Okay, Actually is a show about what’s really going on at work — and what we can do about it. New episodes come out every other Thursday and are always under 30 minutes.

A weekly review can sound like another administrative task or homework: one more obligation to fit into an already busy week, or an appointment with guilt and failure.

For me, it is the opposite. I’ve done some version of a weekly review every Sunday for more than 20 years. The exact form can change, but the ritual itself does not. It gives me a reliable place to look at what happened, decide what matters now, and figure out what to do next.

In this episode, I share the weekly ritual that has built more self-trust than any other practice in my life. I talk about the difference between consistency and rigidity, why a review should not become an exercise in judgment, what Sunday Karen can learn from the Karen who actually lived the week, and why planning can be valuable even when it doesn’t make us feel more motivated.

I also break down the simple three-part process I use to look backward, look forward, reflect, and commit (and explain why deleting something from your list may be even more satisfying than completing it).

00:00 The One Ritual I Never Skip

02:23 Inside My Sunday Weekly Review

03:48 Consistent Rituals vs. Rigid Routines

05:29 Why Weekly Reviews Feel Like Homework

08:35 Sunday Karen Meets Wednesday Karen

11:08 How Returning Builds Self-Trust

12:18 Planning Without Manufacturing Motivation

14:11 Unfinished vs. Unattended

15:36 A Three-Part Weekly Review

19:06 Celebrate Wins

21:52 Never More Than Seven Days From a Reset

A simple weekly review

Set aside approximately 30 minutes. If that feels like too much, begin with 15.

1. Look backward

Go through the previous seven days on your calendar.

• What happened?
• What decisions were made?
• Did you promise to send, schedule, or do something?
• Did someone promise to send, schedule, or do something for you?
• What moved forward, even if it wasn’t completed?
• Is there anything that remains open?
• What did you learn?

2. Look forward

Review the next seven days and your active projects.

• What is already committed?
• What requires preparation?
• Where are the pressure points?
• Does anything need to move?
• Does every active project have a clear next action?
• Are you waiting for someone?
• Is there anything you can remove?

3. Reflect and commit

• What went well?
• What are you proud of?
• What happened in your life — not just your work — that you want to remember?
• What didn’t work?
• What do you want to change?
• What three commitments would make the coming week feel successful?

4. Celebrate with an actual ode (Optional)

You completed your weekly review. This clearly calls for Beethoven: Listen to “Ode to Joy,” performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Remember: the purpose of the review is not to do all the work you uncover. It is to see, decide, and orient.

Research mentioned in this episode

Uhlig, L., Baumgartner, V., Prem, R., Siestrup, K., Korunka, C., & Kubicek, B. (2023). “A field experiment on the effects of weekly planning behaviour on work engagement, unfinished tasks, rumination, and cognitive flexibility.” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 96(3), 575–598.

Read the open-access study

Find me

OkayDoak.com

[email protected]

No matter where I am, what is happening that day, what the weather

2

is, who I'm with, it doesn't matter.

3

Every Sunday I do a weekly review.

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Usually it happens in the late

morning or early afternoon.

5

It's definitely my

preferred time, but I adapt.

6

Sometimes I'm at my desk,

sometimes I'm traveling.

7

Wherever I am, I try

to find a quiet corner,

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the exact form can change, amount of

time can change, but it always happens.

9

I think…

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Actually, I know it is the

single thing in my life I've

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been most consistent about ever.

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I've been doing some version of this for

20-plus years, and I judge the ritual

13

by one metric: whether I return to it.

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And by that metric alone, I've

been remarkably successful.

15

I protect a weekly review because no

matter what happens during the week,

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I know I'm never more than seven days

away from taking a breath, seeing

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what's true, getting myself reoriented.

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Over time, that repeated act of

returning has built an enormous

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amount of trust in myself.

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Not because I always follow the

plan, but because I trust myself

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to come back, notice what happened,

and figure out what to do next.

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And that knowledge changes how

I live the rest of the week, and

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frankly, how I live my whole life.

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I'm Karen Doak, and

this is OK Actually…,

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a podcast about work, identity, what

becomes possible when we question

26

the rules we've been handed.

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And today, as summer ends, and we return

to regular routines and rhythms, I

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wanna make a case for the one ritual

I believe has changed my life more

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than any other: the weekly review.

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I don't want this to be

a productivity lecture.

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I want it to be an ode because

I genuinely love this ritual.

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For me, it usually means setting aside

about thirty minutes with a cup of Earl

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Grey, my paper planner, and my laptop.

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I like to imagine that I'm sitting

very professionally at my desk.

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If I'm honest, I'm usually on the couch

under a blanket, even in the summer,

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because I am a permanently cold person.

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I begin with my calendar.

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I look backward at the week I just

lived and forward at the one that's

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coming, and then I look through

Todoist, my task app, and any notes

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I've accumulated during the week.

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I'm trying to answer

a few basic questions.

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What happened?

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Is there anything I owe someone?

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What's coming up that

requires preparation?

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Is there work hiding somewhere that

needs to become an actual task?

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And then I put pen to paper.

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In my planner, I write down the

wins from the previous week.

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A win could be a major accomplishment, it

could be a recipe that turned out really

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well, or it could be something one of

the kids did that just made me happy.

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Nothing is too big or too small to count.

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I note anything that worked, anything

that didn't, anything I want to

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change, and then I choose three

commitments for the coming week.

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Sometimes it's four, but

five is definitely too

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many, so do not get tripped.

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I look back at the three commitments I

made the week before, not to grade myself,

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but just to understand what happened.

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Did they move?

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Did they still matter?

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What did I learn?

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And then I'm done.

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It usually takes thirty minutes or less.

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When I finish, I can literally feel my

shoulders drop, not because I suddenly

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have everything under control, but

because I know where I am, I know

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what needs my attention, and I have a

realistic picture of the week ahead.

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There is a difference between a rigid

routine and a consistent ritual.

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A rigid routine is, "I must do this

at exactly this time in exactly

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this way under exactly these

conditions, or it doesn't count."

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Uh, that isn't what I'm doing.

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There are weeks when I conduct a

comprehensive review of everything

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that happened in my life, and there are

other weeks when I have fifteen minutes,

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and I do the minimum viable version.

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I can change the time, the place,

the degree of thoroughness.

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There's flexibility around what a review

looks like, but there's very little

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flexibility around whether I return to it.

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That distinction matters a lot to me.

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Consistency doesn't have

to mean repeatedly forcing

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yourself into the same shape.

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Sometimes consistency means

allowing the shape to change so

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that the relationship can continue.

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I've been on a plane with no Wi-Fi,

and in those cases, my review is

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a brain dump in my journal of what

I can remember happening and what

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I know I need to prioritize and

still always documenting those wins.

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When I get online later, , I do a quick

check of my calendar or task list,

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but otherwise, I move on with my life.

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I have also had terribly stressful

work periods where it felt like things

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were moving so quickly that I just

scheduled a midweek review of tasks

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in the calendar for fifteen minutes

on Thursday morning just to keep up.

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The goal is not to

complete a perfect review.

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The goal is to know where you are.

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From any of these types or versions

of my review, I didn't emerge with

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my entire life beautifully organized,

but I knew where I was again, and

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that reorientation was enough.

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I'm kind of fascinated, though, because

of all the practices I suggest to

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clients, the weekly review is the one

that receives the most resistance.

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People , are actually a lot more

willing to plan every single

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morning than they are to protect one

thirty-minute block of time each week.

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Five minutes each morning to look

at the day or their calendar, fine,

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But half an hour once a week to

step back and look at the whole,

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suddenly that sounds overwhelming.

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One client told me she

simply didn't have time.

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She didn't want to do the review on the

weekend because that was family time.

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She tried Monday morning, but by the

time she sat down, she was already

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responding to email and Slack.

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By Friday, the last thing she wanted

was another work-related obligation.

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So every possible window came with it a

reason it wouldn't work, so the review

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never happened, and she was gonna try

it the next week at a different time.

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And at the same time, she wanted to

build a separate process for documenting

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her wins because she knew how valuable

that record would be for her business.

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And I remember thinking, "That

is one of the exact things a

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weekly review could give you."

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That was when I realized the

resistance wasn't about the mechanics.

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The thing I experience as relief

felt to her like another obligation

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I've had to think about why the

thing I experience as relief sounds

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like homework to so many people.

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And I don't think the resistance is

laziness, but I do think that maybe the

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weekly review has a branding problem.

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I don't know if it's the word review.

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Review can sound like

a performance review.

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It can sound like someone is about to

pull out a clipboard and measure your

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output and tell you where you failed.

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Or it can sound and feel

like an audit maybe.

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Like, in order to review everything,

you have to look at everything, and

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the idea of pulling everything back out

of the metaphorical cupboards you've

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jammed it in can sound overwhelming.

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If you imagine spending 30 minutes

confronting everything you didn't

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finish, of course you don't wanna do it.

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, That isn't a-an appointment with yourself.

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It's an appointment with, like,

a lot of accumulated guilt.

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And none of us is interested

in scheduling that appointment.

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But that's really not the

purpose of a weekly review.

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My review is not where I decide

whether I was good or bad that week.

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It's where I find out what happened.

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And that sounds maybe absurdly

or bizarrely simple, but there

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is a real difference between

looking at what happened and

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judging the person it happened to.

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Every week begins with a plan

made from incomplete information.

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I don't know which

conversation will run long.

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I don't know what urgent

request will arrive.

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I don't know whether I'll sleep

badly one night and spend the next

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day operating at half capacity.

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One bad night of sleep can knock over

an entire day for me, and then that

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day hits the next one like a domino,

and suddenly the plan I made at the

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beginning of the week belongs to a world

that doesn't exist and isn't possible.

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That doesn't necessarily

mean I planned badly.

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It means I planned before I

knew what was gonna happen and

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what the week would ask of me.

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So the weekly review is where the

version of me who planned the week and

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the version of me who actually lived

it get to meet each other, and they're

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very different people because I'm an

optimist when I'm doing my weekly review.

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Sunday Karen believes in everything.

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She believes in the week.

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She believes in time.

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She believes everyone will do exactly what

they committed to and deliver it early.

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And then I become progressively more

realistic each day, and especially

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at the end of each day when I can

see what was actually possible

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. So the review is where

those two Karens meet.

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But Sunday Karen doesn't get to

accuse Thursday Karen of failing

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to execute her beautiful plan.

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Thursday Karen gets to explain what

she learned from the reality that

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she lived Let's take just this week.

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Sunday Karen thought that I would

have this whole podcast recorded

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on Monday and edited on Tuesday.

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Except Monday Karen was really slow

writing something that had to get out

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the door earlier, and Tuesday Karen

woke up in the middle of the night and

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stepped in dog shit at 4:00 AM, and then

couldn't get back to sleep and tried to

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record this podcast, and it sounded like

the musings and disconnected thoughts

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of someone who hadn't slept and had

started their day stepping in dog shit.

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So instead, Wednesday

Karen is recording this.

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You are currently hearing

the voice of Wednesday Karen.

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And other things got bumped.

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And when I review this week on Sunday,

it's gonna be like, yeah, it would've

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been great to not have an elderly

dog with incontinence issues , and

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have that impact my day, not just in

terms of sleep, but in casting, well,

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frankly, like a whole pall over it.

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I mean, you really don't start

your day that way and feel

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great about anything else.

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But then I'm gonna remind myself, I

really need to try and record the week

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before so that I can allow space for

all the shit, actual and metaphorical,

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that may impact everything else.

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And that's what makes the review useful

over time, is that feedback becomes data.

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I begin to recognize patterns.

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I get better at predicting my capacity.

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I notice what kinds of work consistently

take longer than I expect, and I see which

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commitments start to get displaced and

what keeps displacing them, and I can be

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honest about what I really don't wanna do.

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Sometimes the lesson is that you need to

plan differently or that I need to say no.

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Sometimes it says something I

thought mattered really doesn't

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matter that much, or clearly reality

says it doesn't matter that much.

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And sometimes the lesson is that I had

, a human week, you know, and that's it.

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But the repeated act of returning

creates something more important

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than an organized system.

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It builds self-trust.

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I don't mean that I trust myself to

complete every task I write down,

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because I absolutely do not do that.

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I misjudge my capacity a lot.

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I avoid things.

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I change my mind.

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Uh, life introduces information that

I didn't have when I made the plan.

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Self-trust is not believing that

I will always follow the plan.

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It is knowing that I

will notice when I don't.

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I trust that I will sit down again,

I'll tell myself the truth about

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what happened, and help myself

begin from where I actually am.

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So if something drops, there's a

known time when I'm gonna look for it,

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and if something becomes irrelevant,

there's a known time when I let it go.

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And if I become fully absorbed

in something urgent, I can do

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that without believing I've

lost the bigger picture forever.

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The review doesn't prevent

me from losing the thread.

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It means I know when and where to find it

And because of that, an unproductive day

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does not become an entire identity crisis.

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A chaotic Wednesday does not

get to define the entire week.

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Again, I'm never more than

seven days away from a reset.

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So as a result, the real value isn't

limited to those 30 minutes or even

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the immediate relaxation I feel after.

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I feel it when I'm making dinner and I'm

talking with Jeff, and my brain is not

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frantically scanning the entire workday

for something I might have forgotten

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I get energy from planning, but I

don't judge the weekly review from

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whether I finish it feeling inspired.

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I rarely complete it and think,

"Holy shit, this is gonna be the

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most exciting week of my life."

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Sometimes I look at the week ahead

and think, "Oh, this is a lot, and

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it looks like it's gonna suck."

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Clarity is not always exhilarating,

but motivation may be the wrong test.

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A field experiment in the Journal

of Occupational and Organizational

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Psychology, something I very

obviously don't read, but this study

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made its way to me anyway, involved

more than two hundred employees.

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The researchers found that a brief

start of week planning practice

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resulted in fewer unfinished tasks,

less after-work rumination, and

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greater cognitive flexibility.

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But interestingly, it did not make

people more engaged in their work.

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To be precise, the study looked

at forward planning rather than a

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full retrospective weekly review.

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But looking forward is half of

what my review does, so I think

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this is still very relevant.

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Planning doesn't necessarily

make people more enthusiastic.

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It helps them decide on goals, identify

steps, anticipate obstacles, and

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carry less unresolved work in their

heads, which sounds right to me.

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My weekly review does not have to turn

me into a more enthusiastic person.

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It helps the person I already am meet

the week in front of me with fewer things

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buzzing unattended in the background.

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I'm not seeking motivation.

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I'm seeking clarity and the

freedom to stop thinking about

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work when I'm not working

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There's a huge difference between

something being unfinished and

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something being unattended.

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A task can be unfinished but captured.

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It can have a clear next step.

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I can know what I'm waiting for

and when I'll look at it again.

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And that feels really different from,

like, a vague, undefined commitment

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that keeps resurfacing when I'm brushing

my teeth or trying to fall asleep

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Capturing something is not

the same as deciding about it.

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My calendar holds time, my task

system holds projects and actions.

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The weekly review is what restores

the relationship between them.

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It's where scattered inputs become

decisions, so I like to think of

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it as a level of cognitive relief.

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I'm not asking my brain to remember

everything or monitor everything or

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renegotiate commitments in real time.

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I'm giving those commitments somewhere

to live, and I'm giving myself a

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reliable time to come back to them.

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My family started planning Christmas

in terms of picking a location back

260

in July, and while some things like

travel need to be booked that far

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in advance, other things can't be.

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You know, you can't make

restaurant reservations most places

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until two or three months out.

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Every week when I see Christmas as a

project on my bigger list, I don't spiral

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because I already have the dates for when

different reservations open up listed.

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I don't have to do anything

now, and I don't have to worry

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that I'm missing something.

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And that's the difference between

relying on my memory and trusting

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that I've captured it, and it'll

resurface when it needs to.

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I described my own ritual at the

beginning, but I wanna give you a little

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more detail about how to create your own.

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So this is not about

using my particular tools.

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You could do all of this with a paper

planner, a notebook, a Google Doc,

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or whatever system you already trust.

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And the review has three basic

parts: look backward, look forward,

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and then reflect and commit.

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So first, look backward.

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You wanna start with your calendar.

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Move through the last seven

days, one day at a time.

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What happened?

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What meetings did you attend?

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What decisions were made?

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Did you promise to send

something, schedule something,

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follow up with someone?

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Is there anything you

completed but never recorded?

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Is there anything that moved forward

even though it isn't finished?

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Is there something you learned

that you should change how you

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approach the work next time?

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You're not trying to

relive the entire week.

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You're looking for anything that remains

open and anything worth recognizing.

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And I'm also not giving you a whole

list of questions you have to answer.

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It's more look at your calendar and when

your eyes land on something, go, "Oh my

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God, did I forget something with this?

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Is there anything related to this?"

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You just need to kind of be

jostled to make sure that

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nothing slips through the cracks.

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And then you look forward.

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So move through the next

seven days on your calendar.

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What is already committed?

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What requires preparation?

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Where are the obvious pressure points?

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Do you have enough time

between obligations?

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Does something need to move?

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Sometimes I'll notice that I have a call

until 5:30 on a night when I'm supposed

305

to make dinner, and that's when I swap

dinner nights with Jeff, not at 5:31

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that evening when everyone is hungry

and I'm already annoyed and tired.

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Look at your active tasks,

projects, and responsibilities too.

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Does every active project

have a clear next action?

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Are you waiting for someone?

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Is there an undefined blob of

work that needs to become a task?

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Is there something you keep carrying

forward that's no longer relevant?

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You can also scan whatever places

tend to collect loose ends for

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you, your task inbox, email, notes

app, physical notebook, desktop,

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pile of, you know, increasingly

accusatory sticky notes with more and

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more scribbled underlines on them.

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You're not doing the work that you

uncover, and that's super important.

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The purpose of the review is

to see, decide, and orient.

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If you discover that you need

to draft a presentation, the

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review is not when you draft it.

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You decide when that will happen.

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You give it a clear next step,

and you move on And then the

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third phase is reflect and commit.

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Start with your wins.

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What went well?

325

What moved?

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What did you handle better than

you would have six months ago?

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What are you proud of?

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What happened in your life, not just

your work, that you want to remember?

329

And then ask what didn't work , and

what do you want to change?

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Treat the answer as information

rather than evidence against you.

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And finally, choose three

commitments for the week ahead.

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What three things would make you feel

that the week had been successful?

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Put those commitments somewhere

you'll see them and stop.

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The entire process can

take thirty minutes.

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If that feels impossible, take fifteen.

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The goal is not to build a

flawless system or emerge with

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your entire life under control.

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The goal is to know where you

are, what matters now, and what

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deserves your attention next.

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And there's always a potential best

possible outcome, which is canceling

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an entire project or activity.

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Nothing feels better than looking

at something and being like,

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"No, I'm not gonna do that."."

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Whatever dopamine hit you get checking off

a box and marking something as done pales

345

in comparison to the thrill of hitting

delete, especially on something you've

346

been kicking down the road for weeks.

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I know I brought up celebrating

a lot, but I really do believe

348

in celebrating everything.

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Small wins, big wins, random holidays to

which I have no meaningful attachment.

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There's very little stopping us

from opening champagne more often.

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I learned this from my French

host mother who drank champagne…

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Well, okay, she drank Crémant,

but it's the same thing, every

353

day, and she was very happy.

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And that same spirit

belongs in a weekly review.

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Actually, honestly, we should

just all channel my French

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host mother most of the time.

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She was a character and a

hoot and living her best life.

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If all you use the review for is

identifying what remains undone,

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you're throwing away half of

the value and all of the fun.

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Looking back reminds me of

progress I would otherwise forget.

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By Sunday, a success from Monday

can feel as though it happened

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years ago, and the review brings

it back into the story of the week.

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It lets me see what moved, even if

I didn't finish everything entirely.

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Lets me recognize the conversation

that went well or when I held

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a really good boundary or an

important decision that was made.

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Maybe the thing that I handled better

than I would've six months ago.

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I can celebrate launching something really

big, like my Substack or this podcast.

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And I can celebrate things no

one else really cares about,

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like cleaning my closet.

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And I can celebrate deciding not

to move forward on something that

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would've been a huge energy drain.

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The delight is not in

doing anything perfectly.

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It's not in creating aesthetic perfection.

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I'm not using my weekly review

to create a museum quality bullet

375

journal or resurrecting a calligraphy

course from 30 years ago to produce

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some kind of like illuminated

manuscript of my accomplishments.

377

The delight is in seeing the whole.

378

It is 30 minutes when no one else is

asking anything of me, and I get to

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consider what I need, and it's the

pleasure of realizing there's no hidden

380

surprises, or if there are surprises,

I now know what to do about them.

381

And very practically, I sleep

better on Sunday nights.

382

I really never have

had the Sunday scaries.

383

And I know ideally I would tell some

tale about how well-rested I am, blah,

384

blah, blah, blah, blah, but the truth

is I've had insomnia issues since I was

385

a teenager, so I'm not well rested, but

386

It's not because I'm ruminating

over what I need to do or

387

what I might be forgetting.

388

So if you've resisted a weekly

review, I don't wanna hand you

389

an elaborate system to maintain.

390

I just wanna offer you a

different kind of appointment.

391

Find thirty minutes this week, Friday

afternoon, sometime this weekend,

392

whatever reliably works for your life.

393

I really prefer not to leave it until

Monday morning because Monday morning is

394

such a crapshoot, and it makes it really

easy to cancel and wait another week.

395

You wanna choose a time you can protect.

396

You don't have to fix your entire

life, process every inbox, examine

397

every goal, find every loose thread.

398

Look backward at what happened

and what remains open.

399

Look forward at what's coming

and what requires your attention.

400

Then reflect on what worked, decide what

you wanna change, and choose the three

401

things that matter most in the week ahead.

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That's it.

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I'll put the full breakdown and all of

the questions I use in the show notes

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so you don't have to remember them or

rewind and frantically write them down.

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If 30 minutes feels like too

much, don't worry about it.

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The ritual can happen while the form

and the time and the how and the tools

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remain flexible for what works for you.

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A weekly review is not gonna protect

you from chaos, and it's clearly

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not gonna protect you from dog shit.

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It won't make you excited about everything

you have to do, and it won't guarantee

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that you complete everything you planned.

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What it will do is help you know

what happened, what matters now,

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and what you need to do next.

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And for me, that is worth

30 minutes every Sunday.

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I'm Karen Doak.

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This is Okay, Actually.

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Thank you for spending

some of your time with me.

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I hope you have a good week,

and if you try a weekly review,

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I'd love to hear how it goes