Run the weekly review
Close the week, update every trusted surface, learn from estimates, and build the next plan without self-punishment.
Cal Newport's Planning System
From Cal Newport. Watch here or open it on YouTube .
During the course primer, listen for ideas that change how you approach “Run the weekly review.” Pause once to capture a useful point, then apply it while producing four completed weekly review records with outcome score, estimate lessons, system cleanup, and next-week decisions.What this lesson is really solving.
Close the week, update every trusted surface, learn from estimates, and build the next plan without self-punishment. This is lesson 6 because later decisions depend on four completed weekly review records with outcome score, estimate lessons, system cleanup, and next-week decisions. The weekly review is system maintenance: clear, reconcile, reflect, and recommit. Use your own numbers, files, environment, and constraints so the result survives outside the course.
Understand the idea before touching the steps.
The weekly review is system maintenance: clear, reconcile, reflect, and recommit.
Follow these steps in order.
Take the action in each step; then use the deliverable below to prove the lesson is finished.
- 1
Clear capture points and reconcile past and future calendar, projects, next actions, waiting items, messages, and deadlines.
- 2
Score weekly outcomes by evidence, noting what completed, changed, moved, or no longer matters.
- 3
Compare estimated and actual time, identify overload, interruption, avoidance, energy, and dependency patterns.
- 4
Choose the next outcomes, reserve capacity, communicate changes, and schedule the following review before stopping.
See the standard in context.
Imani finishes two outcomes, renegotiates the third after a dependency slips, and reduces next week’s plan based on actual focus time. The learner saves four completed weekly review records with outcome score, estimate lessons, system cleanup, and next-week decisions and notes the evidence or assumption behind the choice so it can be reviewed and improved later.
Inspect before you move on.
- The finished work visibly includes four completed weekly review records with outcome score, estimate lessons, system cleanup, and next-week decisions.
- You tested the work against this common failure: Using the review to roll every unfinished task forward without questioning value, scope, ownership, or available capacity.
- Another person could verify this mastery standard: The calendar and lists reflect current reality, old commitments have decisions, and the next week fits known capacity.
Your deliverable
Four completed weekly review records with outcome score, estimate lessons, system cleanup, and next-week decisions.
Watch for this
Using the review to roll every unfinished task forward without questioning value, scope, ownership, or available capacity.
Prove it—don’t just recognize it.
The calendar and lists reflect current reality, old commitments have decisions, and the next week fits known capacity.
Quick knowledge check
Answer from the lesson—not from confidence alone. Score at least 2 of 3 to unlock completion.
This curriculum-aligned check is scored automatically and stored with your account when signed in. It is an objective learning signal, but it has not yet been independently validated as a standardized assessment.
Tools, templates, and references
Pass the knowledge check above first.
Completion unlocks after a score of 2 out of 3. Then confirm that you produced the lesson deliverable.
Go to the knowledge check