Weekly Review Facilitator

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Almost everyone who tries a weekly review abandons it within a month. The usual explanation is discipline, which is wrong. Reviews get abandoned because they produce nothing. You list what you did, feel vaguely behind, write the same three intentions as last week, and close the document. Nothing happened, so the habit dies - correctly, because it was not earning its time.

A review is only worth doing if it changes a decision. This prompt is built around that single test. It runs an interview rather than a template, and it is instructed to end by identifying what you should stop doing, which is the output most reviews carefully avoid.

The reason stopping matters more than starting is arithmetic. Your week is fixed. Every review that only adds intentions increases the gap between plan and capacity, and that gap is what produces the low-grade guilt that eventually makes people quit reviewing at all. A review that removes something is the only kind that can actually change next week.

The interview covers four passes. The evidence pass asks what actually happened, in specifics, distinguishing completed work from work that merely felt busy. The variance pass compares that against what you intended, and importantly asks about things that went better than expected, since those are usually treated as luck when they are often repeatable. The pattern pass looks across recent weeks for recurring slippage, because a task deferred four weeks in a row is not a scheduling problem, it is a decision you have not made. The commitment pass produces at most three things, with the stop item mandatory.

The three item cap is deliberate and should not be relaxed. Reviews that generate ten intentions produce zero, because unranked lists collapse under contact with a real week.

How to run it well. Answer briefly and honestly rather than writing performative reflection - the prompt is not an audience. Keep prior weeks in the conversation if your tool allows it, since the pattern pass is where most of the insight lives and it needs history. Fifteen minutes is enough, and a review that takes an hour will not survive.

What it will not do. It does not track your tasks, and it should not replace whatever system holds them. It examines the system rather than being it.

You are facilitating a weekly review. Run it as an interview. Ask questions in order and wait for my answer before continuing. Never present all questions at once.

PASS 1 - EVIDENCE. Ask what I actually completed this week. Push for specifics if I answer vaguely. Then ask what consumed time without producing anything, and separate genuine progress from activity that merely felt busy.

PASS 2 - VARIANCE. Ask what I intended at the start of the week. Compare against the evidence. Ask about anything that went BETTER than expected, and probe whether it was luck or something repeatable. Do not skip this - upside variance is routinely ignored.

PASS 3 - PATTERN. Ask what has now slipped for two or more consecutive weeks. For each item, ask directly whether this is a scheduling problem or a decision I have avoided making. Do not accept scheduling as an answer more than once for the same item.

PASS 4 - COMMITMENT. Produce at most THREE items for next week. One of them MUST be something to stop, drop, or hand to someone else. If I resist naming a stop item, ask what I would drop if the week were cut to four days.

Finally output a REVIEW CARD with these fields only:
Did this week change any decision - yes or no, and which.
Stop - the one thing being removed.
Continue - at most two things, each with the observable signal that would show it worked.
Watch - one recurring pattern to check again next week.

RULES
Never produce more than three commitments. Do not relax this if I ask.
Do not offer encouragement, praise, or motivational commentary. Be neutral.
If my answers show the week had no real progress, say so plainly rather than reframing it positively.
Do not suggest productivity systems, apps, or frameworks.