62 - The Weekly Review List

  This week on the Scale Your Small Business, we’re breaking down the weekly review. This crucial time of reflection can have a massive impact on your development, growth, and success. The best part? You only need five minutes.    Before we dive in, remember that this can happen any time of the week. Whenever works best for you--whenever you’re getting ready for your day.    Five minutes all you have to spare?    First thing’s first--clean up your area. This doesn’t mean deep-clean every inch of your space, but do take care of your workspace and desk. Throw away any trash, coffee cups, whatever it is. Make sure it’s ready to go when you come in the next day.    Next, get all the paperwork from your desk clean up and get it into one pile so you know where everything is.    Then, brain dump. Get everything out of your head and onto paper, word document, phone note, whatever it is.   15 Minutes?   If you have more time, review your previous calendar and make sure you didn’t miss anything along the way.    From there, review your upcoming calendar so you know what’s on your plate the week ahead.    Additionally, empty out your voicemail and inbox. This doesn’t mean address every single item, but do take stock and make sure you know what you have. Form a habit of deleting anything unneeded.    This is the time to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.    Go through your text messages to make sure you don’t have any outstanding texts you need to reply to before you start your week.     30 minutes for your weekly review? Do everything up to this point, and add these:   Sort through your pile from early. Perhaps some are more urgent, things you need to file, whatever it is, put it where it needs to go.    Write your weekly to-do list. Sometimes, this will spark your memory and remind you of items you may have forgotten about. Also, review last week’s to-do and move whatever you need to.   Write out your ‘waiting for’ list. These are things you may be partnering with someone or a team member is working on.    If you have an entire 60 minutes to do your weekly review, here are some additional practices to consider:   Review your projects. Especially when you have a larger one, break it down into small chunks. Ensure nothing has been forgotten or fallen through the cracks.    Review your ‘someday maybe’ list. This list is for you to remind yourself of what you may have time to take on.    Next, consider creating a ‘43 folder’ system, where there are folders for every day of every month of the year. From there, you can put in any items, invitations, or important files based on the day they need to be reviewed.    Schedule next week’s weekly review. If you can do this at the same time every week--awesome, but don’t let a reschedule stop you from doing this important work.    Update any software you may have waiting. You can perform other tasks on this list at the same time!   Empty your digital and physical trash cans. This seems minor, but this small step makes a huge difference. Something as simple as making sure your desktop and actual desktop will give you a truly fresh start.  Key Takeaways   A weekly review is an essential step to prepare you for your week ahead and prevent tasks from slipping through the cracks Your weekly review can be whenever and for however long works best for you--but make sure you take the steps necessary to give a good look towards your week. Sometimes the smallest tasks make the biggest difference. Don’t ignore the little things!