The GTD weekly review, step by step

A productivity system has a slow failure mode. It doesn't crash — it drifts. Old projects technically still "active" but not touched in weeks. Next actions that stopped being relevant a month ago. A Someday/Maybe list that grew into something you'd rather not open. The commitments quietly migrate back into your head.

The GTD weekly review is what prevents that drift. David Allen calls it the "critical success factor" of the whole method — not optional maintenance, but the practice that determines whether the system lasts six months or six years.

What a GTD weekly review is

A weekly review is a once-a-week session where you clear everything that's accumulated, audit what you're tracking, and decide what gets attention next. Allen structures it as three phases in sequence:

1. Get Clear — empty every inbox to zero
2. Get Current — audit your calendar, projects, next-action lists, and Waiting For
3. Get Creative — review Someday/Maybe and look ahead

The canonical checklist from Allen's own material:

Get Clear

• Empty physical inbox / in-tray
• Process email to zero
• Clear notes app, voice memos, loose papers
• Empty your head: do a quick brain drain of anything still floating there

Get Current

• Look back at last week's calendar: any promises or obligations you didn't capture?
• Look two weeks ahead: anything coming that needs preparation?
• Walk every active project: does each have a next action?
• Scan your next-action lists (@calls, @computer, @errands): remove stale items
• Check Waiting For: anything overdue for a follow-up?
• Review any checklists for recurring projects or work

Get Creative

• Go through Someday/Maybe: promote anything ready to activate, delete what you've decided against
• Capture any new ideas or projects that surfaced during the session
• Note 2–3 priorities for the week ahead — this is the output, not a step in itself

If you do this every week, nothing rots in the system long enough to become a problem.

Why most people skip it

The honest answer: it takes time. David Allen's estimate is 60–90 minutes. That's real time every week not doing anything that feels productive — you're not shipping, you're maintaining. Maintenance is the thing that gets cut when the week is already full.

The cost is invisible at first. One missed review barely registers. By week three, the system feels inaccurate enough that you stop checking it. Then everything migrates back into your head — which is exactly where GTD was supposed to stop it from living.

The three phases

Allen's sequence matters: each phase depends on the previous one being done honestly.

Get Clear: empty everything

Before you can audit your system, you need to flush what's built up since last time. Every inbox — email, notes app, physical tray, voice memos, the open browser tabs you left as reminders — emptied to zero.

Don't skip the brain drain at the end. After clearing your external inboxes, spend five minutes capturing anything still floating in your head. It's the step most people forget, and it's the one that lets you actually trust the system for the rest of the session.

Each item goes through the same decision tree that inbox processing always uses: actionable or not? If yes, what's the next concrete step? If no — trash, file as reference, or Someday/Maybe. Nothing gets left in limbo.

Get Clear comes first for a reason: if you start auditing your projects before your inboxes are empty, you're auditing an incomplete picture. A project can look like it has no next action right up until you process the three emails about it still sitting in your inbox.

Get Current: audit what you're tracking

With the inboxes empty, go through everything the system is holding.

Calendar review. Look back at the past week for any obligation you didn't capture — a meeting where you promised to send something, a call that surfaced a follow-up. Then look two weeks ahead: what's coming that needs preparation?

Project list review. Every active project gets one question: does it have a next action? A project with no next action is stalled. If you can't name the next physical step, you have options: define the next action now, move it to Waiting For if it's blocked by someone else, mark it on-hold with a date to revisit, or move it to Someday/Maybe if you're not genuinely committed to it right now. The stalled-project pile is what makes a list feel heavy without being usable — this is where reviews earn their time.

Next action lists review. Scan your context lists — @calls, @computer, @errands — and remove anything that's done, no longer relevant, or should be attached to a project rather than sitting loose. A next action untouched for three weeks usually means the project has changed or the action was never concrete enough to act on.

Waiting For review. Go through everything you've delegated or are waiting on. Anything stuck long enough to need a nudge? Any dependency that would unblock a project if you followed up today?

Recurring checklists. If you maintain checklists for regular work — onboarding a client, publishing a post, a monthly report — check whether any need attention this week.

Get Creative: look ahead

The first two phases are backward-looking: clearing what built up, auditing what exists. Get Creative looks forward.

Review Someday/Maybe. Anything ready to move up to active? Anything you can now delete because you've decided against it? Someday/Maybe is only useful if you visit it; otherwise it becomes a guilt pile that grows until you start dreading your own system.

Capture new ideas. The review is the right moment for this — you've just come out of a full audit and actually know what you're committed to. Ideas that surface here get processed properly, not jotted as a note-to-self that disappears into the same inbox you just emptied.

Note a few priorities for the week ahead. This isn't a planning session — it's a natural output of having just seen everything. Two or three things you want to make real progress on before next Friday is enough. Don't let it expand into a full schedule.

How long it actually takes

Longer than you want, especially at first. Allen's 60–90 minute estimate is accurate for a system in reasonable shape. For a system neglected for several weeks, the first recovery pass can take two to three hours — there's simply more to clear.

Time compresses once the rhythm is solid. With a week-over-week habit, inboxes accumulate less, the project audit goes faster, and 45–60 minutes becomes normal. Consistently finishing in under 30 minutes often means something is being skimmed — the same stale items tend to reappear the following week.

Situation	Typical duration
First review ever, or after a month-long gap	2–3 hours
Regular weekly rhythm	60–90 minutes
Well-maintained system, practiced reviewer	30–45 minutes

What happens when you skip it

The first skipped week barely matters. By week three, the system feels inaccurate. By week four or five, you've stopped checking it.

The fix is one honest review — you don't restart from scratch. If you've been away for a few weeks, do a triage version: clear the inbox, walk your projects for next actions only, check Waiting For, then stop. Get Creative can wait until next week. A partial review usually restores enough trust to keep going, and the full rhythm comes back quickly once you're back in it.

What apps help with (and what they can't)

No app removes the need for the review.

OmniFocus has a dedicated Review mode that cycles through every project on a set cadence, prompting you to mark each one reviewed. This solves the failure mode where you only audit the projects near the top of your list and assume the rest are fine. Available on Mac, iOS, and web — the most fully-featured GTD app on Apple platforms, priced accordingly.

Nirvana takes a similar approach to project review, cross-platform (web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android), at a lower price point. It syncs to the cloud and requires a paid plan for full access.

Trayzero doesn't have a dedicated Review mode yet — the weekly review is a manual walkthrough — but it makes the Get Clear phase faster: items surface one at a time, and each one has to be decided before you can move on. Data stays on your device with no account required. Free on Google Play and the App Store.

Whichever app you use, the review needs a fixed calendar block — Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, whenever you'll actually protect it. The app makes the session easier. The calendar block is what makes it happen.

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Trayzero is an independent app inspired by the GTD methodology. "Getting Things Done" and "GTD" are trademarks of the David Allen Company.