47. REVIEW (4TH STAGE OF MANAGING WORKFLOW FOR BUSINESS)

After you’ve organize all your ‘stuff’, you need to periodically review it, to see what’s getting done. After all, writing is different from doing. You need to be able to review the whole picture of your life and work at appropriate intervals and levels. Do a weekly review of all your open loops or Projects, Project Plans, Next Actions, Calendar, Waiting For, and even your Someday/Maybe list. This also gives you an opportunity to ensure that your brain is clear and that all the loose strands of your past few days have been collected, processed, and organized.

The weekly review is the time to:Gather and process all your ‘stuff’ Review your system Update your lists Get clean, clear, current and complete Aside from the weekly review, you also need to have a bigger view. This means you need to be clear about the big picture of your life, as well as a vision of what you would like it to become in the next year, in three to five years. You need to have a good idea of your main areas of responsibility (family, work, etc). This gives you a clearer perspective about what your current actions and projects have to be.

Even with your personal organization system, every decision to act will still remain an intuitive one, whether you make a call or do something else. The challenge is to migrate from ‘hoping’ it’s the right choice to ‘trusting’ it’s the right choice. The basic purpose of this workflow process is to facilitate your making good choices about what you’re doing at any particular time.

At 3:22 on a Wednesday, how do you choose what to do? Given your personal organization system, you can apply criteria for choosing:Context (some things can only be done at work or at home, near a computer or a phone) Time available (don’t start a 30-minute task if you only have 10 minutes; do something that takes 10 minutes or less to accomplish) Energy available (don’t begin a difficult task when you are feeling tired; do something less taxing) Priority (ask yourself; given your context, time and energy available, what task would give you the greatest payoff?)