A weekly review that ends in decisions
A weekly review is a short pause to look at what happened and choose what comes next. It only works if it changes something: an unfinished task gets a real next step, a stale commitment gets dropped, or a good habit earns another slot in the calendar.
Use it for personal projects, writing, studying, or a busy work week. It is deliberately small, with no scores to track and no dashboards to maintain. Add those later only if they answer a real question.
Grab the template
Copy the blank template or download it as a .md file. Make a fresh copy each week with the week-ending date in the title. The filled-in example shows what a finished review might look like; yours does not have to match it.
# Weekly review: [week ending YYYY-MM-DD] ## This week in one sentence [What kind of week was it?] ## What moved forward - [Outcome or useful progress] - [Something worth acknowledging] ## What is still open | Item | Next step | Decision | | --- | --- | --- | | [Unfinished work] | [Smallest useful action] | [Continue / defer / stop] | ## What I learned - [Something to repeat] - [Something to change] ## Next week's three priorities - [ ] [First outcome] - [ ] [Second outcome] - [ ] [Third outcome] ## Make room [What will I deliberately not do?]
It works in Beauty or any Markdown editor. On Mac, a folder of dated reviews becomes a searchable record of your year.
Look back before you plan ahead
Start with one sentence about the week. Then list what moved forward, including wins that are easy to forget under the pile of unfinished work. Finally having a hard conversation or figuring out a problem counts, even without a deliverable.
Skim your notes and recent meeting action items. Move anything genuinely still open into the table and give each item a decision: continue, defer, or stop. Copying every old task into next week skips the exact choice a review is for.
Turn unfinished work into a next step
Make each next step small enough that you know how to start it. "Finish the proposal" hides a dozen decisions. "Rewrite the opening paragraph using Sam's feedback" is something you can do tomorrow morning.
If you are waiting on someone, write down what for. If it no longer matters, stop carrying it. The decision column exists to force those calls.
Pick three priorities for next week
Three is a useful limit, not a productivity rule. Choose outcomes that can steer the smaller tasks, and leave room for the work that will inevitably show up unannounced.
Finish by writing down what you will deliberately not do. That is what makes the three priorities real: time for one thing always comes from somewhere else.
Next week, start by rereading these priorities. Notice what changed, keep what helped, and cut any section of the template that has stopped being useful.