Ingermanson on “Why you need a weekly review!”
I can only encourage you to sign up to his newsletter. Itās always good advice on anything writing- and publishing-related. Enjoy!
Your Weekly Review
If youāre seriousĀ about getting things done in your life, then you need to have a regular weekly habit of reviewing the previous week and planning the next one.
That sounds fun, doesnāt it? Itās right up there with changing the oil and cleaning the toilet on most peopleās list of Things To Avoid Doing Pretty Much Forever.
Why You Need a Weekly Review
Hereās the thing. Your novel is not going to write itself. Big publishers are not going to throw money at you to write your novel. Truth be told, if your novel is never written, nobody will notice or care. (The good newsāif your novel does get written, thereās a fighting chance that people will notice and care.)
The brutal realityĀ is that if you want to get a good novel written, youāre going to have to do three things that are highly labor-intensive and that wonāt earn you a dime up-front:
- Develop the skills to write a good novel.
- Write a good novel.
- Polish your novel.
Iām not tryingĀ to rain on the parade or tell you thereās no parade. There is a parade and itās a good one. Iām trying to say that itās a serious, major effort to make the parade happen, and you wonāt get paid for it until very late in the game, if you ever get paid. Youāll need to spend hundreds of hours on this thing. Maybe thousands. You need to find a way to squeeze those hundreds of hours out of an already jam-packed life.
That means giving upĀ some things. Saying yes to writing a novel means saying no to a lot of other wonderful things.
This could take you forever, or you could get it done in short order, and get your book out the door, and have it earning you money. The choice is yours, and a big part of that choice is taking control of your life.
I know some lucky peopleĀ who are good at taking control of their life. Iām not one of those people. I have a lot of things going on in my life, and they all want to take control of me.
I deal with themĀ by fighting back, and a big part of that fight is my Weekly Review.
The Weekly Review
This is not complicated. Once a week, (almost always on a Saturday afternoon), I sit down with my gigantic To Do List and work through it. I look at how I did last week, but more importantly, I look at what I want to get done in the next week.
There are threeĀ key questions to ask:
- What things are scheduled in already?
- What unscheduled things do I have to get done this week?
- What optional things do I most want to get done this week?
Questions #1 and #2Ā are key. Those are my constraints, because they tell me how many hours are already spoken for in the coming week. Question #3 then lets me pick out the optional things that I could reasonably get done.
Why is this useful?Ā Thatās easy.
I mentionedĀ I have a gigantic To Do List. Itās uncontrollably large. But the key point is that every item on the list is tagged. I tag them with the time-frame in which I want to get them done. There are things I want to do āsomeday maybe.ā There are things I want to do āthis year.ā Others that I want to do āthis quarter.ā Others that are āthis month.ā And a few that are āthis week.ā
The Weekly ReviewĀ lets me keep the set of āthis weekā tasks down to a reasonable number. These are the things that matter right now. The other stuff will get done in good time, but just not right now.
What this meansĀ is that every day when I decide what Iām going to tackle today, I have a short list of things to choose from. I donāt have to look at the gigantic To Do List. That would be too cruel. All I have to look at is the items tagged āthis week.ā Every day, I choose a reasonable set to tackle. And it takes me five minutes, maximum, to plan my day.
I donāt haveĀ to wonder if thereās something coming up that Iāve forgotten about. During my Weekly Review, I already looked ahead and checked that. If thereās something coming up this week, my Weekly Review tags it as āthis week.ā
This is howĀ I get stuff done without going crazy.
The giganticĀ To Do List will never go away. Itāll always be gigantic. Itāll always contain a bunch of pipe dreams that will never happen.
But the Weekly ReviewĀ ensures that the things that are either urgent or important bubble to the top and get done.
No, the Weekly ReviewĀ is not sexy. Itās not fun. But I find it absolutely indispensable. It takes about an hour each week, and at the end of it, I have some feeling of control over my life again.
Homework
- Are you doing a Weekly Review already? If so, congratulations, and you get a gold star. You might want to think about whether you can do it better. Maybe you can make a template for the Weekly Review so it goes quicker and so you never forget a step in your process. But if itās working well for you, donāt change it. Youāre good.
- If youāre not doing a Weekly Review, Iām not here to shame you. Iām here to tell you to do it, because itās good for you. Youāll get more things done. Youāll be more in control. Youāll feel better. Really, you will. Now what day of the week can you schedule your regular Weekly Reviews? What time of the day should you plan on? How much time do you want to budget?
- If you donāt have any idea what to even do in a Weekly Review or how to get started, and youād really like to punch me right now, thatās OK. Keep your distance, please, and go check outĀ TheSecretWeapon.org,Ā which has a bunch of free videos on how to take control of your life. In an hour, youāll know exactly how to do everything. Thatās an hour well spent, and you may never need to learn one more thing about organization in your entire life.
This is notĀ a feel-good article today, and my apologies on that. Iām not trying to make you happy. Iām trying to radically boost the chances that youāll get your novel published someday.
You can thank meĀ when you accept your Pulitzer.
Thank you, Mr Ingermanson for helping us along to get organised!
Related blog posts:
James Clear on Continuous Improvement
A Gentlewoman and Scholar on being productive even when you are sick
Cheryl Fassett on Finding what you did not lose
Now go & organise yourself
becauseĀ
you can do it!
This is great advice and even though I’m not a dedicated writer, I believe it can used for our lives as well. Thanks for sharing š
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I fully agree and you are welcome. Thanks for stopping by! šāāļøš
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Fabulous advice!
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It is. It’s worth signing up to his newsletter. There is always great organisation and marketing advice! Have a great Sunday šāāļøš
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What wonderful advice! Especially for writers and blogs who have to go through a bit of a slog before they ever see any gratification outside of themselves. Personal organization and routines are the keys to success and as someone who already practices a weekly review, I highly recommend them. Really enjoyed this article.
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It is great advice. I love his newsletter. It always gives something to learn. Unfortunately I can only use old posts of his. There was some trouble with Google so he can’t allow it anymore. šāāļøš
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