Friday Reflection: What Have You Done This Week?

Happy Friday!

Before you dance away from your work for the weekend, take some time to reflect on what you accomplished.

Building the habit of reflecting on the week allows you to acknowledge your victories and the things you have learned. It will also prepare you to start next week off on the right foot, which in turn gives you space to truly disconnect and recharge over the week.

You can answer these questions in an analog journal or a running document you keep on your computer—or you can even incorporate some of these questions in a team meeting to drive discussion and encourage connections. To ensure you make reflections a regular practice we recommend incorporating calendar reminders or assigning recurring tasks using a project management tool like ClickUp. 

Leaders also facilitate transparency and self-management habit building with their teams by publicly sharing reflections on a weekly basis. Each member of our leadership team at Workplaceless shares wins, misses, and progress made in a Weekly Update that’s shared publicly with the entire company using ClickUp documents. Here are some questions to guide your reflection:

Friday Reflection Prompts

What major goals or deliverables did you complete?

Take a look back at the concrete deliverables or tasks you finished this week. Congratulate yourself. Sometimes looking back on the things you’ve done is much more inspiring than looking at the things you still have to accomplish.

What conversations did you have?

Did you have any meaningful or important conversations with your team members, coworkers or clients? What did you learn from those conversations? How can that information help you in the future?

Were there people you didn’t get to connect with? Are there connections you can facilitate, especially that could help the growth of your team?

Did you find out anything new about yourself or others?

Note anything you’ve learned about other people and yourself — about the way you and others work, your communication preferences, etc.

How did you support others?

As a leader, did you have any conversations where you need to probe further about how you could support your employees? Did you learn anything about your direct reports’ working preferences or challenges? Did you provide feedback when needed?

What have you learned?

What else have you learned this week that you didn’t know last week?

Have you worked on any skills?

Did any of the experiences this week help you develop some of your skills? Which ones? How?

Are there any skills you need to practice or prioritize in order to achieve upcoming goals?

Did you take on any additional responsibilities?

What new roles have you taken on? How have these changes impacted your work? 

What did you put off for next week?

Which tasks are still incomplete? Why did you put them off? How can you make sure they get done next week? Can you incorporate time management strategies to make sure you don’t put it off again?

What do you wish you had done this week?

If you could do this week over again, how would it be different? Can you apply that to next week to ensure a better week?

Did you encounter any roadblocks to what you wanted to accomplish?

What were the obstacles that kept you from achieving everything you wanted to accomplish? How might you plan for those obstacles if you encounter them again? Or, what can you do to prevent those roadblocks from reoccurring? What resources do you need to keep those roadblocks from stalling your progress again?

What is one thing you should do next week that would make the week successful?

Related to the question above: what should you do next week? What steps do you need to take or conversations do you need to have to achieve those?

Now, go and reflect, then shut down your computer and enjoy your weekend!