The Weekly Review

In this episode, Jean and James discuss topics from two articles. One talks about resisting putting pressure on yourself to be hyper-productive, especially in these early days of adjusting to the realities of the coronavirus pandemic. The other talks about how with new and unfamiliar experiences in day to day life can lead to feeling like life is surreal. James unveils a new tag he is using in OmniFocus to put projects and actions on hold because of the shelter in place order in the Bay Area.

Conversation turns towards the notion of not being able to make concrete plans you can look forward to such as travel, but that instead, you can look forward to specific things you will do in the future, even though you cannot plan the details.

Why You Should Ignore All That Coronavirus-Inspired Productivity Pressure

Why Life During a Pandemic Feels So Surreal

OmniFocus

This week Jean talks about how she looks forward to doing her weekly review now, even though a lot of tasks will be deferred or deleted, because it helps to feel a bit more in control. James not only got his weekly review done, he got his email inbox count down to zero. Jean also wonders how to use her 2020 year-at-a-glance calendar which is starting to look pretty empty now, as future events get cancelled.

This episdoe Jean and James talk about how they are adjusting to changes due to COVID-19. The conversation explores the notion of actions having a context—the necessary requirements to get a task accomplished—and how some next actions that may have seen trivial a week ago are now postponed indefinitely. Jean suggests taking the opportunity to review the existing context tags in our trusted systems and James describes how he has had to discontinue the garbage can game he plays with his 92-year old neighbor.

To mark the occasion of the 100th episode, James and Jean talk about our favorite moments and accomplishments, and talk about new ideas for our second hundred episodes.

Some stats so far:
Total minutes: 2517
Total hours: 42
Average length: 25.5 minutes
Number of special guests: 4 (+ 1 🐱)
Holidays invented: 2
Episodes recorded outdoors: 1
Podcasting conferences attended: 1

Episodes mentioned:

1: My Whole House Is An Inbox

8: The Usual Monkey Wrench

16: The Unbearable Lightness of OmniFocus Bankruptcy

19: That’s Too Devious, Jean

20: Organizationiversary

21: A Day Without A Dot 🎉

33: On The Hunt For The Perfect To-Do List App, with Special Guest Aleen Simms

35: James Is My Trusted System

39: A Very Long Story, with Special Guest Rosemary Orchard

41: Productivity + Fun = PodCon 2 in Seattle

42: Life, The Universe, and What’s In Our Junk Drawers

47: The Time Sensitive Micro Project

52: Emailiversary

54: A Very Tasty Pepper, with Special Guest Ish ShaBazz

69: The Odyssey of the Ford Taurus

87: Reviewing Our 2020 Calendar Strategies, with Special Guest David Sparks

92: Cat Bombed, with Special Guest Dexter

94: The Clean Slate

In this episode the topics range from the practical to the fanciful. James and Jean revisit the notion of a clean slate. James has begun thinking about his weekly review as a way to start with a clean slate which has been helpful motivation in the past few weeks. In more fanciful matters, Jean and James talk about desired superpowers and James contends that a common inspirational phrase is a load of hooey. Finally, the winner of the “When will James Do His Next Weekly Review?” contest is announced!

James announces that he has completed a weekly review after a spell of not doing one (while being otherwise productive). We talk about how it feels to get that done, why it took this long, and what lessons we can learn about getting back on track. We also discuss about how tags and flags can be a help or a distraction in tackling our tasks in OmniFocus.

This episode Jean talks about progress on her proposal to add a guinea pig emoji, including the emoji proposal process and some details from the reasearch Jean has done so far. Using this particular project as an example, Jean and James talk about how their trusted system might help them to get things done, but doesn’t necessarly help you get things done early or ahead of a deadline.

Thanks to an email from a listener, Jean did a weekly review this week on the theory that it’s better to do a shoddy one than not to do one at all. James is still getting things done, but a full weekly review is still on his list. (Which means the contest to guess which week James does a review is still on. Details below.)

Send us an email at sayhello@theweeklyreview.fm with the subject “Weekly Review Week Guess” and pick the Sunday of the week that you think James will actually complete a full weekly review. The correct guess will score something fun from the many cool pop culture tchotchkes at his house.

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+ and more. With the proliferation of streaming services, home entertainment has become more complex. In this episode Jean and James talk about their streaming subscriptions including strategies to keep from breaking the entertainment budget. Also, Jean moves to the next iCloud storage tier and James wonders if he should dump Hulu and watch Picard instead.

App for tracking subscriptions:
Bobby

Inspired by an article by J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly, Jean and James talk about the appealing concept of starting with a clean slate. The conversation covers a range of variations on the clean slate theme—from hotel rooms that contain only what you’ve brought on a trip, to declaring OmniFocus bankruptcy and starting again, to the thought that a weekly review is a way of getting to a clean slate state, without starting from scratch every time. Plus, a movie pitch and a sure-fire idea for an app.

The clean slate by J.D. Roth at getrichslowly.org

This week, we ask the question: how exactly did our parents manage their tasks? Both James and Jean have parents who held jobs, raised children, got advanced degrees, and successfully retired without the benefit of OmniFocus or GTD. We reminisce about what organizational strategies we remember from our childhoods, how our parents’ examples influenced us, and how life was simpler back then.

In this episode Jean and James set out to talk about including follow-up tasks in projects to make sure loose ends are tied up. But James‘ friend Dexter the cat has other plans and becomes an unexpected special guest. James coaxes him to share some of his feline organizational tips while other topics range from some OmniFocus wishlist items to unexpected trips.

Our contest is still on:
Send us an email at sayhello@theweeklyreview.fm with the subject “Weekly Review Week Guess” and pick the Sunday of the week that you think James will actually complete a full weekly review. The correct guess will score something fun from the many cool pop culture tchotchkes at his house.

We start off this year answering a listener question about when and why to use Due versus Omnifocus for reminders. James confesses he still hasn’t done his weekly review and talks about why he is okay with that, while Jean flies under the radar and doesn’t even mention her weekly review (which she hasn’t done either). We wrap up with some travel hacking tips and then James surprises us all by offering prizes for guessing which week he will do that weekly review.

• Send us an email at sayhello@theweeklyreview.fm with the subject “Weekly Review Week Guess” and pick the Sunday of the week that you think James will actually complete a full weekly review. The correct guess will score something fun from the many cool pop culture tchotchkes at his house.

It’s the beginning of a brand new year and in this episode Jean and James take a look back at 2019 with some resolutions and accomplishments and look forward to getting things done in 2020. Topics include getting away from or sticking with social media platforms and getting a new health care plan.

The holiday season can be a time to gather together with those we care about. It can also be a season of not only giving, but receiving. In this episode, Jean and James talk about receiving gifts that can become projects in and of themselves. Topics include everything from clothing in the wrong size, to making a cash gift more personally meaningful, to thoughts on how to handle a gift from someone you care about that leaves you scratching your head with what to do with it.

The holiday season is in full swing. Did you forget to get yourself a gift? Here’s a suggestion.

As we prepare to enter these too busy times, don’t forget to give yourself the gift of spending some time doing absolutely nothing this season.
Patrick Rhone, Rhoneisms, December 1, 2019

The Case For Doing Nothing, Olga Mecking, New York Times, April 29, 2019

We have a special guest this week: David Sparks from the podcast Focused, among many others. David and his co-host Mike Schmitz recently did an episode on the best use of calendars, and we asked David to talk about some of his favorite calendar strategies, including hyperscheduling and a year-at-a-glance wall calendar.

David and Mike even designed a special 2020 FOCUSED Wall Calendar, available for purchase from NeuYear. Jean bought one, and is looking forward to 2020 a little bit more now.

Thanks again, David, for coming on our podcast.

James and Jean talk about that awkward year-end period, wedged between two major holidays in the U.S. (not counting Black Friday and Cyber Monday), when important year-end matters vie for attention with holiday-related shopping and travel. How do you stay on track during these challenging seasons? (No, seriously, it’s not a rhetorical question. Help us out with your strategies!)

The Depth of Our Madness, Focused podcast, Episode 85, Oct. 29, 2019.

The FOCUSED 2020 Wall Calendar. “Life is more than cranking widgets.”

During this Thanksgiving week episode Jean and James talk about things they are thankful for. This includes their trusted systems which not only help them accomplish things but also lets them have piece of mind when spending time with family and friends.

The conversation veers into technology more than originally intended: James is very thankful for his new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Jean contemplates getting some Air Pods Pro and James unveils his new service to help people rationalize buying things they want to buy anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our listeners!

In this episode Jean and James talk about different modes of operation. James observes a long-standing pattern in his behavior that automatically flips between project-focus and organizational-focus. Jean and James brainstorm some ways to try to keep this pattern from causing weekly reviews and trusted system updates from slipping.

Plus, a karaoke discussion about projects versus external lists as well as the odd karaoke song selection at the resort where Jean and James attended the Release Notes conference last month.

Jean attended WordCamp Seattle over the weekend to catch up with the latest topics of interest in the WordPress user community. A session on task management caught her attention, so she attended and got some fresh perspective from a non-Getting Things Done point of view.

Many thanks to Annie LaCroix of Brainy Boss for an excellent and thought-provoking presentation.

In this episode, Jean and James talk about some items that have on their project lists for a long time, progress made, next actions taken, and the wonderful feeling of finally completing a long-running project. Also, James celebrates an anniversary and Jean describes how she is using OmniFocus to make the transition back to activity from convelescence.

This week, James and Jean talk about a tool used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: “15 Styles of Distorted Thinking,” a list of common traps our minds fall into when assessing reality, and how those traps prevent us from having the stress-free approach to productivity we are seeking.

Disclaimer: as we frequently like to say, we are not gurus. We are not experts on productivity or psychology. We are just two friends talking about what works for us.

15 Styles of Distorted Thinking

PDF: 15 Styles of Distorted Thinking
Fits on one page, can be printed and used with a ticker file or hung up on your refrigerator

This episode Jean and James talk about getting back into the groove. As Jean continues to recover from her knee injury, getting back in the groove includes picking up her first Lyft passenger in many months and all the little steps that took including finding a power cable. For James, the seemingly simple task of trading in an iPhone threw him out of his groove for a while. Also, a brief poorly-informed discussion of the space program.

Groove is in the Heart (Apple Music)

This week, James and Jean talk about big projects that have been on their lists a while and finally got completed. Why a project finally gets traction is a good question. Deadlines can be helpful (or be flouted). Sometimes the right time and motivation present themselves. In any case, the clearer your next actions are, the more likely your projects move forward.