Weekly Review Ritual

---
name: weekly-review-ritual
description: "Install the weekly review that keeps work from managing you — the 30-minute Friday ritual: close the week's loops, sweep the capture points, choose next week's big three before the calendar chooses for you, and the two questions that compound. Use when asked set up a weekly review, my weeks just happen to me, GTD-style review but lighter, or I keep dropping threads between weeks. Produces the ritual's fixed agenda, the sweep checklist, the big-three selection, and the survival rules for busy weeks."
homepage: https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/skill/weekly-review-ritual.html
metadata:
  {
    "openclaw": { "emoji": "🧠" }
  }
---

# Weekly Review Ritual Skill

Without a weekly review, weeks are driven by whatever arrived loudest — the calendar fills by others' invitations, threads drop at the boundaries, and Monday starts in reactive mode by default. The review is 30 minutes, same slot weekly (Friday afternoon: close the week while it's warm, aim the next before it arrives), with a fixed agenda that never varies: *close* (the week's loops: done, stalled, dropped-on-purpose), *sweep* (every capture point emptied into the system), *choose* (next week's big three, calendar-checked), and the two compounding questions — what worked, what got dodged. The ritual's power is its boringness: same slot, same steps, every week including the bad ones.

## What This Skill Produces

- **The fixed agenda** — the four phases with time boxes, tuned to the user's actual systems
- **The sweep checklist** — the user's real capture points (inbox, notes, chats, the desktop, the head) — enumerated so the sweep is mechanical
- **The big-three method** — next week's three outcomes chosen against the calendar's reality, blocked before Monday claims the space
- **The survival rules** — the 10-minute crisis version, and the never-skip-twice rule

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:
- **The existing systems** — task list, calendar, notes; the review orchestrates what exists ([email-triage-system](../email-triage-system/SKILL.md), [task-triage-matrix](../task-triage-matrix/SKILL.md) are its natural companions) — a review without a task system to sweep *into* needs that installed first
- **The capture points, honestly** — everywhere commitments accumulate: inboxes, chat mentions, meeting notes, the head (the head is always on the list)
- **The week's shape** — when the review can actually happen (Friday 3pm default; the slot must be real, recurring, and defended)
- **The dropped-thread history** — what tends to fall between weeks; the sweep checklist gets built around the actual leaks

## Framework: The Ritual Rules

1. **Close before choosing:** phase one walks the week's intended outcomes — done (acknowledge it: momentum is data), stalled (why? — the answer routes to [unblock-protocol](../unblock-protocol/SKILL.md) or renegotiation), and dropped-on-purpose (said explicitly, per the [decision-journal](../decision-journal/SKILL.md) honesty: a conscious drop is a decision; a silent one is a leak).
2. **The sweep is mechanical, from a list:** each capture point opened and emptied — every loose commitment becomes a task, a calendar block, or a conscious no ([email-to-tasks](../email-to-tasks/SKILL.md) grain). The head-sweep closes it: two minutes, "what am I carrying that isn't written anywhere?" — the question that empties the 3am anxiety cache.
3. **The big three are outcomes, calendar-checked:** three finishable outcomes for next week ("ship the draft to legal" not "work on the doc") — then held against the calendar's *actual* open hours ([meeting-cost-meter](../meeting-cost-meter/SKILL.md) reality: a 4-hour week can't carry three big outcomes; better to know Friday than Thursday) — and blocked into it ([deep-work-blocking](../deep-work-blocking/SKILL.md)) before Monday's invitations arrive.
4. **The two questions compound:** *what worked this week?* (do more of it — explicitly named) and *what did I avoid?* (the dodge list — usually the same item three weeks running, which is the review telling you something the task list can't). Thirty seconds each, written, because patterns emerge only in writing.
5. **Survival rules keep the streak:** the crisis version is 10 minutes (sweep + big three only — closing waits), the never-skip-twice rule is absolute (one missed review is a busy week; two is the system dying), and the review reviews itself monthly: is the checklist still matching the real capture points?

## Output Format

# Weekly Review: [name] — [slot], 30 min

## The Agenda
[Close (8 min): the week's outcomes → done/stalled/dropped-consciously · Sweep (12): the checklist below · Choose (8): big three vs. the calendar · The two questions (2), written]

## The Sweep Checklist
[The user's actual capture points, in order · ending with the head-sweep question]

## The Big Three (this week's)
[Three outcomes · the calendar check · the blocks placed]

## Survival Rules
[The 10-minute crisis version · never-skip-twice · the monthly self-check]

## Quality Checks

- [ ] The slot is real, recurring, and defended on the calendar
- [ ] The sweep list names every actual capture point including the head
- [ ] The big three are outcomes, checked against real open hours, and blocked
- [ ] Both questions get written answers
- [ ] The crisis version and never-skip-twice rule are explicit

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not review without sweeping — a review that skips the capture points is a diary entry
- [ ] Do not choose five big things — three, calendar-checked; ambition unchecked by hours is next Friday's guilt
- [ ] Do not let drops happen silently — dropped-on-purpose is healthy; dropped-by-leak is the thing this ritual exists to end
- [ ] Do not skip twice — the second skip is the system's funeral, quietly
- [ ] Do not expand the ritual — 30 minutes is the ceiling; a 90-minute review gets skipped by week three