Emergent scholarship

Course Lessons

Weekly reviews

9 min read

Lesson overview

Objective: Use weekly reviews to plan more effectively

Summary: Weekly reviews transform academic workflow by systematically closing open loops and allocating time for meaningful work. While intensive, this practice helps academics transition from reactive task management to intentional engagement with their scholarship.

Key habits:

  • Create clear boundaries between work and rest with complete weekly resets
  • Schedule fixed time for weekly reviews as high-value commitment
  • Process inputs completely with clear next actions
  • Maintain trusted system for capturing commitments

Introduction

A plan is simply a statement of intent and not a description of the future.

Oliver Burkeman (2021)

Think about how you typically feel at the end of your work week. If you’re like many academics, there’s often a lingering sense of unease associated with unfinished tasks and looming commitments that make it hard to truly disconnect. But what if you could end each week with clarity and confidence, knowing exactly where your work stands and what comes next?

Close open loops

Open loops are those unfinished tasks and unprocessed commitments that occupy your mind. Think about those tasks and ideas that keep tapping at your mental door - the conference paper you need to review, the student waiting for feedback, the reading notes that need processing. Each of these “open loops” occupies valuable mental bandwidth, acting like a small background process running in your mind. By learning to capture and process these loops, you create the literal and figurative space needed for deeper thinking and more meaningful work.

This systematic approach to closing loops might feel intensive at first - and it should, because you’re making numerous small decisions rather than letting things drift. But this investment pays off in reduced anxiety and increased clarity throughout your week. When you know that every commitment has been captured and every next action defined, you can engage more fully with your current task or truly relax during your downtime.

Let’s look at some common open loops across different academic roles.

Examples of closing open loops

The following flip cards present common open loops that academics encounter, along with practical suggestions for closing them. Each card’s front shows typical unfinished tasks or unprocessed items, while the back provides concrete steps for either closing these loops immediately or putting them into a task management system.

Teaching

Common open loops:

Student email waiting in inbox • Mental note to revise lecture • Meeting notes about curriculum changes • Browser tabs with reading materials • Verbal request for reference letter

Closing teaching loops

Quick wins (5-15 mins): Reply to student email • Save reading materials • Create task for reference letter

Medium tasks (30-60 mins): Process meeting notes • Schedule time block for lecture revision

Larger projects: Add curriculum changes to committee agenda and block 2 hours next week

Postgraduate supervision

Common open loops:

Draft chapter waiting for feedback • Mental note about conference for student • Meeting notes • Ethics application needing review • Progress report due next month

Closing supervision loops

Quick wins (5-15 mins): Send conference details to student • Schedule next supervision meeting • Process meeting notes

Medium tasks (30-60 mins): Review ethics application • Begin progress report outline

Larger projects: Block 2 hours tomorrow morning for chapter feedback

Administration

Common open loops:

Committee minutes needing review • Expense claims to process • Strategy document needing input • Calendar invites awaiting response • Budget report requiring updates

Closing admin loops

Quick wins (5-15 mins): Respond to calendar invites • Submit expense claims • Review and annotate minutes

Medium tasks (30-60 mins): Update budget spreadsheets • Draft input for strategy document

Larger projects: Schedule meeting with team leads for strategy feedback

Research

Common open loops:

Conference notes that might inform methodology • Unfinished draft on desktop • Reviewer comments waiting • Collaborator's email needs follow-up • Data files needing backup

Closing research loops

Quick wins (5-15 mins): Move data files to secure storage • Send brief response to collaborator • Create task for reviewer response

Medium tasks (30-60 mins): Process conference notes • Organise data files with documentation

Larger projects: Block 3 two-hour sessions next week for methods section

Creating space for what matters

Your weekly review isn’t about cramming more into your schedule or optimising every minute. Instead, it’s about creating the mental and temporal space needed for your most important work. When you know your commitments are captured and your next steps are clear, you can fully engage with your current task without that background hum of worry about what you might be forgetting.

This practice aligns with the natural rhythms of academic life - the ebb and flow of teaching terms, research projects, and writing cycles. By establishing regular points for reflection and realignment, you’re not just managing tasks; you’re cultivating a sustainable approach to scholarly work that can carry you through your entire career.

Question

Pause and reflect

It can be seductive to spend more time managing your schedule than doing the actual work. This is why I use a template to make sure my reviews remain focused and purposeful. A weekly review isn’t a relaxing period - if anything, I end these sessions more mentally drained than at any other time during the week, because I’m making many small decisions about tasks, commitments, and priorities. In some cases I’m also doing the work, if the tasks are likely to take only a few minutes.

But this intensity serves a purpose. When I complete my review on Friday, my email inbox is typically empty, my tasks are processed, and my next week is broadly mapped out. This allows me to disconnect completely over the weekend, knowing that nothing important has slipped through the cracks. While the review itself is demanding, it creates the mental space needed for genuine rest and recovery.

Activity

This activity introduces you to the practice of weekly reviews while helping you develop a sustainable approach to planning your work. It’s important to note that I still update my review template every few months, even after having engaged in this activity for almost 5 years. If you’ve never done this kind of systematic review, it will probably take considerable time to get into a form that works for you.

Key takeaways

  • Mental clarity through structure: Instead of letting unfinished tasks and ideas constantly tap on your mental door, a weekly review gives them a proper home. By systematically capturing and processing these open loops, you create the mental space needed for deeper thinking and creative work. It’s not about perfection - it’s about having a trusted system that lets your mind truly rest when you’re away from work.
  • Reviews as strategic investment: While a 2-3 hour weekly review might seem like a luxury, consider it an investment that pays dividends throughout your week. This focused time helps you prevent small tasks from becoming urgent crises, maintain momentum on important projects, reduce the mental overhead of trying to remember everything, and create natural boundaries between work and personal time.
  • Building sustainable practices: The goal isn’t to create another demanding obligation in your schedule. Start small, perhaps with a 30-minute review, and let the practice evolve naturally as you discover what works best for you. The key is consistency over perfection - a simple review you actually complete is far more valuable than an elaborate system you abandon.

Resources

  • Allen, D. (2002). Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. Penguin.
  • Burkeman, O. (2021). Four thousand weeks: Time management for mortals. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • Drucker, P. (2006). The effective executive: The definitive guide to getting the right things done. Harper Business.
  • Newport, C. (2016). Deep work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world. Grand Central Publishing.

Share your experience

Do you have any experiences or insights that you’d like to share with others? What habits and routines have you implemented in your own practice that have helped in this area? Do you have any questions about your specific context that are not addressed in this lesson? Please leave a comment for other participants in the field below.

Graph View