Every productivity system eventually fails the same way: not with a crash, but with quiet rot. The list stops being trusted, the calendar stops being read, and the head goes back to holding everything — badly. The weekly review is the maintenance habit that prevents the rot. David Allen called it the critical success factor of Getting Things Done, and the insight travels far beyond GTD: any system you don't review weekly, you slowly stop believing.

This is a weekly review you'll actually repeat — about fifteen minutes, three movements, archived automatically.

Sweep, reflect, aim

Sweep. First, get clear. Work the checklist: empty your head onto the capture list — every unsent reply, unmade call, and half-remembered promise goes on paper. Pass through the inbox. Glance back a week on the calendar for anything still owed, and ahead two weeks for anything about to ambush you. This isn't busywork; it's the price of an honest reflection. There's a well-studied reason the head-emptying step feels so good: unfinished tasks nag at the mind until a plan for them exists somewhere — writing them down with intent quiets the loop, before anything is actually done.

Reflect. Then three honest questions. What moved forward this week? Name the real progress, however small — monitoring progress is itself one of the most reliable levers for reaching goals, which makes the noticing a productive act, not a sentimental one. What stalled — and why? The why is the harvest: stalled-because-waiting is different from stalled-because-avoiding. What did the week teach you? Research on reflection found that workers who spent even a few minutes deliberately thinking about what they'd learned outperformed those who spent the same time just working more. Rate the week one to five while you're there. No week is a five. The trend is the point.

Aim. Finally, the week ahead — as decisions, not a schedule. Three moves, maximum: the things that would make next Friday's review a good one. And one thing to drop or hand off, because a review that only ever adds is a treadmill. Download the moves card if you want it staring at you from a wall.

When the new week begins, the review archives itself — week, rating, and your first move as its headline — and the history strip becomes a running story of how the weeks are actually going.

Never schedule-building

A weekly review that turns into calendar Tetris stops being a review. The reflection decides what matters; other tools decide when. Give recurring habits their row on the weekly habit tracker, and if a move needs edges and a date, shape it in the SMART goals worksheet. Daily closing lives in Tend Your Day — the weekly review is its zoom-out, and the monthly reset is the zoom-out of this. Three altitudes, one habit family.

Fifteen minutes, same slot every week — Friday afternoon while the week is still warm, or Sunday evening before the new one asks anything of you. Forty short reviews a year beat four thorough ones, and this one is built short on purpose.