About

7 years of the same Sunday.

I have been keeping this weekly review for 7 years now. It began as a note on my iPhone, before I tested all imaginable journaling apps on the market, but none had exactly what I wanted. Throughout these 7 years, I have sharpened the structure periodically.

The routine is fairly straightforward. Note down five things that made the week good. Note another five that frustrated me. Then I spend the remaining time writing whatever comes to mind, and finally I score the week out of 10. Every 6 months I read the whole period back and set goals for the next one.

None of that arrived fully formed. The lists were three items long before they were five, the score came later, and the six-month read-back was the last piece and the one that changed the most. What is in the app now is where 7 years of small corrections landed.

Why it works, when it works

The routine does two jobs, and neither is much use without the other.

The goals are the growth half. Something specific to aim at over 6 months, written down where you cannot quietly revise it, and checked honestly at the end rather than remembered fondly.

The reading back is the learning half. This is the part almost nobody does, and it is where everything useful is. A pattern needs several entries before it shows up at all. You cannot see it week to week, because week to week it is just a Tuesday that went badly. Read 6 months at once and the same name, the same excitement, the same frustration, and the same drift are sitting there visibly in your own handwriting.

It has done more for me than any other habit I have kept. That is not a small claim and I do not make it lightly.

Why you can see it

I built this for myself, and only for myself. It was a note on my iPhone, and then it became an app because I wanted a slightly nicer interface.

Then friends started asking what the structure was. After enough of those conversations it became easier to hand someone the thing than to describe it, so it is open to a small group now, a few people at a time, so I can still talk to everyone using it.

It is free, it is early, and it is made by one person. If you are in it, you were invited on purpose.

A year of entries you never open is a year you have to remember from memory.