Getting Things Done for Homemakers & Homeschoolers: Restore
Getting Things Done for Homemakers & Homeschoolers
This post one of a series: Getting Things Done for Homemakers & Homeschoolers
Restore: The Weekly Review Drill
So, we might be tempted to think that having a regular weekly review is feasible only in the office workplace setting. You know, someplace where you can close the door and easily have space and time alone. Before even getting to this chapter, however, I was starting to notice that many blogging homemakers talk about the benefits of having some weekly time to go over the past and the upcoming week, to strategize, to regroup, to be refreshed. Kim at Large Family Logistics found a time for weekly planning, and when she stopped, noticed an increase in her frazzled feelings. Carolyn Mahaney and daughters on the blog GirlTalk list it as one of the habits of “The Highly Effective Woman.” Kat of Inspired to Action includes a how & why to have a weekly retreat in her series called “Refreshed Motherhood.” Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking also claims her weekly planning session is a lifesaver. So, this practice might really be something we should consider seriously.
Islands of Time
Allen himself addresses situations other than typical office work when he says, “The people who find it hardest to make time for this review are those who have constantly on-demand work and home environments, with zero built-in time or space for regrouping.” He goes on, “If you recognize yourself in that picture, your greatest challenge will be to build in a consistent process of regrouping, when your world is not directly in your face.” And, perhaps we can see ourselves in this statement, also, “For them the biggest problem is how to balance quality thinking and catch-up time with the urgent demands of mission-critical interactions [e.g. stinky diapers? quarreling children?]. This is a tough call. The most senior and savvy of them, however, know the value of sacrificing the seemingly urgent [doing the dishes? "catching up" the laundry? dusting? clicking sidebar links?] for the truly important, and they create their islands of time for some version of this process.”
Since each of those woman have written about why they take time each week to get out of the house (most of them seem to, anyway) to think and pray and plan, as well as the benefits they derive from it, I won’t be redundant here — especially since I have not had this practice myself! Obviously anything that involves coffee and planning and alone-time is attractive, though; I don’t need much convincing! Finding the right time and place, however, is the trick. Occasionally on Saturday mornings Matt sends me out to go wherever I choose for a few hours. I process lists, read a book and take notes, think, stare out a window while feeling caffeine clear the cobwebs in my head. It is lovely.
The whirlwind of everyday activity “is precisely what makes the weekly review so valuable. It builds in some capturing, reevaluation, and reprocessing time to keep you in balance. There is simply no way to do this necessary regrouping while you’re trying to get everyday work done.” I wondered if that is strictly true for the homemaker, who has mundane tasks that allow her to both work and think simultaneously, but I think it would be difficult to go through the process without your mind, eyes, and hands all free and available. In other words, it is concentrated work, that will be productive to the level that you are free to concentrate on it. In still more words, I’m afraid Allen is correct.
So, I leave the pondering of whether and where and how to each of you. I will proceed to outline the course Allen sets out for using the time once you’ve carved it out. I bet even if it’s not strictly every week, it will still work along the same lines and be a clarifying process.
Establishing Habit and Ritual
The weekly review will also sharpen your intuitive focus on your important projects as you deal with the flood of new input and potential distractions coming at you the rest of the week. You’re going to have to learn to say no — faster, and to more things — in order to stay afloat and comfortable. Having some dedicated time in which to at least get up to the project level of thinking goes a long way toward making that easier. [...] Whatever your lifestyle, you need a weekly regrouping ritual.
I really picked up on the “ritual” part. Perhaps “retreat” would be a good keyword for this, as the Inspired to Action series refers to it, but if getting out of the house by yourself isn’t possible, establishing some comforting and delightful customs to surround a weekly “getting things together” session is. In fact, maybe going out to a public place is too distracting for you — I often have that problem — and your house either before children are awake or after they are asleep would be a more restorative place to conduct your business. Think “restorative,” “clarifying,” “reflective,” “mindful.” How can you set up a scenario that can encompass those adjectives? Coffee? Tea? Wine? Scone? Biscotti? Chocolate? (FYI: all these freeze well and you can pull one out at a time to save them for this “special occasion”) Soft light? Bright task light? Expanse of clear table? Cozy chair with a notepad? Outdoors on the patio? This is work, to be sure, but it is supposed to be building peace of mind, so the environment and you set up should reflect that.
Once you’ve tasted what it’s like to have a clear head and feel in control of everything that’s going on, can you do what you need to to maintain that as an operational standard? The many years I’ve spent researching and implementing this methodology with countless people have proved to me that the magic key to the sustainability of the process is the weekly review.
If you have a sense of where you are and where you’re going and what you have going on, you’ll be able to make better on-the-spot decisions about commitments and responsibilities and ideas that come at you throughout the week. Allen goes so far as to say, “The real trick to ensuring the trustworthiness of the whole organization system lies in regularly refreshing your psyche and your system from a more elevated perspective.”
Official Procedure
What do you do the last week before you leave on a big trip? You clean up, close up, clarify, and renegotiate all your agreements with yourself and others. I just suggest that you do this weekly instead of yearly.
This review process is common sense, but few of us do it as well as we could, and that means as regularly as we [need to, in order] to keep a clear mind and a sense of relaxed control.
So, here’s what Allen says you should go through weekly:
- Gather all loose papers and stick them in your inbox.
- Process your inbox & any notes; review any journal or calendar entries.
- Enter any actions, events, ideas, or projects culled from inbox or a review of your notes & calendars into the appropriate lists.
- Look through your read/review pile — cull and reorder.
- Review your calendar, both previous and upcoming.
- Evaluate the status of all your projects, renewing as needed. New actions to your lists? Move some back to “someday”?
- Renew your next actions list — is it current and up to date?
- Review checklists — have you been forgetting anything?
- Glance through your someday/maybe lists for inspiration, activation, deletion.
Homemaker Version
Now, how this plays out for us depends on what kind of review we can arrange for ourselves. If an out-of-the-house “retreat” is feasible, then all your loose papers will have to be collected beforehand and you might need to go through your read & review pile separately. If you can arrange for 2-3 hours alone, whether in or out of your house, then it can be particularly refreshing and renewing if you start off with some reading that helps you remember the focus and motivations for what you’re doing. Maybe you have a favorite book you could read a bit out of, or maybe you could save or print off some focus-building blog posts you find inspiring. Maybe you actually have a written purpose statement you could start off by reviewing. Maybe you could start off by reading a few Psalms, or, even more appropriately, perhaps, a few chapters of Ecclesiastes. Maybe you have a list of quotes you could go over. I always find exercises like that helpful in clearing my head and reminding me what the point of both the planning session and my life in general is.
And, if you can plow through your planning process and still have some time left, you might consider reserving a little time to read a book that might require a little more concentration than is usually possible at home. Or, perhaps you like art and might browse a library art book. Or you enjoy writing. Spending a little of your time doing something that you enjoy that is totally unrelated to house, children, or schooling can help immensely in “changing the subject” within your mind so you can return to all three refreshed and ready to go again.
However, it’s even more likely that having a time out by yourself every week is not possible. In that case, I think it’s also possible to accomplish this in one quick run-through or two separate sessions. Gathering loose papers, processing the inbox, culling your reading pile, these can be done in quick spurts weekly as part of your housekeeping routine. What really requires focus and as much of a “time out” as you can manage is evaluating your calendar and lists and bringing them up to date and refreshing your mind with what’s been accomplished and what’s on the docket. If you are pressed for time, then even 30-45 minutes could accomplish this, I think, especially if they are caffeinated minutes. I bet we can all find 30-45 minutes somewhere once a week without interactions or other demands — the difficulty is in choosing to use it this way instead of zoning out on random internet searches or television shows. So, maybe Allen’s quote for us should instead read:
“The most senior and savvy of them, however, know the value of sacrificing the seemingly [refreshing & relaxing] for the truly [refreshing & relaxing], and they create their islands of time for some version of this process.”
So, I am going to challenge myself and also you, once you get to this step in the process, to commit to doing a weekly review once a week for 6 weeks straight, and then we’ll see if his emphasis is well-founded or not. Of course, we’re coming up on the holiday season, which is a difficult time to add one more commitment, but perhaps it would make a good New Year’s resolution. However, with more to keep track of during the holidays, perhaps it’s actually the perfect time to start. There are exactly 6 weeks left to 2010, after all. My first idea for a weekly review time is to extend my early rising habits (which are not yet habitual, by the way) to Saturday and have an hour to go through stuff before anyone else gets up. My Saturdays tend to feel hap-hazard, anyway, some weird mix of “day off,” “project day,” and “late start, no normal routine, everything is thrown off” keeps me from being as productive as I should be on Saturdays. So it would be a good day for me to start off with a little focus and clarification. I have yet to get up early on Saturday, though, and after a month or so of solid sleeping, Knox is now teething. So, it might just get postponed to the New Year, but I would like to try a run through at that time at least once or twice this year. Maybe the lower commitment level will make it less daunting. Yet, perhaps Allen is right:
The weekly review is so critical that it behooves you to establish good habits, environments, and tools to support it. Once your comfort zone has been established for the kind of relaxed control that Getting Things Done is all about, you won’t have to worry too much about making yourself do your review — you’ll have to get back to your personal standards again.
