This past summer, I got into the habit of doing ‘weekly reviews,’ if you want to call them that, after hearing about it from a friend. These reviews were always something that’d been recommended to me, but because I never really knew what it involved or how to do one, I never tried them. I quickly realized (after a quick Google Search) that they were super simple, and made such a difference in my week. I not only felt more prepared and productive, but knew what work and activities I had lined up for the upcoming week.
I try to do my weekly review every Sunday night because that’s usually a quieter time for me. When things come up, I’ll do a review in the morning, or even on Saturday. The point is that if you treat it like a chore that has to get done at a given time, you might never do it if something comes up (and something always tends to come up), whether it’s homework, a girl’s night or a club meeting. If you treat your review like it’s flexible, however, you’ll find yourself just trying to do it at other times, if the original time you wanted to do it doesn’t work out. Nonetheless, it gets done every week, and that’s the most important thing.
I do my weekly reviews on the Notes app on my Mac, just because I always find that I can voice my thoughts a lot quicker when I’m typing them. With this, I’ll also always have my reviews with me, whether on my laptop or my phone.
So now comes the hard (but actually easy) part…writing the actual review. I feel like the word ‘review’ makes it out to be some intimidating activity, as if you’re doing those mandatory periodic evaluations at work, or the peer reviews you always give and get in class. So try not to see it as a review, or as a complicated process. It’s more of a reflection, a chance to look back and look ahead, and to see how life–your life–is going and growing.
The first part of the Weekly Review consists of looking back.
For my weekly review, I usually write down some thoughts and feelings on how the past week (since my last review) has gone. It might just be observations like, “I was so tired this week,” or something more exciting like, “I traveled to this place and met this person this week.” There’s honestly no structure to it; your review is a free flow of thoughts, ideas, and basic musings. A (filtered) stream of consciousness, almost.
Next, I split up my weekly review into two or three other parts. I have a header called “What I Learned,” and the points that go underneath it are just different lessons that I’ve learned throughout the past week, or realizations that I’d had. It could be something that I learned from a peer or got out of going to an event or conference. Another header that I use is, “Worth Remembering,” which usually consists of good memories and moments that I accumulated over the past week. It could be something as simple (and stupid) as eating an entire pint of ice cream with my housemates at 1:30 in the morning, or a big event such as Homecoming. Lastly, I tend to have “What I struggled with” as part of my weekly review. I typically write about things that I found challenging over the past week, like negative emotions, fights I might’ve had and more.
What I love most about the weekly review is that it’s such a great way to truly reflect on all that happened over the past week. It’s important to remember that the week’s past events aren’t always the main focus. Rather, it’s what you took away from them, and what you will always remember about them, that counts.
The second part of the Weekly Review is looking ahead. I often take a look at my calendar for the next week, and see all the classes, assignments or meetings that I have coming up. Then, with those in mind, I’ll schedule in the ‘extras’ that I want to do. I write down the times of the yoga or gym classes that I intend to go to; if these things are already in my calendar, it definitely makes it harder for me to keep pushing them off. I’ll even write down the times that I’m grabbing lunch, dinner or coffee with a friend to catch up. If I want to go see my professor during office hours, I’ll pick a day that works best for me. This part of the weekly review makes it so much easier for me to remember all that I have coming up, and helps get my life on track before the craziness of the week kicks off on Monday.
I know the whole idea of doing this each and every week can be daunting at first, but at least give it a shot. Once you start them and you fall into a rhythm, they get a lot easier. And soon enough, it becomes habit.
One of the best parts about keeping these Weekly Reviews is that they’re like time capsules. Whether it’s five months or five years from now, you’re able to go through all your entries and read all your musings again. You can look back at how much you’ve changed and grown, since you’ll have a written record of the important lessons and precious moments you’ve collected. The impermanence of human memory can never be trusted, and that’s why we take pictures and write things down. And that is why, ultimately, doing weekly reviews can be such a big step in the right direction.