If you prefer to read this newsletter in your browser, click here.

💡 The Big Idea: A Weekly Review That Actually Works (For Me)

I’ve always had a bit of trouble getting the weekly review to really stick.

By the time the week was over, I was usually pretty exhausted, and it always felt like just one more thing I “should” do.

But recently, I came across a reflection method that makes it much simpler to do. And with the help of a Shortcut I made, it’s also a lot easier.

It’s not a full GTD-style weekly review, but that’s kind of the point. Instead of continuing to try and cram a square peg into a round hole, I found a format that is fast, flexible, and future-focused.

It’s called Plus Minus Next, and in this newsletter, I’ll explain how it works and share how I’ve eliminated the friction of using it for my weekly review through automation.

What is Plus Minus Next?

Plus Minus Next is a simple reflection tool from Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s new book, Tiny Experiments.

The process is super simple: just create three columns on a piece of paper

• Plus: Things that worked
• Minus: Things that didn’t
• Next: What you plan to do next

Then, just fill in the columns with events from the last week.

That’s it!

It’s a super simple and flexible system which is a perfect template for a weekly review.

The one problem is that if I wait until the end of the week, I know there’s a lot that I’ll miss. So I created a way to log things throughout the week using a combination of Shortcuts and Periodic Notes in Obsidian.

Here’s how I set it up.

The Weekly Note

I’ve had a weekly note for a while that I use when planning my week. So, it just made sense to me to capture my Plus Minus Next items here.

That way, I could look at what I captured during the week and see how it lined up with the things that were on my list for the week.

The setup for this was pretty simple:

• A second-level header for a new section called Weekly Review
• Separate third-level headers for Plus, Minus, and Next

This is all you really need. If you’ve got the Calendar plugin installed and the Periodic Notes plugin enabled, you can then just click on the week number and log things.

Here’s what it looks like:

But I wanted a way to add to this easily without needing my computer open. So with an assist from Actions for Obsidian, I created a Shortcut that allows me to add things to appropriate list straight from my phone.

My Plus Minus Next Shortcut

At a high level, the Shortcut has three parts:

1. The first part is a list action where it asks what you want to log (Plus, Minus, or Next). From there, it funnels you down one of 3 paths based on what you choose.
2. Next it asks for a text input, adds it to a Markdown bullet, and stores it everything a variable.
3. Finally, it creates (or opens) the current weekly note and appends the text in the appropriate section under a third-level header (based on the list action at the top).

This makes it easy to capture things at the moment because it eliminates all the friction. Then, when it’s time to do the weekly review, I just pull up the weekly note and review what’s there.

I’ve been using this Shortcut for the last week or two, and it’s been working really well for me. I’m actually working on a new YouTube video about this, but if you want to download it for yourself, you can do so here.

😎 Something Cool: Obsidian Personal Retreat Webinar This Thursday

Personal Retreats and Obsidian go together like peanut butter and jelly.

You can roll up your LifeTheme, core values, journal entries, and more into a single template that makes it easy to review and reflect.

I’ve been doing Personal Retreats every quarter since 2017, and I’ve been doing them in Obsidian since 2021. In this free webinar, I’ll be walking you through the entire process and sharing my Personal Retreat Obsidian template so you can do it for yourself.

If you could use a little more motivation to consistently take action on what’s important and clarity to cut the things that aren’t, a Personal Retreat (and this webinar) is just what you need.

The webinar is this Thursday at 1pm CT (2pm ET / 11am PT), and you can save your spot here.

📚 Book Notes: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll

​The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll is much more than just a guide on how to #bujo. It’s a great book about intentional productivity and embracing the forced focus of analog tools.

If you’ve been curious about the Bullet Journal Method but have been intimidated by some of the art you’ve seen, this book will help you understand the system and put it into practice — regardless of your artistic ability.

Even if you don’t plan to use the BuJo method at all, there’s a lot of practical advice here for doing more of what matters. If you’re not convinced, just listen to this Focused episode where David & I talked to Ryder about it at length.

If you want to download my mind map notes for The Bullet Journal Method, click here.

— Mike