Who this is for
You have tried weekly reviews. The problem was never the idea — it was that the checklist you found online had eighteen items, took ninety minutes, and by week four you were skipping it because the review had become one more thing to fall behind on.
This template is deliberately short. A weekly reset that takes fifteen minutes and actually happens beats a thorough one that happens twice.
Its structure separates two things most review templates merge: looking backward honestly and choosing forward narrowly. They need different thinking, and mixing them produces a session that is mostly self-assessment and barely any decision.
The branches
What actually happened. Not what you planned. What occurred. Two minutes, no judgment attached — this is data collection, and adding evaluation here is what makes people avoid the exercise. Sub-branches: what moved, what did not, what arrived unplanned.
What that tells me. Now the interpretation, kept separate on purpose. If the same thing has failed to move for three weeks, that is not a discipline problem to try harder at — it is information. Either it is blocked, it is not actually a priority, or it is bigger than you have accounted for.
What I am carrying mentally. Everything currently occupying background attention: the unanswered message, the unbooked appointment, the thing you keep half-remembering. Getting these onto the map is most of the felt benefit of a reset, because holding them costs attention continuously.
The one to three things for next week. Not a task list. Which branches on your real maps get attention. In Minty Path this is where you actually change Focus — the product encourages keeping Focus to one to three, so this step makes the choice visible rather than letting everything stay nominally current.
What I am deliberately not doing. The branch that makes the previous one honest. Naming what you are consciously parking converts absence from failure into decision, and it is the difference between a reset that feels clarifying and one that feels like an inventory of neglect.
Anything that needs a real date. Deadlines only — the things fixed by someone else. Not aspirational scheduling. Most weeks this branch is empty, and that is correct.
How to use it
Import it once and reuse it weekly rather than creating a new map each time. It is an instrument, not a record.
Fifteen minutes, same slot each week, and stop when the timer goes even if a branch is unfinished. A reset that reliably happens at 80% completeness is worth several times one that is thorough and abandoned.
Do the backward branches first and the forward ones second, without skipping ahead. Choosing next week's focus before honestly looking at last week is how people select the same three things repeatedly while nothing moves.
What to add once it is yours
Some people need a branch for money, or for a specific relationship, or for health. Add what recurs for you and delete what does not — a reset with branches you skip every week trains you to skim, and skimming spreads.
Proof is optional here. This map is a process rather than an outcome, and demanding evidence of a weekly review adds ceremony to something whose whole value is being lightweight.
Signs it is working
- It happens most weeks
- It takes under twenty minutes
- Focus changes sometimes — meaning things finish, or get honestly abandoned
- The "carrying mentally" branch empties rather than growing
- You have parked something deliberately in the last month
Signs it is not
- It has grown past twenty minutes
- The same items appear untouched for a month with no acknowledgement
- It has become a status report rather than a decision
- You skipped it twice and did not notice