reviewing or not, here i come.
A routine review is key to evaluating where you are and where you are going. I have a hard time doing this on my own until I’m chained to my desk with someone watching me do it. Since David Seah and I seem to be on similar wavelengths this week, he found this wonderful article on why we resist the weekly review and plan by Ricky. It’s a good list overall and I think can easily be applied to most any project.
Below I will focus on two items Ricky “RAM Dumped” out:
1. We fear that may not do it right. This is so true. How often have I looked at a new organizer system or journal or “anything” I wait and procrastinate and look for a step-by-step guide to find out how I *should* use it. I’ve been trying both flylady and david allen’s systems for a while and the best about both of these methods is that there is more than one way to do it. What works perfectly for my husband does not work perfectly for me. That’s ok. It’s also ok to have crossouts and restarts and eventually look and say, “hey, that’s not working at all, let’s stop wasting our time on it and try something else”. Somewhere recently I read of a “lifehack” whereas when you buy a new journal you open to a random page and put a small (or big) scribble. Then it’s no longer so new and scary. It’s a brilliant piece of advice and has assisted me greatly in getting over that starting hump. I’ll figure this out. :) My filofax is getting more use and I’m getting there. I think I’m more organizes today than I was a year ago. I have much further to go until I’m like my husband but I’m improving and that’s important. I’m reducing the distance between me and my goals.
2. We are too far behind or haven’t done a review in several weeks. To this I just reply with flylady’s mantra: You are not behind! I don’t want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are. O.K.?. The past is past. Let’s just try to not focus too much on it (it’s probably negative things that you’ll jump in on and negative breeds negative).
That being said, I’m now going to schedule my reviews in writing so I can’t procrastinate them more. I’m going to set my reviews for 9 am on Thursday mornings. My reasoning is: It will break up my week a little and as I tend to flounder on Fridays it should provide focus. If there is something major that needs to be completed that week, I have a day and a half of “business-hour time” to attempt to complete the task.
I’m glad you found my article helpful and worth sharing with others. Best of luck to you in your new weekly review schedule. It really is time well invested–rather than time well spent! :o)