Weekly review template for knowledge workers (Sunday, 15 minutes)

TL;DR. A 15-minute Sunday review gives you a calm Monday and a clearer week. Three sections — looking back, looking forward, asking yourself one good question — five minutes each. Steal it as-is, or adapt it to your tools. The discipline that matters most is stopping at 15 minutes — not the questions you ask.

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Why a weekly review (and not just daily planning)

Daily planning tells you what to do today. It can't tell you whether what you've been doing all week is working. That's a different question, and it requires a different cadence.

Daily planning answers "what next" — review answers "what's working"

Daily planning is tactical: of the things on my plate, which two or three move first today? It's necessary, but it's blind to drift. You can plan the same kind of day twenty days in a row — productively, satisfactorily — and miss the fact that you've been chipping at the same surface project while the deep work that actually mattered slipped quietly off the radar.

The weekly review is the opposite shape. It zooms out, looks at the pattern of the past seven days, and asks whether the pattern is the one you want to keep producing.

GTD's weekly review (David Allen) — and why his version is too long

The most famous weekly-review template comes from David Allen's Getting Things Done (2001). It's thorough — clear physical inbox, clear digital inbox, clear head, review project lists, review next-action lists, review waiting-for, review someday/maybe, review reference materials. Allen estimates it takes "an hour or two."

It does. And in the 24 years since the book came out, GTD practitioners have consistently reported that the weekly review is the single hardest part of GTD to actually maintain. Even Allen has said publicly that compliance is rare. The friction-to-start is too high. People know they should do it. They don't.

The 15-minute version traded scope for sustainability. We dropped the inbox-clearing, the project enumeration, the someday/maybe sweep — those are useful but they're not what makes a weekly review valuable. What makes it valuable is the fact that you sat down at all, looked at last week, set up next week, and asked yourself a real question.

The 15-minute version (this template)

Three sections, five minutes each, total 15 minutes. No prep, no inbox-zero requirement, no tooling beyond what you already use.

Section 1 — Looking back (5 min)
Section 2 — Looking forward (5 min)
Section 3 — One good question (5 min)

That's the template. Everything below is detail.

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The template (Sunday, 15 minutes)

5 minutes — Looking back at last week

Five questions, in order, answered in fragments rather than sentences:

1. What got done? Glance at last week's view. Don't list everything — note the 2–3 things that mattered.
2. What didn't, and is it still important? Of the rolled-over tasks, which actually need to happen this week and which can be killed?
3. Where did my energy go? Honest read on which work drained you and which energized you. This is qualitative — no scoring.
4. What worked unexpectedly well? A small win, a tactic that worked better than expected, a meeting that went well — note it so you can repeat it.
5. What was the one mistake I want to learn from? Singular. Not a list. The single most useful course-correction for next week.

5 minutes — Looking forward at this week

Five questions, in order:

1. What are the 1–3 outcomes that would make this week a win? Outcomes, not tasks. "Ship the Q2 report draft" not "work on Q2 report."
2. What's already on the calendar that I'm under-prepared for? A meeting, a call, a deadline. Block prep time now, not Tuesday morning.
3. What recurring habit needs special attention this week? A struggling habit, a habit getting close to Mastery, or one you've been pausing for a reason.
4. What can I drop or postpone to make room? The hardest question. Pick at least one thing.
5. What's the first task I'll do Monday morning? Specific, time-boxed, ready to execute. The single best protection against Monday-morning paralysis.

5 minutes — One good question

Pick one of the 12 rotating questions below. Write a paragraph in response. Don't edit. Don't share it. Don't keep it as a polished record — keep it as a draft you wrote for yourself one Sunday in April.

This is the section most people skip. Don't. It's the section that makes the review a reflection rather than a planning exercise — and reflection is what catches drift that planning misses.

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Section 1: Looking back (5 minutes)

The five questions are intentionally vague. The vagueness is the point — it forces you to interpret each one for this week rather than mechanically filling in fields.

A few notes on each:

• What got done. Fight the instinct to enumerate everything. Two or three items, in fragments. "Ship Q2 draft. Hard conversation with M. Three quiet days of deep work."
• What didn't. Don't relitigate the past — just decide what's still worth carrying. Tasks that have rolled over four weeks running are usually not actually important; they're just on the list because they were once added to the list. Kill them, with mild regret, not guilt.
• Where did my energy go. This is the question that compounds value over months. Start to notice what kinds of work give you energy and what kinds drain you, and you can start to redesign your weeks accordingly. The data is in your body, not your task list.
• What worked unexpectedly well. Small, specific, repeatable. "Pomodoro timer Tuesday morning." "Walking meeting with K." "No-meeting Wednesday." Patterns you'll forget if you don't note them.
• The one mistake. Singular. The discipline of picking one is what makes this useful — a list of five mistakes is just a self-flagellation exercise.

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Section 2: Looking forward (5 minutes)

The five questions, in their natural order:

• 1–3 outcomes that would make this week a win. Phrase them as outcomes ("the Q2 draft is in review by Friday"), not activities ("work on Q2 draft"). Outcomes are bounded; activities expand to fill the time.
• What's on the calendar I'm under-prepared for. A 30-minute meeting requires at least 30 minutes of prep, sometimes more. The under-prepared-for events are the ones that quietly hijack a Tuesday afternoon. Spotting them on Sunday lets you protect prep time on Monday.
• What recurring habit needs special attention. Maybe a habit is at day 60 and almost at Mastery — a final push of attention can carry it across. Maybe one has slipped two weeks running and needs an honest re-commit or a pause. Habits that don't get attention drift; weekly attention is enough to prevent the drift.
• What can I drop or postpone. The hard one. Picking nothing here is the wrong answer — there's always something. The discipline of moving one thing off the week is what creates room for the things that actually matter.
• First task Monday morning. Specific, time-boxed, ready to start. "9:00–9:45, draft the email to the client." The single best inoculation against Monday-morning drift.

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Section 3: One good question (5 minutes)

Pick from a rotating list of 12 questions

The list is below. Use them in order, then start over after twelve weeks. Three months is long enough that when a question comes around again, your answer is genuinely different.

Write a one-paragraph answer

A few sentences. Maybe a half-page if it's flowing. Don't extend the timer — when the 5-minute alarm goes, you stop. The constraint is what produces the insight; without it the question turns into journaling, and journaling expands.

Don't share it — it's just for you

The reflection only works if you can be honest. If you're writing for an audience — even an imagined one — you'll write what's flattering, and you'll surface nothing useful. Keep the paragraphs private. Even from your therapist. (You can talk about the insight with anyone; the raw paragraph is for you alone.)

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How to do this in Keelify (or any tool)

Step-by-step within Keelify (uses Sunday-evening reflection)

The Pro plan's three-field reflection maps cleanly onto this template:

• Notes → Section 1 (looking back). Write the five fragments here.
• What can be improved → Section 2 (looking forward). Note the outcomes, prep-needed, drop-list, Monday-first.
• Gratitude → Section 3 (one question). Use this slot for the rotating reflection question, even if the question isn't strictly about gratitude.

The week view shows you last week's data without needing to navigate. Habits and mood patterns appear in the same screen, which gives Section 1 evidence to work from. On Pro+, Juno reads from your week's data when generating the Sunday-night weekly summary, so the review tends to surface patterns you might have missed.

Generic version for other tools

Any notes app, paper notebook, or Google Doc works. The template is:

SECTION 1 — Looking back (5 min)
- What got done:
- What didn't, still important:
- Where did energy go:
- What worked unexpectedly well:
- One mistake to learn from:

SECTION 2 — Looking forward (5 min)
- 1–3 outcomes that would make this a win:
- Calendar items I'm under-prepared for:
- Habit needing special attention:
- One thing to drop / postpone:
- First task Monday morning:

SECTION 3 — One good question (5 min)
- Question:
- Paragraph:

Copy that. Paste it into your tool of choice. Use it for four weeks. Then iterate.

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Common mistakes

• Making it too long (>15 min). The whole point is the time-box. A 45-minute review will get done twice and then never again.
• Using it to plan, not review. Section 2 is brief on purpose. Detailed planning happens in your normal task workflow, not in the weekly review. The review's job is intent and direction, not a 30-task to-do list.
• Skipping when you "had a bad week." This is the most important week to do it. The instinct to skip is what makes bad weeks compound. The bounded 15-minute container is exactly what stops the bad week from spreading.
• Treating Section 3 as optional. It's not. The reflection is what distinguishes a weekly review from a project status meeting with yourself. Without it, you're just bookkeeping.
• Performing rather than reflecting. If you find yourself writing what would sound impressive in a journal-publication, stop. Write a half-sentence fragment instead.

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12 questions to rotate through

Use one per week. After twelve weeks, start over.

1. What was I avoiding this week, and why?
2. What did I learn about my work that I didn't know on Monday?
3. Who do I owe a thank-you to that I haven't sent?
4. What part of my week was on autopilot — and is that good or bad?
5. If I had to remove one recurring meeting, which would it be?
6. What did I say no to this week, and what did saying no make room for?
7. What's a small habit I have that I take for granted, and how did it serve me this week?
8. What's the one thing I did this week that future-me will thank me for?
9. What's the one thing I did this week that future-me will wince at?
10. What kind of work made the time disappear in a good way?
11. What kind of work made the time disappear in a bad way?
12. If next week were the last week before a long break, what would I want to leave finished?

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Frequently asked questions

Why 15 minutes specifically?

Because longer reviews don't get done. The original GTD weekly review takes 1–2 hours and has a famously low compliance rate even among GTD enthusiasts — the friction-to-start is too high. The 15-minute version is the smallest container that still does the three things that make a weekly review valuable: surface what worked, set the next week's intent, and ask one reflective question. Anything longer becomes optional. 15 minutes becomes routine.

Why Sunday and not Friday?

Sunday wins on two dimensions: you're closer to the start of the week you're planning, so the energy and outcomes are fresh. And Sunday-evening reviews tend to compress the week's anxious anticipation into a single 15-minute container, which is genuinely calming. Friday reviews bleed into weekend rumination. Sunday reviews end the weekend cleanly. If Sunday genuinely doesn't fit your week (work-week starts a different day, religious observance, etc.), pick whatever evening sits 12–18 hours before your week's first work block.

What if I had a bad week?

Do the review anyway — this is the most important week to do it. The instinct after a bad week is to skip the review because you don't want to look at the evidence. That instinct is exactly why bad weeks compound. The 15-minute review forces a brief, bounded look at what happened, sets the next week up cleanly, and prevents the bad week from spreading into the next one. The five questions are deliberately gentle for this reason — none of them are "why did you fail?"

Do I need a special tool to do this?

No. The template works in a notebook, a Notion page, an Apple Notes page, a Google Doc, or a paper bullet journal. Keelify makes it slightly easier because the looking-back data is already in the week view and the third section maps onto the three reflection fields, but the discipline matters more than the tool. The number of people doing this consistently in a $0.99 notebook is much higher than the number doing it inconsistently in a $20/month app.

Why a rotating reflection question instead of always the same one?

Because the same question every week becomes performative — you start writing the answer you wrote last week. A rotating list (12 questions, one per week, then repeat after three months) keeps the reflection fresh enough that you actually surface new insights instead of re-confirming old ones. Three months is long enough that when the question comes around again, your answer is genuinely different.

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Sources

• Allen, D. (2001). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin Books. (Source of the original weekly-review concept; this template is a much-shortened adaptation.)
• The 15-minute structure and the rotating-question list are Keelify-original framework, refined across Andreas's own weekly reviews.

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Last updated: 26 April 2026. Reviewed by the Keelify team.