A dead-simple weekly review strategy for Christians who want to get more done. Follow this step-by-step plan to more intentionally steward your weeks.
Why You Need a Weekly Review
We regularly pause to examine things that are important to us.
We schedule checkups for our cars, bodies, and homes. But how often do you check in on how you are spending your most precious resource of all—your time?
Christ has called us to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:15–16). But if you are just go, go, go Monday through Friday, you might be expending a lot of energy, but you may not be running in the right direction.
A weekly review just forces you to stop, reflect, and pray about your work. That way you can make adjustments and create a plan to be more intentional in how you spend it.
A weekly review give you:
- Awareness of where your time is going
- A greater sense of being organized and on top of things
- Clarity about where your life is headed
It takes some discipline to do it consistently, but the rewards you reap are absolutely worth the effort!
How to Do a Weekly Review / Planning Session
Here’s a template I’ve created to use in your weekly reviews. You can grab a copy of it here.
There’s two parts, the review (left side) and the planning (right side)
Review the Previous Week
First, you’ll want to go through the checkboxes. These just give you an orderly list to follow to make sure you’re up to speed on everything, and have your heart rightly oriented to the process.
- Review ”Well Done” Statement
- Review Goal Plans
- Review Projects
- Clear Inboxes
- Check Calendar
In just a few minutes you get yourself thinking about the long-term aims, tidy up from the week, and take a peak ahead at what’s coming. It’s a great way to give yourself the “lay of the land.”
Next, every week when I do my review, I make sure to answer these 4 reflection questions in my journal, praying as I write. They follow the acronym W.E.E.K.
- Walk: How was my walk with the Lord this week?
- Endeavors: Did I make significant progress on my goals, habits, & projects this week? What were the wins? Where can I improve?
- Energy: What things gave me energy? What things took energy away? How can I do more of the former and less of the latter?
- Knots: What’s still on my mind? What’s the next action I need to take to get it off my mind?
Finally, I spend some time thanking God for the previous week and asking for His help as I plan the week to come.
Plan the Week to Come
Now that you’ve looked back, it’s time to look forward. Here’s how to plan the coming week.
Step 1: Identify Priorities
Looking at that worksheet again, you’ll see there is a spot for 3 priorities.
The idea here is that you get clear on what exactly the BIG three tasks are that you want to get done this week.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re living on a treadmill, always running and never making progress, it may be because you’ve never taken the time to identify what’s most important to do each week.
Step 2: Plan Your Days
Here you’ll want to make a rough plan of what you’ll do each day of the week. This shouldn’t be detailed. You’re just giving yourself a rough target to aim at.
Make sure your planning to work on those top 3 priorities on some of those days!
Step 3: Execute
The real trick with making a plan like this is actually using it. And that happens in the day-to-day.
That’s why printing this sheet out, or picking up a copy of the Waypoints Goal Planner is so handy. If you have your plan sitting there in front of you throughout the week, you can keep referencing it and seeing if you are on track or not.
I can tell you from experience that it’s a great feeling to start the week with a reasonable plan and clear priorities, and then to finish it knowing I put in a good week’s effort on what was most important.
That’s stewarding the time. And if you do it with the right heart attitude, this practical tool can help you glorify God in whatever He gives you to do each week!
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23-24
Here’s that printable worksheet again. It has the checklist and reflection questions I shared above.
