ADHD weekly review: five minutes, no report card
It's Sunday night, or maybe Tuesday, and last week has already gone somewhere. You have a vague feeling you got nothing done, a few tabs still open, and one job you've been avoiding since Wednesday. An ADHD weekly review is a short look back and a short look ahead, so that vague feeling can be checked against what happened. Ours takes about five minutes, and nobody gets a grade.
What a weekly review is, and why the classic version is big
The idea is best known from David Allen's Getting Things Done. His site calls the Weekly Review the "critical success factor" in making the method stick, and it lists 11 steps, from getting your in-tray to zero to going through your project lists and your someday list. That's a lot to ask of a tired brain at the end of a long week.
A regular check-in does show up in ADHD advice, though, usually in a smaller size. CHADD's guide to using a day planner suggests a planning session at the beginning of each week. In ADDitude, Susan Kruger describes a ten-minute Sunday family meeting, and her advice is to keep it short. Dana Rayburn warns about "the ADHD trap of making things too complicated or too perfect." So we kept ours to three small steps.
Why looking back can feel like a report card
Looking back at a messy week can feel like opening a bad grade, and there may be a reason for that. In a 2020 study in the journal Mindfulness, researchers surveyed 1,203 adults online, and those who reported an ADHD diagnosis scored lower on self-compassion and higher on feeling criticized by others than those without ADHD. Feeling criticized partly explained the gap. It's one survey, built on what people said about themselves, so it can't prove cause. It's still a good reason to build a review that doesn't add to the pile.
In ADDitude, Mark Bertin and Dana Crews put it plainly: ADHD is not a moral failing, and it helps to treat yourself as you would a close friend. That makes a handy rule for your review. If you wouldn't write it about a friend's week, leave it out.
A five-minute ADHD weekly review
Set a timer if that helps. Pick a spot you like. These three steps are all there is.
- Look back and find three things that went okay. Scroll through your finished tasks, your calendar or your messages. Small things count: you phoned the dentist, you ate lunch, you answered that one email.
- Look ahead at the next seven days. Open your calendar and notice anything fixed, like an appointment or a birthday. If something needs a bit of setup, write that down.
- Pick up to three things for the week, and give each one a first tiny step. Everything else can wait somewhere safe.
Then stop. You're finished, even if the rest of your list is still long.
Step one matters more than it looks. Linda Roggli writes in ADDitude that "every step forward deserves recognition and celebration," and she calls self-criticism perhaps the most damaging trap of all. Writing down three okay things gives your memory of the week something to hold besides the misses.
If your head is too loud to do any of this, take two minutes for an ADHD brain dump first, then come back.
What to do with the things you didn't finish
Most weeks leave a few tasks behind. You have three choices for each one, and none of them is a punishment. Move it to this week if it still matters. Put it somewhere safe for later if it doesn't matter yet. Delete it if you've stopped caring, which happens more often than lists like to admit.
If lots of things slid, try asking what kind of week it was instead of what went wrong. A low tide week full of high tide tasks was never going to go smoothly. Noticing that helps you pick gentler tasks next time.
When you miss a week
You'll miss some. That's fine, because a review has nothing to catch up on. Do the next one as normal and look at the last seven days only. Kruger says the same of her family meeting: "No matter how many weeks we miss, the Sunday meeting is a beacon that we can trust to get us back on track."
If it keeps slipping, make it easier. Rayburn suggests starting with one small thing and adding another once you've done it consistently for two weeks. For you, that might mean doing only the three okay things for two weeks. She also tells of a client who moved weekly planning from Friday afternoon to Friday morning. Any day works, as long as it suits you.
A place to keep your weekly review
You can do all of this on paper. If you'd like it in one place, Full Tide, our $7 Notion planner, has a Weekly Review section with three steps that takes about five minutes. Its tasks include a Wall of Wins view, so you have somewhere to look for step one. Do dates are optional and nothing turns red, and it works on Notion's free plan on your computer and phone.
Nothing here is overdue. Find three okay things, look at the week, and pick a few. One tiny step at a time.
Wall of Okay makes planning tools, not medical advice. If ADHD is making life hard, a doctor or therapist can help you find what works for you.