Nothing is... it's what you put into it and how you're willing to make it work for you." (Mary, 13:53)
  • "The brain... is not for storage, it's for processing, which I use a lot, especially at my job." (Mary, 15:26)
  • Cultural Reflection: Mary notes the original “ideal” of a one-hour review is much harder today with modern digital distractions.
• Memorable Moment: Her team thinks she's “GTD crazy”—which she takes as a compliment!

b. Agendas for Family & Life

[19:33]–[22:29] Ridwan's “Aha Moment”:

• Initially hesitant, but now swears by agenda lists for people (spouse, mom, colleagues).
  • "...once I started sort of, you know, like populating that agenda list... it was amazing..." (Ridwan, 20:23)
• Absolute capture: Now puts all possible items in the inbox, even knowing most will be deleted, reducing mental friction:
  • "I tend to... capture everything onto my inbox... before... I used to be a bit selective... but nowadays I just... put everything into the inbox and... when I actually capture, say like 15 items or like 20 items. I just delete majority of my... captured items. So... that takes a lot of mental stress and bandwidth out..." (Ridwan, 21:46)

c. Experimenting with Review Flows

[24:06]–[29:56] Clayton & others discuss tailoring their review flows:

• Finite Daily Action List: Creating a short, actionable set from a larger pool, filtered during weekly reviews.
  • Process: During the weekly review, review all projects, select next actions, keep the main active list lean, and push less urgent items out.
  • "By the end of that weekly review, I've got that... short list. Now that list will probably be more like 40, 50 items... so what I'll do is I'll spread them out..." (John, 25:22)
• “Parked Actions” Tag: Clayton uses a “parked actions” tag to keep overflow out of view but easily retrievable.

d. Reverse Review Order

• Clayton's Strategy: Does project review before inbox clearing (“Get Clear”); helps avoid overcommitting and keeps system realistic.

  • "If I do get clear, I default towards the yes side of is it actionable? And my system goes... So if I review it first, I'm much more... I've got an axe chopping what I'm allowing into my system because I know what I have loaded in already." (Clayton, 27:29)
  • John Forrester: “I'd never heard that before... So are you saying that doing the review... first helps you say no to things more than yes?”
  • Clayton: “Yes. Wow. Yes.” (28:44–28:49)

• Tip: If you struggle to complete the review, start it every day until you get through—“the only way I actually got to a completed weekly review was just to start one every day until I got all the ... Because David said if you don’t do a weekly review, you’re trying to do it all the time. Well, I might as well do it until it’s done.” (Clayton, 29:07)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The longer we stay away from a weekly review, the harder it is to go back.”
  John Forrester, 03:35

• “It's not perfect. Nothing is. ... It's what you put into it and how you're willing to make it work for you.”
  Mary, 13:53

• “The brain... is not for storage, it's for processing, which I use a lot, especially at my job.”
  Mary, 15:26

• “Once I started... populating that agenda list... it was amazing. Anything I need to... discuss, just put it on the agenda.”
  Ridwan, 19:45

• “If you don't do a weekly review, you're trying to do it all the time. Well, I might as well do it until it's done.”
  Clayton, 29:07

---

Practical Tips (with Timestamps)

• Split Weekly Review Across Days (01:57, 04:16): Do “get current” on one day, deeper review/update another.
• Archive and Restart When Overwhelmed (03:41): Ridwan's method—start fresh if backlog is too stressful.
• Maintain Daily Mini-Reviews (06:25, 08:51): Keeps inboxes and next actions manageable and reduces weekly review resistance.
• Highly-Customized Reminders App (12:25, 13:53): Use built-in apps to create flexible, recurring, and categorized lists.
• Agenda Lists for Relationships (19:33, 20:23): Capture discussion topics to optimize catch-ups and reduce cognitive load.
• Curate “Next Actions” (24:53, 25:22): After weekly review, push less urgent items forward, keep daily list small.
• “Parked Actions” Strategy (27:16): Tag overflow items for temporary removal from the active list.
• Reverse the Review (27:29): Review projects before “getting clear” to avoid overloading the system.
• Complete Your Weekly Review by Doing It Daily, if Needed (29:07): Build momentum and familiarity until it’s routine.

---

Additional Noteworthy Exchanges

• GTD Community Dynamics:

  • “Did I miss something when I signed up? Is this men only?” Mary asks in good humor, highlighting purely coincidental gender balance in this session.
  • “We’re glad to have you here, and just a coincidence also...” John Forrester assures, reinforcing inclusivity.

• The Ongoing Quest for a Perfect GTD App

  • Mary and others reflect that no app is perfect; it's about adapting available tools (Apple Reminders, Todoist, analog binders, etc.) to fit your workflow.

---

Conclusion

This episode offers an in-depth exploration of how real GTD practitioners adapt the Weekly Review—and entire GTD methodology—to meet their evolving needs, lifestyles, and stress levels. The discussion is practical, honest, and refreshingly non-dogmatic, illustrating how GTD's principles foster flexibility, resilience, and stress-free productivity—even (or especially) when life gets messy.

Listeners will finish with:

• Permission to break the “rules” and split up reviews,
• Ideas for leveraging digital (and analog) tools in new ways,
• Motivation to revisit key habits like daily review and comprehensive capture,
• And the encouragement that “done is better than perfect,” especially when it comes to managing your commitments.

---

Transcript

[Clayton]

Foreign.

[John Forrester]

Hi, everyone, this is John Forrester. Welcome to another of our GTD Connect Office hour sessions. As usual, this is a very informal time to just chat about anything related to GTD productivity, whatever might be on your mind about that, and a couple of prompts there for you in case you want something to prime the pump a little bit, which is we love to hear about anything that's working for you. A GTD win, something that's that you either recently learned or has always been working for you. Wins are a lot of fun. Also, challenges. I love a good challenge, especially if it's something we haven't heard before or something new and different in the. In the world. It's shown up because of the way technology has changed or anything like that. So bring on the difficult questions. There's a lot of collective wisdom here. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to all of you. For anybody, have a GTD Office hour agenda list where you noted anything you want to bring. I always like to positively reinforce anybody who works with an agenda list like that.

[Ridwan]

I think, you know, I can actually go. I can start.

[Clayton]

Great.

[Ridwan]

I've been, you know, like, I've been actually listening to the, like, you know, listening to the old GTD weekly review sort of, you know, like that GTD project audio recordings. So I bought that, you know, like, I bought that from the GTD store when I, like when I actually started back in 2012, I think. Like 2012, 2013.

[John Forrester]

Yeah.

[Ridwan]

And today I was actually, you know, like, sort of re. Sort of, you know, like, visiting those files and one of the, you know, like one of the sessions where David. David was actually saying that we could, you know, like, we could actually split our weekly review. And, you know, that was kind of like, that was, you know, like something which I've actually totally forgotten about. And when I, like when I actually listened to it today, I was like, oh, yeah, I could actually, you know, like, split the weekly review into say, you know, like, sort of, you know, like two halves maybe to, you know, like, get the, like get the, like get the current part maybe on a Thursday or on a Wednesday afternoon and then do the actual review on, you know, like on the Friday or on the Saturday.

[John Forrester]

Right.

[Ridwan]

So I suppose, you know, like, I was just. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the big sort of like, takeaways for me is to kind of, you know, like, split the weekly reviews. Because for the past, like, few, like, few weeks, I haven't done a proper weekly review at all. And like, I'm Kind of nervous to go back into my system, to actually go through everything because it's just, you know, too much information up there.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ridwan]

So, yeah, so I think, yeah, that is something I just wanted to just, you know, share and maybe discuss, I suppose.

[John Forrester]

Well, believe me, you're not alone with that. The longer we stay away from a weekly review, the harder it is to go back to it. It's just.

[Ridwan]

It is, yeah. It's been like more than, I think like more than two months, I would say, because I've just been really, you know. Oh yeah. What I did was, you know, like when it got really, like when it got really overwhelmed, I just, you know, like copied everything, put it under archive and then start it again so it was just easier.

[John Forrester]

Sure. Tricks like that can be really helpful. Have you tried splitting the review up into two sessions, whether on the same day or with a break between them? Have you tried that yet?

[Ridwan]

So not yet, but you know, like today, like today I'm gonna. Like today I'm actually going to do the like, going to do the like going to do the get current part because like I'm actually, you know, tomorrow, tomorrow and the day after I'm like, like I'm on holiday so. So I've got some sort of, you know, like free time. So what I was planning to do maybe on Friday was to actually do my weekly review. But you know, later tonight I'll just gather everything, get it all, you know, current and then maybe, you know, like, maybe like I can do my actual review and update my system. I've also, you know, like I've actually, I've got my, like I've got my Todoist app sort of, you know, renewed now. So. So I, you know, like, I guess like, you know, starting fresh is another sort of, you know, like another like. I wouldn't say tip though, but it's kind of like. Like it's kind of one of my. Like it's kind of one of my sort of, you know, the go to strategy where I like to start fresh every. I guess, you know, like every six months or maybe, you know, every, you know. You know, like, you know, every year maybe. Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Ridwan]

Because otherwise I just don't really go in and go through every sort of, you know, if folder or.

[John Forrester]

Yeah, it's easy to get that way. I mean, I remember people used to put post its on their monitors or things like that and after a while they just kind of disappear. It becomes wallpaper rather than a useful reminder. So looking at stuff with fresh eyes is Great.

[Ridwan]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, pretty excited about.

[Clayton]

Oh, good, good.

[John Forrester]

I hope you'll come back and tell us how, how that works. Has anybody else here tried splitting the review into two sessions or over one or two days or anything like that?

[John]

So this is John. And so in my routine, I have my weekly review steps, like a checklist that I print each week. And most of the time I'm able to go through the whole thing in one sitting. But not always. You know, typically the first part is going through all of the inboxes, you know, the virtual and otherwise, and then looking ahead in the calendar and seeing what. What's coming. And anything needs to be prepared for the future, the coming week, and then of course, going through the list. So as I said, usually I can get through it all, but if, if I can't, it's not a big deal because I. I just set the checklist aside and then come back to it when I can. So. And sometimes it does span over more than one day, but not always. But that helps me a lot just to have that trust that I can go back to something that's concrete. I'll go ahead and mention a win. It's somewhat related that something that's really helped me these past few months is to getting back to a. Actually a daily review in the morning. And of course, it's not anywhere near as thorough as a weekly review, but. But what I find is if I'm consistent with doing that when it's time for the weekly review, it goes a whole lot faster because I don't have much of a backlog to work from because I've been keeping up daily with. Trying to keep those. Those inboxes clean.

[John Forrester]

Yeah, that's very smart. I've often said that part of the problem with people resisting a weekly review is because it's more of a reflection on what they haven't done during the week or the month before that with keeping up with getting their inputs at or close to zero regularly, things like that. So I like to think of the weekly review as. As innocent. It's. It's not the one that to blame. Also good to hear about that win. Well done.

[John]

Yep, thank you.

[Ridwan]

So just. Just to clarify on that, you know, like to clarify on that daily review, do you have some sort of, you know, like some sort of a minimum checklist or. Or is it just the part of the, you know, part of the weekly review?

[John]

No, actually I do have a checklist that I work from for the daily review, and it's shorter than the Weekly review.

[Clayton]

But.

[John]

But it's fairly straightforward. I mean, the first thing that's obvious is to look at the calendar, you know, make sure I can remember what I have scheduled for the day. Secondly, I do bring my email inbox to 0 or boxes because I have three or four of them, but I make sure I get those to zero and then. And then scanning a couple of lists. And part of that review is for my next actions. I make sure that I have no more than five or so next actions that need to be done today. And, and typically it's driven by a commitment that I've made to someone or I want to wish someone a happy birthday, or I need to register for a conference because the deadline is today and that type of thing. So it's usually not a lengthy list, but it helps keep me focused on knocking those out first, settle those commitments early without, you know, worrying about them throughout the day. And then, and then the rest of my next action list is something that's curated from the weekly review that's usually no more than 20 or so tasks. So when I need to be focused on that, it's. It's not like looking at a list of a 100 tasks and going through, okay, how much energy do I have and the context and all that business? So it makes it a lot easier to pick the next action. Just go. So, yeah, hope that helps.

[John Forrester]

Hey, Mary. I noticed you raised your hand. You're being very polite with raising the hand. And I wasn't sure.

[Mary]

It's my first one, you know, and I apologize. I wasn't on video at the beginning. I was finishing my lunch and I did. Though I have to say, I'm a little surprised that I am the only female on this call.

[John Forrester]

I saw that too. And I was thinking, wait a minute.

[Mary]

I was starting to think, is, Is this men only? You know, was. Did I miss something when I signed up?

[John Forrester]

Yes, The GTD men's group, we do this once a month. No, not at all. Not at all. It's purely, purely coincidence. I had an email from somebody about a week ago who said, why is it. And I, I looked at it instead. Well, you're right, it's that way. But. And it was something like, how many people were either women or older or younger or something. It was some sort of a demographic thing. And I looked at it and said, I can't tell that there's any reason for that. This was just coincidence over the course of whatever month that was. And I kind of felt like I wanted to persuade this person that we're not trying to target any group that way. So I, I went back and looked at several years of archived recordings and said, here are some links to other, other things. And anyway, we're, we're glad to have you here. And just a coincidence also, you don't need to raise your hand. You can just.

[Mary]

Oh, okay.

[John Forrester]

We're very.

[Mary]

Just talk. Okay, There we go.

[John Forrester]

Just talk. If we get to where we're over talking each other, we can go to raise hands. But it's never happened that we need that kind of rules here. So go ahead.

[Mary]

Good to know. All right, so what I wanted to share and I don't know if I would call it a win, but maybe it's something I do and it's something that everybody. I should say I manage a bunch of people at my job and we actually had DTT training at my job from what's the name of the crucial.

[John Forrester]

Crucial learning.

[Mary]

And they had done it. But I have been a long time gtder when the book first came out, I grabbed it out of the bookstore. Back in the day when there were bookstores. Right. And the book. So I can say I've gone back. Like, what is that? That was 2020 or. No, 20. No, 20. 2001. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I keep making time go shorter. Yes. 2001. And I remember setting it up in the binder. Right. Because you don't need to have a certain application and because work and home, you couldn't do two. So I actually had binders and I actually remember setting that up with the tabs and whatnot.

[John Forrester]

Wow.

[Mary]

But where I've gone with this, and I'm still always surprised that there hasn't been a perfect app created. And part of it.

[Ridwan]

Right.

[Mary]

Is even if there was, chances are I can't use it for even my work or home. Anyway. So, you know, I've learned. But what I have done and I say why I mentioned about my team is my team now thinks I'm totally GTD crazy. So just as a.

[John Forrester]

Well, we think that's a good sign.

[Mary]

I know, right? So I actually use. I have an iPhone. I use the Reminders app, but I have customized that to people thought it was a separate app. They didn't know it was the one that comes with it. Because Reminders allows you to create. So I do have a subfolder called Agendas. And then within that I have the people I meet with or that I might need to tell them something without always interrupting them. So I have that I have things for my job and then certain things that I want to do on a daily basis at my job. And sometimes it's as simple as stupid. Things as reminders. I even have brushed my teeth on my reminders on a day because I find that two things, right? I do like crossing things off. So this isn't crossing things off because I set them as recurring. A lot of things. So I press the button, it goes till tomorrow. So I kind of get through my day with using the reminders. But where I was going with this and where I wanted to share with other people is really take a look at that application. It's not perfect. Nothing is. And I think even David would say, nothing is a perfect app. It's what you put into it and how you're willing to make it work for you. I will say the capabilities of it and the fact that you can set it to do reminders at all sorts of times and do recurring and customize the recurring and create them in categories. I even have a someday maybe list in there, which I put as also to look at once a quarter, just so I remember things. I have my movie list because I'm always never getting to the movies, but I never can remember titles and movies I want to watch on TV when they come out. So I just put it on there. So this way I always have something. So it's, you know, travel list, you know, going to different cities. I put things I may want to do in that city so I don't have to keep the brain, like they say, is not for storage, it's for processing, which I use a lot, especially at my job. I find that this is a helpful tool and everybody's got to use their own thing. But if you haven't tried it, look at it and then really make it a point to look at all the subcategories and you can make it as I have sub, sub, sub. I have people now, my neighborhood, like, going, how do you know how to do stuff in your house? And when you do wish cleaning, I'm like, I have it scheduled. I don't have to think about it anymore. So I have everything, including calling, like, repair people at a certain time, you know, like for the maintenance of things. I have that already preset, so I think that may be a good thing if people haven't tried it. And no, I do not get a commission from Apple for this or anything. I'm just sharing. I find that that helps me. But going back to how I think John started off with this or not John Ridwan started off with doing your weekly review and taking more than one day. I sometimes I think, you know, we're all very behind and I don't think anybody, you know, that perfect one hour to do I think is everybody's up to date and current and has less in their lives. I think that was a good thing maybe 25 years ago when this first started, before phones became on our hips and we have non stop. And as close as it was 25 years ago, it's gotten more so now. So I actually would argue that the hour is actually longer than an hour today. That's my comments.

[John Forrester]

Well, thank you. That's a very rich contribution you just gave there. I remember David said something about or in the early days of doing this kind of work about, and this is based on what you said about phones and how busy everybody is. He said something like ABC 123 priority codes went out the window the moment everybody got a phone. And not even a cell phone, but just if you're at work and there's a phone on your desk or somebody can reach you that way, all of a sudden you can be interrupted with something more important. That's why the priority coding that way as the first way of deciding what to do just hasn't worked for a long time. I have a quick survey here. Totally informal. You mentioned, Mary, you mentioned working on the iPhone. How many of you are on an iPhone or a set of tin cans from one room to another, or an Android device. I'm just curious these days, what's the market balance?

[John]

Android.

[Ridwan]

Okay.

[John]

Two Androids, Android three.

[Ridwan]

Okay.

[Clayton]

Apple.

[John Forrester]

All right, we're headed.

[Ridwan]

Yeah.

[John Forrester]

Something like a little more toward Apple. Okay, thank you. Thank you for helping with me with my informal survey that way.

[Clayton]

I use reminders too. It's pretty powerful. I actually found a bug in the Mac version of Reminders because I have so many tags. It doesn't scroll.

[John]

Oh.

[Clayton]

In one of the views. So I can't. I have to use a different view on the Mac to scroll in the tags. But.

[John Forrester]

Oh, interesting.

[Mary]

I am not an Apple. Other than my iPhone and my iPad, I don't have the Mac. So I often think I should be updating my computer to Mac. But I will say one of the things also, I sometimes find it acts a little flaky. I also created templates so for things I do like on a weekly basis, like I have a weekly template because I'm also a caregiver for my brother and you know who's coming which days I put in There. And I kind of have that as a preset and then I can update appropriately for appointments. So that's useful,

[Ridwan]

I think, you know, you know, you know, like, you know, when we were actually talking about these, you know, talking about these agendas. Right. You know, one of like, one of my sort of biggest aha moment was, you know, like when I, like when I started to actually put my, like, put my Mrs. Name and then, you know, like, you know, like all these agenda sort of, you know, like, you know, you know, like all these agenda lists. Yeah. Initially I was pretty. Do I really need to, you know, like, do this? You know, like, if I need to speak to my mom about sort of, you know, like abcd, do I need to, you know, like, put that in onto this sort of, you know, like, you know, onto this agenda list? And I was, I was pretty reluctant when I, you know, like when I actually started gtd, but once I started sort of, you know, like populating that gender sort of, you know, gender list. Right. Oh, it was amazing. I was like, you know, anything I need to sort of, you know, discuss, just put it on the agenda. Yeah, I think, yeah, that was, that, that, that was big, like, you know, big aha moment for me.

[John Forrester]

Yeah, I. It helps a lot to take the stress off remembering things.

[Ridwan]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[John Forrester]

Also, it helps you impress people when you. When you meet them and you pull out your at Ridwan list or you're at whoever list and they say you already were thinking of me and planning ahead what you wanted to talk to me about.

[Ridwan]

Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes, you know, like, you know, like, sometimes you just, you know, like, sometimes it just like pops up, isn't it? You know, like when you need to discuss, Discuss something critical, it's just easier to just, you know, populate it and then forget about it, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. So that would make big for me. And, and yeah, I tend to, you know, like, you know, like, you know, I tend to like, actually capture like these days, I think I tend to, you know, like, capture everything onto my inbox. Before, like in the past, I used to be a bit, you know, like, bit selective, I suppose, you know, you know, when I. Okay, yeah, this one. Do I really need to put it through the, like, put it through the GTD process or should I just ignore it kind of thing, but nowadays I just like, copy everything in or like, put everything into the inbox and once I start to like, clarify that that time, you know, like, like, I think, you know, like, I guess, like, you know, when I actually capture, say like 15 items or like 20 items. I just delete majority of my, you know, majority of my captured items. So. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, you know. Yeah, like, I think, you know, that that's something, I guess, you know, that actually takes a pretty much sort of, you know, like all this mental stress and bandwidth out of me, I suppose.

[John Forrester]

Well, good. I also wanted to say two more hellos. One is Eric. Hi, Eric, good to see you here. We had a mention a moment ago about why there isn't a perfect GTD app yet. And so Eric can help us understand why that is. We've talked about that a lot over the years. Daniel, I'm not going to ask you to speak or anything like that. Looks like you're in the car. Don't want you to distract you from driving. Just wanted to say welcome, good to see you. And there's the wave from Daniel. And in case you all were wondering, some of you may remember that we did a Slice of GTD Life interview with a woman and her co worker, Brian, who and the woman's name was Crystal Spurgeon. Same last name as Daniel. But I clarified with Daniel last week, no relation. But in case any of you were thinking, oh, somebody in that family has, has shared about gtd, I just popped a link to that in the, in the chat in case you want to look back at some point, add that to your Slice of life interviews to catch up with. And Crystal's career and life have changed a lot. I'm. I'm gently prodding her every once in a while to try to get on her schedule to do an update on that. She's doing new and interesting things. All right, who else, anybody else have an agenda item or something to talk about, bring up anything like that?

[Clayton]

I have a question for John about your daily review. You said something about a finite list of items that isn't your whole list of next. Next actions that you use during the day. I'm, I'm following up on the, the latest GTD gem or the next to latest where you make sure that the amount of time you have for predefined work is all that's in your system for the week. And so I'm looking at that, trying to make that adjustment. And you said you had made some type of adjustment about how much, how many tasks you look at. So I wondered how you, where you got that list. What was your how. How did, what's the process you used to get that?

[John]

Okay, well, I guess in broad terms, during the weekly Review, I'm scanning through all of my areas of focus and goals. And then of course, within each of those categories are typically projects, right? So I will go through and make sure that, you know, I have at least one next action associated with each project. Then within my areas of focus, you know, as I look at each one, I just pause and reflect for a moment. Okay, is there something in this area that I think I need to address this week or do so that'll go on the list? So the idea is that by the end of that weekly review, I've got that, that short list. Now that list will probably be more like 40, 50 items, maybe next actions, not just 20. So, so what I'll do is I'll spread them out. You know, the ones that I feel or have greater importance or potentially more urgency. Then, you know, those, those will stay on the list. The other ones will, will be pushed out a few days. And then by the time I get to the next weekly review, of course I've added that list throughout the week as new things have popped up. And then, you know, there are some times when some of those next actions stay on the list, they get a little stale. Keep pushing them out week after week. And then I, when I see one of those, I will decide, okay, is this really something that I need to get done or should I just take it off my list, move it to someday maybe, or just delete it? That helps to keep the list lean and clean. But I would say from during that weekly review, I'm probably looking at a hundred plus next actions, you know, and. And most of them don't have dates on them. They're just, they're just there. So I don't know if that helps Clayton or.

[Clayton]

Yeah, that helps. That helps a lot. The. The. I created a, a parked action or parked actions tag to just get things off of my, my active actions so I could come back to those to mine for the next day just to get them out of my view. I'm start. I'm experimenting with that. But rude went in on the splitting the review. I like to do the project review the day before I do the rest of the review. And when I do my. When I do my review with my GCD buddy, I use the. I go through the standard part, but when I do it myself, I don't do get clear. I do everything else first. Because if I do get clear, I, I default towards the yes side of is it actionable? And my system goes, yeah, makes sense. Yeah. So if I review it first, I'm Much more. I've got an axe chopping what I'm allowing into my system because I know what I have loaded in already.

[John Forrester]

I'd never heard that before. That's. So are you saying that doing the review. The rest of the review first helps you say no to things more than. Yes.

[Clayton]

Yes. Wow. Yes.

[John Forrester]

Yeah, I can see how that would work.

[Ridwan]

Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, exactly.

[Mary]

Yeah.

[Clayton]

Is this more important than what's already in my system?

[John]

To see how people have adapted GTD to their own needs and usage? That's great, Clayton.

[Clayton]

Yeah.

[John]

Clayton.

[Clayton]

The only way I actually got to a completed weekly review was just to start one every day until I got all the. Because David said if you're. If you. If you don't do a weekly review, you're trying to do it all the time. Well, I might as well do it until it's done.

[John Forrester]

So would you go back to the beginning each time to start over in.

[Clayton]

Well, I'd take 30 minutes in the morning.

[Ridwan]

Yeah.

[Clayton]

I would start the review, and I would go as far as I could go. And then the next day, I went really fast through that part. And then. So I got to really know what was in my system, and I could. I finally. It was like I loaded it into my brain. So the review went really fast, and so I stopped having to do it every day.

[John Forrester]

Interesting.

[Clayton]

But that's. That's the. That's the only time I actually got through everything was just doing it every day.

[John]

Sam.