What is the structure of a monthly review?

In episode 180 - What is the structure of a weekly review, you learned my framework for performing a weekly review.

• Look back
• Look ahead
• Execute

When I found that this framework worked for me, I started applying it to all reviews I did, including weekly, monthly and yearly.

I’d like to replace the monthly with a quarterly review. Also sprinkle in a daily review as well, but those I’m still working out.

Monthly Review Sessions

1. Look back on the monthly.

Very much like the weekly review, I look back on the revenue, only this time, it’s the first thing I do. I’ve got a few different revenue streams into the business and I have certain goals for each.

Looking back on which stream brought in what revenue is important for the business to understand if I’m meeting the goals I have.

I’ve started only recently taking a review on the expenses during the month. Only just so that I’m not overly surprised at the end of the year and it allows me to curb and keep those $10 per month services under wraps.

Then I take a look back on the projects. It’s a quick look just to make sure that everything is moving forward. Really only because I tend to do these reviews the same day I’m doing my weekly review.

I have a monthly spreadsheet that I record the KPIs of the business to make sure the business is healthy and trending in the right direction.

1. Look ahead

Similar to the weekly review, I look at the calendar month as a whole. I look for personal vacations or events, holidays, and anything that may throw priorities or projects off track that I need to be aware of.

This is when I review the longer term projects and the “some day” projects too. If the past month ended with finishing up one, or one is close to wrapping up, I’ll line up the next one.

I also review them at a high level to see if they are still important and/or needed. This is how I curb my distractions. If I have an idea, I put it in as a long-term project, and then let it bubble up later to make sure that it’s still relevant and important.

1. Execute

This is the hardest part because I really just go back to work.

Since I do my monthly review at the top of my weekly review, not at the first of every month. I allow the natural course of monthly review flow into my weekly review.

So once I’ve done my monthly review, made sure that all the ducks are in a row there, I dive right into my weekly review.

I put a recurring task in my task management tool, Todoist for the first Sunday of every month to do the monthly review prior to the weekly review, and that’s it.

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