Weekly Review Checklist
Choose the version that matches how you work and tick through it once a week. Your captures and history stay in your browser.
0 of 6 steps done, not started.
Weekly review checklist (Simple)
Clear about 5 min
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Every captured item gets a day, a project, or the bin. Doing them now is what makes the review run long. In Pinwork this is Inbox.
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Tick what is done. Anything you did not get to moves forward or gets dropped.
Plan about 8 min
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A deadline is the last acceptable day, not the day to do the work. In Pinwork this is the Deadline field.
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That day is the When. It can move; the deadline does not.
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Meetings and travel take days away. A week with two travel days has three days of work in it.
Capture about 2 min
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If it is on your mind, it is not in the system yet.
Weekly review checklist (GTD)
Get Clear about 15 min
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Receipts, notes, business cards: everything physical goes into one pile.
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Mail, messages, voice memos, and your task Inbox, all the way to zero. Sort them now and do them after the review. In Pinwork this is the Clear Inbox step.
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Write down anything still circling: ideas, worries, things you promised someone.
Get Current about 30 min
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Cross off what is done. Anything stale gets rewritten or dropped.
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Meetings and events leave follow-ups behind. Capture them.
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Anything that needs preparation becomes a task with a day.
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Send a reminder for anything overdue. Delete what you no longer care about. In Pinwork this is the Waiting For step.
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Every active project has one next action. In Pinwork this is Projects Need Next?.
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Routines, travel lists, anything you keep as a checklist.
Get Creative about 10 min
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Move anything you are ready to start onto a list with a day. Leave the rest parked and delete what you no longer want. In Pinwork this is the Someday/Maybe step.
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The step most people skip. Ideas need a home too.
Plan next week about 5 min
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A deadline is the last acceptable day, not the day to do the work. In Pinwork this is the Deadline field.
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That day is the When. It can move; the deadline does not.
Weekly review checklist (Time-Block)
Look back about 8 min
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Which blocks held and which got eaten tells you how much to plan next week.
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A block that did not happen is a task without a day again.
Clear about 5 min
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Every captured item gets a day, a project, or the bin. Doing them now is what makes the review run long. In Pinwork this is Inbox.
Plan about 17 min
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A deadline is the last acceptable day, not the day to do the work. In Pinwork this is the Deadline field.
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The estimate becomes the block length. Without one the block is a guess. In Pinwork this is the estimate field.
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One event per work session, and the deadline as its own entry. For a task with several sessions, the Backward Planning Calculator exports them. Pinwork links each task to one event through Calendar linking.
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Plan four days of work into five. Something always comes up. For one big task, use the Backward Planning Calculator.
Review finished.
Your review slot
Creates a repeating task in Pinwork, every Friday at 4:00 PM. The app adds it in the background and shows it in Today on the day. Needs the Pinwork app with active access; without it, the app opens its access screen instead.
Your captures and history stay in this browser and are never uploaded.
What is a weekly review checklist?
A weekly review checklist is a fixed list of checks that keeps a task system trustworthy: inboxes emptied, lists brought up to date, deadlines checked, and next week planned before it starts. Running the same list every week means nothing depends on memory. Miss a week and the only cost is a longer review next time.
How to do a weekly review of your tasks
Every version of the review has three parts. Clear: empty every inbox and write down what is still in your head. Current: close out last week, look at the calendar behind and ahead, and bring every list up to date. Plan: check the deadlines coming up and give each task you will do this week a day. The presets above differ in how much of the middle part they do. For one big task with a deadline, the Backward Planning Calculator turns the estimate into work sessions.
| Preset | Time | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Simple | about 15 min | One list, a few projects, a calendar you already trust. |
| GTD | about 60 min | Projects, waiting-for items, and a someday list that need regular attention. |
| Time-Block | about 30 min | Days planned as calendar blocks, with estimates on every task. |
Two habits keep it short. First, do nothing during the review, not even the two-minute jobs GTD would have you do on the spot. Write them down and do them after. Second, decide once: everything that comes up gets a day, a hard date, a waiting note, a someday shelf, or the bin.
GTD Weekly Review checklist
The GTD preset follows the eleven steps of David Allen's weekly review, in his three phases. In this checklist they read:
Get Clear
- Gather loose paper and notes. Receipts, notes, business cards: everything physical goes into one pile.
- Empty every inbox. Mail, messages, voice memos, and your task Inbox, all the way to zero. Sort them now and do them after the review.
- Empty your head. Write down anything still circling: ideas, worries, things you promised someone.
Get Current
- Review your action lists. Cross off what is done. Anything stale gets rewritten or dropped.
- Look back at last week's calendar. Meetings and events leave follow-ups behind. Capture them.
- Look ahead at the next two weeks. Anything that needs preparation becomes a task with a day.
- Review Waiting For. Send a reminder for anything overdue. Delete what you no longer care about.
- Review projects. Every active project has one next action.
- Review your checklists. Routines, travel lists, anything you keep as a checklist.
Get Creative
- Review Someday/Maybe. Move anything you are ready to start onto a list with a day. Leave the rest parked and delete what you no longer want.
- Add anything new, bold, or fun. The step most people skip. Ideas need a home too.
Pinwork's optional GTD mode has a Review screen that runs four of these steps against your live lists: Clear Inbox, Projects Need Next?, Waiting For, and Someday/Maybe. Clear Inbox is complete when the Inbox is empty, and Projects Need Next? when every active project has a next action. Waiting For and Someday/Maybe are lists to decide on. The app stores nothing about the review itself, so this page remembers your progress in your browser instead.
Weekly review vs weekly planning
A review closes the week that happened. Planning chooses what belongs in the week ahead. Most checklists blur the two, which is how "planned for this week" and "due this week" end up in the same pile. Pinwork keeps them apart with two dates: When is the day you plan to work, Deadline is the last acceptable day. The review checks the deadlines; the plan assigns the days. Deadline vs. due date and the guide cover the model in depth.