Weekly Review Template
Fifteen minutes on Friday afternoon: score the week against the plan, write down what got in the way, and decide what next week looks like. It's the smallest ritual in productivity — and it's the one that decides whether your 12-week plan is alive in week 9 or quietly dead since week 4.
Ship the client portal by week 12
Lag measure: Portal live and client signed off by week 12
- Complete one portal milestoneWeekly
- Send the client a progress noteFriday
- Clear the feedback queue to zero3x / week
Never skip the review
Lag measure: 12 of 12 weekly reviews completed
- Run the 15-minute Friday reviewFriday
- Log one line per missed tacticFriday
- Pick next week's tactic instancesFriday
The 12 weeks
Score 85%+ to stay on track. Try ticking a tactic ↑
↑ This preview is live — tick tactics and watch the score.
Plans don't fail on a particular day. They fail by accretion — a skipped tactic here, an unexamined busy week there — and because nothing forces a reckoning, the gap between plan and reality grows silently until the plan is a piece of fiction you feel vaguely guilty about. The weekly review is the forcing function. It's the one moment each week when the plan and reality are put in the same room and made to look at each other.
This template keeps the review deliberately small, because reviews die of scope. Three steps, fifteen minutes: score the week (completed tactics ÷ planned tactics — a number, not a feeling), log blockers (one line per missed tactic, cause not excuse), and plan next week (pick the tactic instances, adjust anything two weeks of scores say is broken). No journaling prompts, no life audit. Those are fine things; they're just a different ritual, and bolting them on is how a 15-minute review becomes a 90-minute chore you skip.
The preview below shows the review's raw material: a mid-quarter scorecard, five scored weeks behind it.
What's inside this template
Step one: score, don't summarize
The review opens with arithmetic, not reflection: completed tactics ÷ planned tactics, as a percentage. This ordering is deliberate. Asked 'how was the week?', everyone narrates — the memorable crisis, the late win — and narration is where self-deception lives. The score is immune to it. An 84% week that felt terrible and a 61% week that felt busy are both common, and in both cases the number is the truth. Score at 85% or above and the review can be over in five minutes; the other ten are for the weeks that need them.
Step two: the blocker log
One line per missed tactic, naming the cause: 'client call ran over both slots', 'no quiet block before Thursday', 'waiting on API access — day 9'. Individually these are trivia. Across five or six weeks they're a diagnosis: the tactic that misses every week is mis-sized, the day that always collapses shouldn't hold deep work, the dependency that appears three times needs escalating, not patience. The log turns your bad weeks into the most useful data you own — but only if you write the line while the week is fresh.
Step three: plan next week in five minutes
Because the tactics are recurring, planning next week is selection, not invention: confirm each tactic's instances, slot anything with a fixed date, and apply at most one change the scores have earned. That last constraint matters. The review is where plans get adjusted, but a review that redesigns the plan weekly is churn wearing a productivity costume. The rule this template enforces: changes only at week boundaries, only one at a time, and only after two weeks of scores agree something is broken.
Friday, and why not Sunday
The template defaults to Friday afternoon for two reasons. Practical: the week is still in memory, so the score is accurate and the blocker lines are specific — by Sunday, Tuesday is a rumor. Psychological: closing the week on Friday ends it, and Monday starts with a plan instead of an audit of guilt. If Friday genuinely can't hold it, Monday morning as the week's first act is the best fallback. Sunday reviews work on paper and lose to real life within a month.
How to use it
- 1
Book the slot once
A recurring 15-minute block, Friday afternoon, treated like a client meeting. The review you schedule ad hoc is the review you skip.
- 2
Score the week
Completed ÷ planned tactics, as a percentage. 85% or better is on track. No narrative allowed until the number is written down.
- 3
Log blockers
One line per missed tactic: what actually got in the way. Cause, not apology — the log is for pattern-finding, not penance.
- 4
Plan next week
Confirm each recurring tactic's instances and slot fixed-date items. Five minutes, because the plan already exists.
- 5
Adjust only what the scores demand
Two consecutive weeks under 85% earn one plan change — shrink a tactic, move a block, escalate a dependency. Otherwise, change nothing.
Ready to run it? The template opens pre-filled in Pilot's free tier.
Use this template — freeFrequently asked questions
Three things: an execution score (completed tactics ÷ planned tactics from your week's plan), a blocker log with one line per missed item, and next week's plan. That's sufficient to keep a 12-week plan on track. Broader reflection — wins, gratitude, inbox-zero sweeps — is worthwhile but belongs in a separate ritual, or the review grows until it gets skipped.
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Use templateYour next 12 weeks start today
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