The Weekly Review

This episode is dedicated to Big Little News —accomplishing things that may be little in the grand scheme of things, but feel very big to get finished. Jean and James each share some big little new of their own as Jean revisits a podcasting passion project and James sheds some baggage.

This week we talk about tracking a daily goal, inspired by the web app doevery.day, by Barry (@bjhess on Micro.blog) and Shawn. Jean started tracking her daily guitar practice goal, which started out great, but then got tricky. (She was also wrong about whether it’s possible to check off a day in the past–yes, you can!) James points out that a break in a streak can be used as a moment to recommit, or not.

Jean’s doevery.day tracking page

This episode was over a half decade in the making. James tells the story of a recurring task that is older than his trusted system and the consequences of it remaining untracked. Jean reminds James that they both have a long-running travel-related recurring task that may be coming due soon.

James and Jean talk about how they use the Safari Tab Groups feature, which syncs across their devices, to build pockets of productivity that are easy to use.

In this episode, Jean talks about her recent project of producing and hosting a geography bee podcast episode with James joining in as scorekeeper, or is that beekeeper? Conversation turns to bees of the spelling sort, but neither the honey nor quiliting variety. Topics also include differences between recurring mainentance tasks and single-shot tasks.

Jean figures out why she’s been so resistant to opening up her accumulated physical mail and gets a nice bonus in the process. We also talk about Micro Camp, event planning, and how negative self-talk can kill your productivity and joy.

This episode Jean and James talk about the announcements from this week’s Apple event. Discussions include whether any of the newly announced products will increase their productivity. The conversation turns to the power of rationalization in deciding to get something you want, even if is not something you absolutely need. James orders something he’s wanted for years. Also some talk of Green Stamps, paper shredding scissors, and pine-scented iPhones.

On this episode, Jean talks about her progress at adapting the weekly review process to work best for her. We also talk about a book (Dedicated by Pete Davis) and what Netflix can teach us about the paradox of choice.

In this episode Jean and James talk about their experiences trying out the Pomodoro Method—a productivity technique based on 25-minute work blocks followed by 5-minute breaks. The conversation also turns to estimating task lengths and shopping for timers. An attempt was made for this episode to last exactly one pomodoro, but it went just a bit longer.

This week, Jean talks about her project of adapting the classic weekly review to fit her style and needs better. We also talk about what attracted us to GTD in the first place. And we talk about food.