Reflecting on your work is one of the key differences between the PDCA program and how a lot of people manage a new workout program and/or diet. Most people do the work (or not) and then get on the scale, they don’t see the results they’re hoping for, so they lose hope and ultimately stop. Taking the time to consider the previous week and how you might act on that information is key, especially doing this before you see the objective results from your measurements.
What Happened?
This is the relatively simple aspect of these reviews. What did I plan to do? What did I do? Was there a difference? What caused that difference? If there was a difference and a reason for the difference, this is not the time to judge it. Just get it out onto paper. Besides the actual work and what shows up on Garmin, TrainingPeaks, etc. this is a time to reflect on your effort, mindset and feelings, both physical and mental, during this work.
What Worked?
Of the things that you accomplished this past week, what did you like? What are you going to keep going with? Are there some things you’ve thought of that you’d like to incorporate in the future? This could be more or variations of what you’re already doing that you’ve thought of. This could also be something unrelated that you’ve thought of, maybe you saw a new machine at the gym, heard about a new class or maybe saw someone doing something that looks interesting. Where did I make choices I’m proud of? Where did I do better than I expected? Celebrate the small wins here.
What Didn’t?
What didn’t work is twofold. You need to consider the things you didn’t accomplish as planned. This is where you can be a little more judgemental. Did you have valid excuses? If not, beating yourself up, more than a little tough love, most likely will not help you do better in the future. The second set about what didn’t work includes reflecting on the work you did do that didn’t feel right. This could be a run that went poorly, an adjustment to strength training that feels like it overtaxed certain muscles or an activity that didn’t feel rewarding. Where did I fall back on bad habits?
What am I going to do about it?
Everything that didn’t work, doesn’t necessarily need a change, it may need patience. Though, this is where you look at what didn’t work and consider plans to improve. If there are activities you didn’t do, valid excuses or not, how are you going to do better next week? If they are valid excuses, it may require adjusting the time allotted or putting together contingencies. If they are not valid excuses, how can you approach it differently next time when you don’t feel like it? If you did something that didn’t land right, do you need to make adjustments to duration, pace, nutrition, hydration, order, etc? Some of these things you may incorporate right away, others may be things you will want to note for another week, another month, another year, an unspecified time in the future.
What do the numbers say?
I prefer to do the review of my week before seeing where my numbers ended up. I like to do my review on Sunday nights, then finish it with my measurements on Monday mornings. This ties them together, but lets me subjectively review my week and then see how it objectively panned out instead of the numbers swaying my opinion of the week. I feel like this gives me a more true reflection on the week and my feelings about my performance.
Summary
A weekly review is a great way to stop and reflect on your work for the prior week. This will allow you to make small changes and capture larger changes you may want to make in the future. This is the embodiment of the check process, which really embodies the difference between the PDCA process and what most people do. When many people are not seeing the results they hoped for and getting discouraged, you are regrouping and making adjustments to make your training work better for you.