Man, I remember a few years back, I just felt a bit adrift. You know the feeling? Like you’re doing stuff, but you’re not really sure if you’re actually getting anywhere. I wanted to feel like I was making progress, seeing some real changes, not just kinda floating along. I was chasing some kind of “weekly insight” into my own life, but the real kind, not the airy-fairy stuff. I needed to see what I was actually doing, where my time was going, if I was moving the needle on things that actually mattered to me.
My first attempts were, well, a mess. I jumped on the bandwagon, tried all sorts of fancy apps. You know, the ones with all the colorful charts and reminders. I’d download one, spend an hour setting it up, linking everything, feeling super productive just from the setup. Then, three days later, it’s just another icon on my phone, forgotten. Deleted it, tried another. Same story. Then I moved to complicated spreadsheets. Spent a whole weekend building one with tabs for every single thing I wanted to track – books read, workouts done, new skills practiced, side hustle hours logged. It was beautiful, all the formulas and conditional formatting. Opened it once, maybe twice. Too much effort to fill out. Too much pressure to be perfect. It just sat there, a digital monument to my good intentions.
I tried journaling, too. Bought a nice, expensive one. Thought if I wrote it all down, I’d see patterns. But then it became another chore. “What did I do today?” “Did I reflect enough?” “Is my handwriting neat?” All that noise just got in the way of actually, you know, doing the thing. Every Sunday, I’d look at the blank pages and feel a pang of guilt. That “weekly insight” I was after? It was nowhere to be found. It was frustrating as hell, felt like I was constantly starting over, banging my head against the same wall.
My Crude Method: Back to Basics
Then one day, I just kinda gave up on all the fancy stuff. I was sitting there, feeling annoyed, and I just grabbed a cheap spiral notebook – the kind you get for a couple bucks at the grocery store – and a beat-up pen. No rules, no pressure. And that’s where my real practice started to actually click. This was going to be my personal “weekly insight” tracker, completely analogue and totally mine. I figured, if I can’t stick to an app, maybe I can stick to something so simple it’s stupid.
Here’s how it went down, and how it still goes down:
- Every Sunday evening, no exceptions. I made it a non-negotiable ritual. After dinner, before watching any TV, I’d plonk myself down at the kitchen table.
- Grab the notebook and pen. That’s it. No laptop, no phone. Just those two things.
- Brain dump the week. I’d just start writing. What did I actually do this week related to my personal goals? Did I finally get that leaky faucet fixed? Did I read a chapter of that book I’ve been meaning to read? Did I spend any time learning that new software? It wasn’t about logging hours or perfect stats. It was just a stream of consciousness, a list of stuff I could remember accomplishing, or even attempting. If it was just “watched too much Netflix,” I wrote that down too. No judgment, just facts.
- Three goods, three not-so-goods. After the brain dump, I’d quickly jot down three things that felt like wins for the week. Could be tiny, like “finally learned that chord,” or “had a good conversation with the neighbor.” Then, three things that felt like they didn’t go so well, or things I wanted to improve. “Didn’t exercise at all,” “wasted too much time scrolling.” Super quick, not an essay.
- The “Flip Back” Moment. This was the real game-changer for my “weekly insight.” I’d flip back to the entry from the previous Sunday. Just a quick glance. Did I achieve anything I set out to do last week? Did I make any progress on my recurring challenges? Was I stuck on the same damn problems? Sometimes it was a satisfying “hell yeah,” sometimes it was a sobering “nope, still slacking on that.”
- A quick note for next week. Not a detailed plan. Just a simple nudge. “Try to read ten pages a day.” “Call Mom.” “Spend an hour on that side project.” One or two bullet points, maximum.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. Some weeks, I’d open the notebook and feel like I had absolutely nothing to write down. Those were the tough ones. I’d stare at the page, feel the old guilt creeping in. But I forced myself to write something. Even if it was just “had a slow week, barely did anything.” The act of opening the book and acknowledging it was more important than the content itself. Other weeks, I’d forget entirely, and then on Monday or Tuesday, I’d remember and just do a quick, abbreviated version. The goal was consistency over perfection.
What I Actually Learned
Over time, something strange started happening. Those scribbled pages, messy as they were, started talking back to me. They gave me my true “weekly insight.” I started seeing patterns. Like how I’d get super enthusiastic about a new hobby for two weeks, then completely drop it for a month, only to pick it up again later. Or how I’d always plan to exercise on Mondays, but it never happened, for like, five weeks straight. These weren’t grand revelations, just small, actionable nudges.
It was like having a conversation with my past self, seeing where I got sidetracked, where I procrastinated, and also, where I actually surprised myself. “Hey, look, you actually stuck with that language learning for three months!” or “Damn, you really need to stop buying snacks after work, it’s been on the ‘not-so-good’ list for a month now.” It became my own personal, unfiltered progress report.
Now, it’s just part of my routine. I’ve filled up two of those cheap notebooks, and I’m halfway through the third. It’s not fancy, it doesn’t give me predictions for my love life or career, but it gives me something way more valuable: real, practical “weekly insight” into my own actions and progress. It’s a bit rough around the edges, absolutely no tech involved, but it works. And that’s all I need.
