Reflecting on 4 years of weeknoting
Over the last four years, I’ve been pretty reliable at creating a weeknote at the end of the week, reflecting on the past 5–7 days. Looking back, what have I learnt?
What is Weeknoting.. and Why?
Before reflecting on the past four years, it is worth a quick detour to recap on what weeknotes are. According to CommonKnowledge
Weeknotes is the practice of publishing a blog, explaining what you’ve been up, generally on a weekly basis. They can come from individuals or groups.
Weeknotes emerged in 2009 at BERG, a London based design consultancy
And the why?
Juksie offers a good list of why at his The why of weeknotes. Having done this now for four years, over three roles in three organisations there is much that resonates with me from his summary, particularly the following.
- Most obviously they are an amazing aide memoir — my memory sucks so having a searchable archive of my comings, goings and ideas is regularly useful. [I have found it really useful at 6-monthly reflection points or annual appraisal time to create a summary of what I’ve achieved]
- It is a great conversation starter. My professional network feel like they know me better and are thus more likely to strike up a conversation or get in touch. [It is so lovely and continues to surprise me to have someone in the organisation follow up with a suggestion or point me to someone to talk to]
There is another good Why at Hash Browns, which includes this reason which I totally agree with:
Writing is a reflective practice. By going over what you did and writing about it, considering the objectives you were trying to meet and whether you got there, you actively think through and reflect on your work. You spot areas for improvement or things you forgot to do. Whereas otherwise you might canter through working life unsure of what worked or what didn’t, weeknoting makes you mindful of what you’re doing and why.
Why Did I Start?
When I worked at NHS Digital, I observed the wonderful Matt Edgar doing it regularly. He very much lives #9 of the NHS Design Principles of Make things open. It makes things better. I found reading his notes helpful and inspirational and wanted to give it a go myself.
What are my stats?
I have a Personal Goal to weeknote, but deliberately don’t have a target attached to it. However, what I’ve found is that even when I’ve had the toughest week, looking back and thinking about what happened will always bring forth something to celebrate.
Why is 2022 a bit lower than other years? I had quite a bit of time off during the summer this year, and know I let myself off a few times as I was heading into a break as one less thing to do before I logged off.
Has my format or style changed?
When I first started at S01E01, I had a very basic structure or picking out some key things for each day of the week.
After several months of using this format, I came across Sam Villis’ collection of the various different formats. I jumped at S01E39 to using the Stretching Questions, to which I’ve added a couple along the way, which have remained pretty constant over the last 3 years.
- Who did you talk to outside of your organisation?.
- What would you have liked to do more of? .
- What do you wish you could have changed? .
- What did you learn? .
- What did you enjoy?
- What did you achieve?
- What are you looking forward to next week?
- When did I live the org’s values this week? When didn’t I?
I also have added a summary of interesting things read/consumed along with a track of what books I’m reading.
What Works For Me?
I have a template saved in my Medium drafts, which is the skeleton of the weeknote as shown below.
Back in the day when the mobile version of Medium allowed you to edit articles, I used to paste links of interesting content straight into that section, but now I have a Google Note that I add to and copy over at the end of the week, with a bit of curation.
I tend to try and complete the weeknotes on a Friday evening, but recently that has spilled into Saturday or Sunday. I do prefer it on a Friday evening as it nicely draws a line on the week and also aligns my thinking for the weekend.
It takes me about an hour or so to do each weeknote, depending on how many links I need to put in or what photos I need to edit etc. I’d say it is worth every minute.
What does looking back on 4 years of weeknotes tell me?
When looking back over the four years I notice the following:
- I started off including more non-work stuff than I do now. I think this changed when I joined the Board of Kettering General Hospital and decided to keep it broadly professional.
- The Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR) summaries in the first couple of years are quite opaque. I’ve realised that makes it hard to me to search and remember what it means, so I’ve tried to be more descriptive since.
- Loads of time I mention the benefits of not having a packed calendar on my productivity and feeling of accomplishment, but clearly something I’ve not nailed.
- I do try and talk about the mistakes I make, but sometimes when it involves other people, I leave it out or mention it in abstract terms. There are some tough moments that I remember having which are not included, which I did record in some “shadow” weeknotes which have not seen the light of day, but I found them useful at the time. [see other mention of the Shadow Weeknotes in my first 6-monthly reflection in the KGH CDIO role]
Will you keep going?
Yes! It is my intention to include it in my 2023 Personal Goals again and as I look forward to starting a new role in a few weeks, it is my intention to continue trying to work in the open and share across my new organisation in the same way that has worked in the past four years.
