A review that leads to a decision
A weekly review is a short pause to look at what happened and choose what comes next. It is most useful when it changes a decision: an unfinished task gets a concrete next step, an old commitment gets dropped, or a useful habit gets another place in the calendar.
This template works for personal projects, writing, study, or a working week with several competing responsibilities. It is intentionally small. There are no scores to maintain or dashboards to update; you can add those later if they answer a real question for you.
Start with a plain Markdown file
Copy the blank template or download it as a .md file. Make a new copy for each week and put the week-ending date in the title. The filled example is an illustration of a completed review, not a standard your own week needs to match.
# 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?]
You can use the file in Beauty or another Markdown editor. On Mac, a folder of dated reviews is easy to inspect and back up. In the browser, export important reviews so they are not only stored in a single browser profile.
Look back before making another list
Start with a sentence about the week. Then record a few outcomes, including progress that would otherwise disappear beneath the unfinished work. Finishing a difficult conversation or clarifying a problem can matter even if it did not produce a deliverable.
Read through your notes and recent meeting actions. Bring genuinely open commitments into the table. Give each one a decision: continue, defer, or stop. Copying every old task into the next week avoids the very choice the review is there to help you make.
Turn unfinished work into a next step
Write an action small enough that you know how to begin. “Finish the proposal” may hide several decisions. “Rewrite the opening paragraph using the reader's feedback” is a starting point.
If a task depends on someone else, name what you are waiting for. If it no longer matters, stop carrying it. The template's decision column is there to make those choices visible.
Choose three outcomes for next week
Three is a useful constraint, not a rule about how much a person should accomplish. Choose outcomes that can guide the week's smaller tasks, then leave room for the work that arrives unexpectedly.
End by writing what you will deliberately leave alone. This makes the priorities more credible: attention given to one thing must come from somewhere.
At the next review, begin by reading these three priorities. Notice what changed, keep what helped, and adapt the template if a section has stopped earning its place.