The Weekly Review – Details, episodes & analysis

In this bonus-length final episode of The Weekly Review, Jean and James wrap up the series by recalling favorite projects finished and lessons learned since the podcast began. Thank you to all of our listeners who have joined us in this journey of personal productivity successes and setbacks. Although we are still not gurus, we hope our experiences have given you some insights and smiles along the way.

In our penultimate episode, we focus on Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals. Jean talks about how the book influenced her thinking about the time she spends. James reflects on the fact that we have spent 249 of these weeks so far making a podcast that we have both enjoyed.

Jean also mentioned the Yonks app, for counting time up or down, and We Croak for random daily reminders of mortality.

A few months back, Jean starting a journey of journaling with a goal of making it a daily habit. After an uneven start, she received some advice to try during a two month experiement. In this episode, Jean reports on her progress. Also, James ends up doing a panoply of weekly todos all in one week.

For the 150th episode, Jean and James talk about enhancing your productivity by a seemingly unproductive approach—doing nothing. Or at least doing something else. Topics include sleep, background processing, and James’ dad’s oft-repeated three day rule. The conversation then turns to ways of reacting to life’s little mishaps.

Inspired by the winter weather emergencies in Oregon and Texas, James and Jean revisited the topic of preparedness. After last summer’s wildfire emergencies, Jean realized it made sense to download videos in advance in case of internet failure, rather than using power bank reserves to run the internet for streaming video. We also talk about the ideas that Ben Brooks outlined in a recent article about “go bags.”

Episode 123: Emergency Planning

Jackery Portable Power Stations

The Brooks Review: We Need to Rethink Emergency/Go/Bugout Bags

As we approach the anniversary of when many locations began shutting things down due to the pandemic, Jean and James reflect on various things that were commonplace in their lives but that they now haven’t experienced or done in over a year. Other topics include competing Groundhog Day groundhogs, the atrophy of packing skills, and whether James misses his sister or Disneyland more.

It’s the last episode in our consideration of the planning horizons above where we mostly concentrate, Ground Level (Next Actions) and Horizon 1 (Projects). This week, James and Jean talk about Horizon 5: Life, or alternatively, Purpose and Principles.

Somehow the conversation leads us to Las Vegas. Whether it’s craps or slot machines, there’s always a metaphor for life to be found in Las Vegas, as well as some excellent restaurants.

The series:

An Overview

Horizon 2: Areas of Focus

Horizon 3: One- to Two-Year Goals

Horizon 4: Three- to Five-Year Vision

Horizon 5: Life, or Purpose and Principles (this episode)

Continuing on the path of ever-widening horizons, Jean and James move on from one- to two-year goals to consider their visions for the next three to five years. Jean notes that although the word ‘vision’ might imply a grand world-changing scheme, in a personal context it could mean something life-changing or life-enhancing instead. Then the conversation takes a turn to barnacles and DNS configuration. It’s been that kind of a week.

We continue our review of GTD’s Six-Level Model For Reviewing Your Own Work, and this week we are looking at “Horizon 3.” We both discovered that it’s been a long time since we looked at one- to two-year goals, but given the major life upheavals we’ve experienced the last few years, it isn’t surprising that long-range plans have been neglected.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter, by Margareta Magnusson

Following last episode about the Six Horizons of Focus, Jean and James begin their ascent through the horizons by talking about Horizon 2: Areas of Focus and Responsibility. As Jean and James share some of thier own items from this horizon, conversation includes whether areas of focus are different than responsibilities, and some thoughts on how to represent this horizon in OmniFocus or the productivity tool of your choice.