GTD weekly review
How to do a GTD weekly review
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David Allen calls the weekly review “the critical success factor for the entire Getting Things Done methodology.” It's the habit that keeps your system trustworthy. Skip it, and your lists decay into noise. Do it consistently, and you get the “mind like water” clarity GTD promises.
What the weekly review actually is
The weekly review isn't a productivity ritual or a planning session. It's a maintenance routine for your trusted system — a structured walkthrough that ensures nothing has fallen through the cracks, no project is stalled without a next action, and every commitment in your system is still relevant.
Think of it as a system health check. A car needs oil changes. A garden needs weeding. Your GTD system needs a weekly review. Without it, items accumulate, projects stall, and you start carrying the cognitive load that GTD was supposed to eliminate.
“The Weekly Review is the time to: Gather and process all your stuff. Review your system. Update your lists. Get clean, clear, current, and complete.” — David Allen, Getting Things Done
The five steps of a GTD weekly review
Allen breaks the weekly review into three phases: Get Clear, Get Current, and Get Creative. Here's the practical breakdown:
1. Collect loose ends (Get Clear)
Capture everything that's accumulated since your last review. Check physical inboxes, email, notes apps, browser tabs, sticky notes, voicemails. Get every open loop out of your head and into your inbox. This step often uncovers 5–15 items you'd forgotten about.
2. Empty your inbox (Get Clear)
Process every item in your inbox to zero. For each: is it actionable? If yes, define the next action and put it in the right project. If no, delete it, file it as reference, or move it to Someday/Maybe. The goal isn't to do everything — it's to decide about everything.
3. Review every project (Get Current)
Go through each active project and ask three questions: Is this still relevant? Does it have a clear next action? Is the next action actually doable this week? If a project has no next action, either add one or move the project to Someday/Maybe. Stalled projects are the silent killers of a GTD system.
4. Review Waiting For and Someday/Maybe (Get Current)
Check your Waiting For list: has anyone delivered what you're waiting on? Follow up if needed. Check Someday/Maybe: has anything become actionable? Move it to active. Has anything become irrelevant? Delete it. These lists rot faster than active projects.
5. Look ahead (Get Creative)
Scan your calendar for the next 1–2 weeks. Any upcoming events that need preparation? Any deferred tasks about to surface? This is also the time to brainstorm: are there new projects you should start? Goals you want to work toward? Ideas worth capturing?
The entire process takes 30–60 minutes for most people. Some do it Friday afternoon to close out the work week. Others prefer Sunday evening to prepare for Monday. The day doesn't matter. Consistency does.
Why most people skip the weekly review
The weekly review is the most commonly abandoned part of GTD. Research across GTD communities reveals three consistent reasons:
It takes too long. When your app doesn't support it natively, the review becomes a manual process: open every project, scroll through, mentally assess each one, switch between views. In Todoist, you're opening each project individually, scanning, going back to the project list, opening the next. In Things 3, you're manually reviewing each area. This friction adds 15–20 minutes to what should be a 30-minute process.
There's no guided flow. Without a built-in walkthrough, the review feels unstructured. You're never sure if you've checked everything. Did you review Waiting For? Did you scan Someday/Maybe? The mental overhead of managing the review process itself becomes a barrier to doing it.
The system isn't clean enough to review. If you've been inconsistent with processing — inbox has 40 items, projects have no next actions, overdue tasks are piling up — the review feels overwhelming. You skip it because it would take too long, which makes the next review even worse. A spiral forms.
“I have adult ADHD. I have owned OmniFocus 1, 2 and now 3 Pro, hoping it will help organize my life. And I have basically never used it.” — Mac Power Users Forum
The review is where complex apps lose users. If the app makes the review hard, the system collapses.
Which apps have a built-in weekly review
Most task managers treat the weekly review as your problem. Only two apps have a dedicated review mode:
| App | Built-in review | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| OmniFocus | ✓ | Dedicated Review perspective. Set review intervals per project. Apple native apps only — not on web. |
| SingleFocus | ✓ | Guided walkthrough: project-by-project review, stale task detection, stalled project flags, inbox count, accomplishment summary. Cross-platform. |
| Todoist | ✗ | No review mode. Importable template available. Manual process. |
| Things 3 | ✗ | No review mode. Users manually check each project and area. |
| TickTick | ✗ | “Plan Your Day” and “Summary” features exist but aren't a weekly review workflow. |
| Nirvana | ✗ | Quick Guide advises weekly review as a practice but provides no built-in workflow. |
How the weekly review works in SingleFocus
SingleFocus has two review modes: a standard project-by-project review and a guided weekly review assistant that walks you through the entire process.
Standard review
A project-by-project walkthrough with a progress bar. For each project, you see all its tasks, can mark items as done, add new tasks, defer items, or move the project to on hold. Mark it reviewed and move to the next. Simple, focused, no context switching.
Guided weekly review
A six-step flow that goes beyond individual projects:
Empty steps are automatically skipped. If you have no stalled projects, step 3 doesn't appear. The review only shows what needs attention.
Making the weekly review stick
The habit is more important than the tool. Here are patterns from GTD practitioners who've maintained their review for years:
Same time, same place. Friday at 3pm. Sunday at 7pm. The specific time doesn't matter. Having a consistent slot makes it automatic rather than something you have to decide to do.
Set a reminder. SingleFocus sends a configurable review nudge on your chosen day and time. OmniFocus shows review items based on per-project intervals. Either way, don't rely on memory.
Start small. If a full review feels too heavy, start with just the project walkthrough. Even spending 10 minutes scanning each project for a next action makes a difference. You can expand the practice as it becomes routine.
Keep your system clean between reviews. Defer dates and sequential projects help here. When your Today view only shows actionable items, the review is shorter because less has accumulated.
“Leaving OmniFocus was probably the hardest technological decision I've ever made. I can't afford being in a vendor lock-in with Apple.” — OmniFocus power user, Hacker News
OmniFocus's review mode is excellent — if you're on Apple. For cross-platform GTD with a built-in review, see OmniFocus Alternative.
Related guides
Getting Things Done: the definitive guide
The complete GTD system: five steps, processing flowchart, and the habit that holds it all together.
GTD at work
How to use Getting Things Done alongside Jira, Slack, and email in a corporate environment.
Best GTD app in 2026
Which apps actually support GTD? Honest comparison of every option with the features that matter.
A weekly review that guides you through it
SingleFocus is the only cross-platform GTD app with a built-in guided weekly review. Free during early access. No credit card. No time limit.
Also see: Best GTD App 2026 · Defer Dates Explained · OmniFocus Alternative
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