Do a weekly review of wins and lessons

A weekly review of wins and lessons is the highest-value twenty minutes in most personal systems and the first thing dropped when the week gets busy. Its function is perspective: at daily resolution everything looks like firefighting, and at weekly resolution the patterns that are actually costing you become visible.

Why do a weekly review of wins and lessons is worth an hour

Recording wins counteracts a genuine memory bias, since problems are remembered far more readily than progress. Recording lessons converts experience into something reusable, which otherwise happens rarely. And the recurring-problem question is where most of the value sits: something appearing three weeks running is a system fault rather than bad luck.

How to do a weekly review of wins and lessons step by step

1. 1

   Fix a slot and defend it

   Friday afternoon works well. A floating review is one that stops happening within three weeks.

2. 2

   Write three wins first

   Deliberately, before anything else. Weeks feel worse than they were, and this corrects the distortion.

3. 3

   Write one lesson

   Something you would do differently. One is enough; a long list of self-criticism does not get reread.

4. 4

   Note what recurred

   Anything appearing for the third week is a system problem. This is the most valuable question on the list.

5. 5

   Set next week's single priority

   One thing that must happen. Deciding it now, with the week fresh, is much easier than Monday morning.

Tips to get more out of it

• Keep it in one document that accumulates week after week. The value compounds enormously when you can scroll back over three months.
• Twenty minutes maximum, timed. An elaborate review is precisely the one you will skip when the week has been difficult.
• Feed the wins straight into a brag document, which makes review season considerably easier.

Ways to mix it up

If Friday is unrealistic, Monday morning works for reviewing the previous week, though details fade over a weekend. If you work with a team, run the same three questions collectively as a short retrospective; the recurring-problem question is even more valuable in a group.

Do a weekly review of wins and lessons: frequently asked questions