Weekly Review Checklist for Work and Personal Life

A weekly review is a chance to compare your plan with what happened, then decide what deserves space next week. Work belongs in that decision alongside personal projects, habits, routines, workouts and chores.

Start with your calendar, your current lists and whatever record you have of finished work. You can use the checklist below on paper, in an app or with our free weekly life planner. You do not need a Play This Life account to use it.

We make Play This Life, an all-in-one personal planner. This is our suggested review process, with an illustrative example. It is not a measured productivity result or a promise that every week will fit.

Go to the checklist · See a worked week · Copy the review questions

The weekly review checklist

1. Record what happened. Find completed work, partial progress and important changes. Include everyday maintenance as well as project milestones.
2. Check each unfinished commitment. Decide whether to keep it, reduce its scope, move it, wait for something or drop it. Check any real deadline before changing the date.
3. Inspect the repeats. Look at the habits, routines, workouts and chores that will return. Adjust the next plan without rewriting the record of what you did.
4. Choose a next action for active projects. Name an action you can begin. Keep ideas you are not committing to in a separate Later list.
5. Check next week’s available time. Account for appointments, existing work, travel, rest and other fixed commitments before adding optional actions.
6. Leave a usable starting point. Choose where to begin and keep a copy of the plan. If the week is full, explicitly defer something.

Set aside a period you can return to, such as Friday after work or Sunday afternoon. If you only have a few minutes, check the next real deadline, choose one action and note what you still need to review. The whole archive can wait.

Look at the work before carrying it forward

“Finish the portfolio” can appear every week without telling you what to do. “Choose one sample to include” gives you something to open and act on. If the first action depends on someone else, write down what you are waiting for instead of assigning yourself the same blocked action again.

Keep completion and intention separate. If you read on two of three planned days, record two reading sessions. You can choose two sessions next week without marking the missed one complete. If you drafted half a report, keep the draft and identify what remains.

The same distinction helps with workouts and routines. A workout you planned and a workout you performed are different records. Review the results you actually logged, then decide the next schedule. This checklist does not prescribe an exercise program.

For household work, consider when the job was last done and what its repeat means. A fixed weekly repeat and a repeat counted from completion can produce different next dates. Our guide to completion-based chores explains that choice.

A worked review across six kinds of work

Suppose a week included a work report, portfolio samples, reading, an evening routine, gym sessions and laundry. Some happened; some did not. These are invented planning decisions, not a customer’s results.

Swipe the table sideways to read the review decisions.

A course-research idea stays in Later, without an assigned day. It remains an option, rather than silently becoming another commitment.

Check the week as a whole

In this example, the person has 300 minutes available for these actions after their other commitments. The proposed actions take 230 minutes. They leave 70 minutes unassigned.

• Monday: reading and reset, 20 of 30 available minutes.
• Tuesday: portfolio sample and reset, 25 of 30 minutes.
• Wednesday: gym session, 45 of 60 minutes.
• Thursday: report section, 45 of 45 minutes.
• Friday: reading and reset, 20 of 30 minutes.
• Saturday: gym session, 45 of 60 minutes.
• Sunday: laundry, 30 of 45 minutes.

Thursday has no margin. If drafting takes longer than estimated, something must change. A weekly total can look comfortable while one day is full, so inspect both. Count setup or travel in the activity estimate or subtract it from available time, without counting it twice.

The free weekly planner lets you label each entry, choose its days and compare estimated minutes with daily limits. It does not read your calendar, measure actual duration or move work automatically. Its initial example is a different week; edit it to try the decisions above.

If you use that tool, download your edited CSV before leaving or reloading. Drafts are not saved between visits, and the tool cannot import the CSV back. The separately offered blank PDF is a worksheet, not an export of your edits.

A review template to copy

Copy these questions into your notes and answer only what helps you make the next decision:

• Finished: What did I complete across work and personal life?
• Changed: What took longer, became blocked or stopped mattering?
• Keep, reduce, move or drop: What is my decision for each unfinished commitment?
• Repeats: What should return next week, and on which days?
• Projects: What is the next action for each project I am actively choosing?
• Capacity: What time remains after fixed commitments and rest?
• Later: What am I deliberately leaving unscheduled?
• Begin: What will I open or do first?

Use Ginger to talk through the decisions

In the full Play This Life app, saved tasks, projects, habits, routines, workouts and chores share one planner. Ginger can help you create or change those plans. You can ask:

Help me review my work and personal plans. Ask what I finished, what changed and what still matters. Do not mark anything complete or move dates until I confirm the changes.

Describe what happened, inspect the saved records and confirm any changes you want. An assistant’s reply is not proof that a date or completion was saved. Open the affected entries and check them.

You can also review and edit directly. The free weekly tool is separate from the saved app and does not sync into it. See the all-in-one planner features and paid subscription and trial terms before signing up.