Pick a time, pick a place, sort your life out: how to guarantee regular and consistent progress at work, in life and with everything that matters to you
- Tonic365
- Sep 3
- 4 min read
A leadership strategy that we recommend to everyone we work with is to set up a regular review meeting with yourself.
To begin with, this could be weekly.
Pick a time that works consistently, and a location that lends itself to relaxed and creative thinking, and then simply spend a while reflecting on the week just gone, with a view to making the best use of the week to come.
The strategy couldn't be simpler but the benefits are massive.
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Next level planning
A second strategy, and a great way to build on the first one, is to identify all the elements of your weekly and monthly schedule that occur regularly, and set some of these up as additional review and reflection points.
The idea being that, the more regularly you engage with how you’re performing, along with the results you’re achieving, the more of your time you'll be able to invest in all the right areas
Strategic walking
For example, if you go for regular walks, maybe you have a dog that needs exercising, or you do some of your commute on foot, set aside sections of these walks as review moments.
So, if you’re someone who goes for a walk a couple of times a week, choose part of the route or 5-10 minutes of the journey to think about what you’ve achieved since your last walk and set some priorities to attend to before the next one.
Strategic commuting
If you travel for work regularly by train, allocate the first or last 20-30 minutes of each journey to monitor progress since your last journey.
Strategic activities
If you go to the gym or play regular team sports, spend a few minutes before or after each training session to catch up on what’s been good, bad or indifferent in your life since the last session.
Strategic fuelling
If you like to indulge in a nice coffee, snack or meal each day, week or month, set these moments up as time to review what you’ve achieved since the last time you consumed the same item(s).
You get the idea
We all have many routines in our life that could be put to better use by moving out of auto pilot mode and just being a bit more intentional about how we approach these routines.
Use location prompts
You’ll notice that the examples above are based in a variety of geographical locations which is deliberate.
For two reasons.
Firstly, designating certain actions and activities that are location specific is a great way to instantly achieve the mindset required to run your review. For example, I have a regular Saturday run which is 7 miles long and over the months (probably years) I’ve fallen into a system where particular visual triggers along the way spark specific parts of my check in process. So by the end of the run my week is reviewed and I’ve set my priorities for the next 7 days. Without having to work too hard to do either.
This type of planning on the move is also really great for taking the pain out of exercise. And increasing adherence / accountability. I had one notable example of this recently when the weather was shocking. Pouring rain and driving wind. I really wasn't up for the run but I really didn't want to miss out on my weekly review so off I went to return a couple of hours later with a plan in place and run complete and a bundle of soaking kit to sort out.
Secondly, the best locations for these reviews are typically not where you spend most of your time.
Not in the office, a meeting room, your home office or at the kitchen table.
For the best assessment of how you’re progressing through life, it really helps to get away from all the usual constraints.
Familiar locations / environments come with familiar associations that aren't always the gateway to the clearest thinking.
If you want some new ideas, find some new locations.
Or to put it ever more simply, if you want to do some blue sky thinking, get out and look at some blue sky!
Of course, one of these constraints is your phone.
Put it down, switch it off, sense the pressure release
For most people, one of the easiest ways to create time for review and planning sessions, wherever and whenever, and also to make the best use of all their time between these sessions, is to put the phone down.
If you can actually switch it off, even for a really short time, this is even better. Literally everyone we know that's tried this reports back a huge sign of relief when such an enormous source of distraction is silenced.
The more quality time you can spend with yourself, the better.
That’s less time doom scrolling to distract yourself from reality and way more time enjoying the moment and creating the future reality that works for you.
Instant action
As with everything related to health and performance, making a plan for when your key strategies will feature in your schedule is crucial. You can use the templates here to scope out when and where your first round of review and planning sessions will take place.
Good luck!
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