Weekly Review System Using Notion Linked Databases

Table of Contents

Why I Needed a Weekly Review Workflow

I used to do my weekly reviews in Apple Notes, just kind of piling up bullets in a checklist every Friday. And yeah, it “worked” — until I stopped checking them. The biggest issue? Zero connection to the rest of my systems. If I wrote down “fill out expense report,” it had no relationship to whether the report even existed yet, or if I had started it already in another tool. It became a disconnected brain dump that didn’t talk to any other part of my digital workspace. Week over week, I’d just copy things forward and silently feel bad. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I moved to Notion mostly because their databases are like spreadsheets with soul. You can link, filter, relate, and display things in really visual ways — and they somehow still hold up even when you radically redesign your process every other week (guilty). But setting up an actual weekly review system wasn’t plug-and-play. That took some trial and error:

– First versions were too template-heavy and annoying to maintain
– Filtering the right things to show up during each review didn’t always work
– Relations between databases broke often when renaming stuff
– The review page itself became junky with too many views and toggles

Eventually I got it to a stable-ish setup that requires almost no maintenance — and I’ll show the exact structure I use to get Notion to feel more like a second brain and less like a second job.

Creating the Tasks Database with Review in Mind

If you’re just dumping tasks into a big table, you’ll hit a wall fast. For weekly reviews especially, I needed to be able to:

– See all incomplete stuff from the last 7 days
– See which tasks were added but never touched again
– See what got done this week (this one was weirdly tricky)

Here’s the basic setup of my Tasks database:

I used to rely WAY too much on tags and fancy computed properties, but honestly, statuses + a few relations go a long way. For the review, I make sure to filter by:

– Status is not Done
– Review Included is checked
– Last Updated is within the past 10 days

This avoids showing me zombie tasks I abandoned last month, while still respecting small changes I made earlier in the week. It’s all in the filters. If the filters suck, the weekly view breaks.

Linking Tasks to Projects and Separating Areas

This part took me a long time to untangle. At first I lumped everything into one giant “Projects” dashboard with multiple status views. But mixing work with personal, admin with creative, just made the weekly review too chaotic. I’d be in deep thought reflecting on a writing project, and then out of nowhere, “Buy light bulbs” would resurface. I hated that.

So now I break it into two separate databases:

– **Projects**: Temporary outcomes (e.g., launch new site, write curriculum draft)
– **Areas**: Ongoing themes or domains (e.g., Finances, Health, Studio Admin)

Each task links to **either** a Project or an Area, never both. This forces me to define what level an action belongs to — is it tied to a finite end goal, or is it part of maintenance?

And in the weekly review, I have two linked views:

1. Tasks by Project (grouped by project, filtered to incomplete)
2. Tasks by Area (grouped by Area, similar filters)

It’s easier to do reflection this way:

– Projects: How is this thing progressing? Should I close it? Stall it?
– Areas: Am I neglecting this area? Are there signs something is going stale?

And yes, plenty of weeks the answer is “I don’t want to look at this part of my life right now.” But at least it’s a conscious choice instead of just forgetting.

Using a Dedicated Weekly Review Page Template

Eventually I created a special database just called Weekly Reviews. Each page in it is a weekly review entry (one per week), and inside I embed a bunch of linked views and reflection blocks. The properties are pretty simple:

Then, inside every entry I have this standard layout:

– Overview embedded view of all pending tasks this week
– Done Tasks filtered to this week only (Status is Done, Last Updated within date range)
– Project Health (all projects, sorted by last touched)
– Embed reflection template questions like “What surprised you this week?”

The formula for “Week Number” is probably the most finicky part. I used `formatDate(prop(“Week Start Date”), “W”)` originally but that returns weird numbers depending on what region you’re in. Eventually I bailed and just manually label the week. 😅

The trick is: try not to over-template these pages. I used to pre-fill every week with questions and blocks, and it ended up being more pressure than help. Now I duplicate the last week’s entry manually, adjust the filters, and then write only what feels useful.

Filtering for Done vs Didn’t Happen Tasks

The thing nobody tells you — Notion’s Done tasks tracking is kind of garbage out of the box. You can’t just say “Show me what I did this week” unless you’ve built in the structure for it. Here’s what caused the most problems:

– Changing Status to Done updates nothing else
– No Last Completed At timestamp unless you build a formula
– Filters based on Last Edited Time can pull in non-meaningful changes

The fix? I added a property that’s a manual Date Called “Completed On”. Any time I mark something Done, I pick the date. Annoying? A little. But it works. I tried automating it with a Notion formula (like, if Status is Done, then date now), but Notion formulas can’t reference “now” dynamically unless you load the page. That means filters break unless I open every card. No thanks.

Now, in the Weekly Review, I filter Done Tasks by:

– Status is Done
– Completed On is within this week (e.g., last 7 days)

Yes, it’s one more field to fill in. But it makes the review actually reflect what I finished — and keeps me from fooling myself just by moving things to Done late Sunday night 🙃

Adding Weekly Dashboard Views That Persist

If you’ve tried to make recurring dashboards in Notion, you’ve probably hit this annoyance: filters don’t update dynamically week to week unless they’re based on Today or Relative Dates. That’s fine for one-off views like “Tasks Due This Week,” but in the Weekly Review I always wanted to lock it to a specific date range.

The workaround I use is: filter all linked views by a relation to the current Weekly Review entry page. Meaning, Tasks and Projects have a relation to the Weekly Review, and I connect them manually when creating or reviewing them.

Yeah, it’s work. But it lets me snapshot exactly what each week looked like in its own context without accidentally pulling in new tasks that got added later. It’s like freezing the week’s view.

You could technically skip this with rollup filters and views, but I’ve found that messes with reflection — instead of seeing “What got done during week 20?”, I get “What’s done and still linked to week 20, but may have changed since.” Not helpful.

Feels old-school, but actually connecting entries to static records makes the weekly reviews feel more like project time capsules than live dashboards. And that mental model shift made reviewing less clicky and more thoughtful.

What Always Breaks and How I Fix It

Almost every few weeks, something random breaks:

– “Tasks from This Week” filter starts showing stuff from next week
– Done view includes stuff I closed last month
– A project stops showing up in filters even though it’s active

Usually caused by:

1. Renamed properties (breaks filters)
2. Trying to be too clever with formulas
3. Reusing templates that had stale filters baked in

My quick-fix checklist is:

– Double check filter logic. Especially dates. Did I use Today, or a week ago from Today?
– Make sure the Select Status options haven’t changed spelling or spacing. (Really, “In Progress” is different from “In-Progress”)
– Reset database templates if they were cloned too many times

I’ve also started keeping a tiny “Review Sanity” checklist inside each review page:

“`
[ ] Filters are showing expected date range
[ ] Done view makes emotional sense with the week
[ ] No zombie tasks from last month
[ ] Areas view includes things I care about now
“`

This prevents me from falling into the “Looks fine but actually broken” trap — which Notion is very good at hiding. Seriously, you can click through a whole dashboard for 10 minutes without realizing the most important filter is off by 1 day 😕

What I Stopped Doing That Improved Everything

I no longer:

– Auto-create new weekly pages with automations
– Copy links to last week’s review into this week
– Rely on dashboards with more than 3 views

Each of these seemed cool when I first started. I had Zapier setups copy last week’s review, create a new entry, add headings, create dynamic filters… and then I never looked at them again.

Turns out, structure fatigue is real. The more effort it takes to maintain the system, the less likely I am to reflect meaningfully in it. Now, it’s just:

– Manually duplicate last review
– Tweak filters by hand
– Take time actually looking at what I wrote

No scripts. No formulas. Just a little bit of friction — enough to wake me up and ask “Do I even want to review this week?” Sometimes the answer is no. And that’s part of the reflection too 🙂