Run your day · Lesson 6.4
Weekly Review Template Metrics That Actually Matter
Ask people what to track in a weekly review template and you will get a long list: revenue, traffic, followers, hours, mood. A long list is how reviews become chores. The better question is which few numbers tell you whether the business is moving and whether the review itself is working. This post gives you a short answer and a way to read the numbers each Friday.
Pulling the numbers that matter from your own tools is one part of Lesson 6.4: Your weekly review.
Track about three business numbers and two habit checks, compare each to last week, and write one sentence on what you will do about the biggest change.
Activity versus outcome
Most tracking goes wrong because it records activity: posts published, emails sent, hours worked. Activity is easy to count and feels good. Outcomes are what the activity was meant to cause: enquiries, booked jobs, money received, repeat customers.
A rule of thumb: for every activity number, pair it with an outcome number. If you track posts published, also track enquiries received. If the first goes up and the second does not, you have learned something. That learning is the whole point.
The rule is a suggestion, not a law. Activity numbers still help when an outcome is slow, such as a sale that takes months. Just do not let them replace outcomes.
Three business numbers
Choose figures you can pull from your own records in about two minutes. The right ones depend on the business. Here are examples, not a prescription.
| Business type | Outcome numbers | Activity number to pair |
|---|---|---|
| Online shop | Orders, money received | Products listed or posts published |
| Service business | New enquiries, jobs booked | Quotes sent |
| Coach or consultant | Booked calls, active clients | Outreach messages sent |
| Content creator | Replies or sign ups received | Pieces published |
Whatever you choose, write this week and last week side by side. A single number means little. A change tells a story.
Two habit checks
The review is a habit, so measure the habit with two yes or no questions.
- Did I run it at the planned time and finish in about ten minutes?
- Did I read my top three on Monday morning?
A third check that is worth adding after a month: of the three priorities I set last Friday, how many did I finish? Count it as a plain number out of three. This is not a grade. It is a calibration. If you finish one of three every week, your lists are too ambitious or something keeps interrupting you.
How to read the numbers without fooling yourself
Weekly numbers are noisy. One week up or down rarely means much. These habits protect you from over reading.
- Look for direction, not a single jumpWait for three or four weeks pointing the same way before you call it a trend.
- Allow for the calendarHolidays, school breaks and month end can move numbers for reasons that have nothing to do with your work.
- Do not claim a cause from one weekIf sales rose after a new post, that is a guess. Write it as one in your notes.
- Watch small samplesWith ten enquiries a week, a change of two is within normal wobble.
- Compare like with likeUse the same source and the same definition each week, or the comparison breaks.
A made up reading
This is illustrative. Say you run a small tutoring business and your three numbers are enquiries, lessons booked and unpaid invoices. Your notes show enquiries flat for three weeks, lessons booked dipping, and unpaid invoices rising. One honest reading: the problem is not enquiries, it is conversion and chasing money. A sensible action is to write two specific tasks: reply to each enquiry within a day and send reminders for unpaid invoices on Monday morning. You would then watch those same numbers for a few weeks to see whether they move. You would not decide the cause after a week.
Using an assistant to help
If your figures sit in exports or a spreadsheet, you can paste them into an AI assistant and ask for the change since last week and anything that looks unusual. Check the arithmetic yourself against the source, since assistants can make calculation and reading errors. Avoid pasting private customer information unless you have read the tool's terms.
What not to track
- Vanity numbers that you cannot connect to money or customers.
- Anything that takes more than a couple of minutes to find.
- More than five numbers in total. Beyond that, the review turns into reporting.
- Numbers that you never act on. If a figure has not changed a decision in a month, drop it.
The same logic applies to the review's own steps. Allen's official checklist is long because it is built to cover everything. Your version should contain only what you use. For a short structure, see the framework post.
Turning a number into a Monday action
A number only matters if it leads to something. After you read the figures, finish with one sentence of the form: because of X, next week I will do Y. Then put Y into your top three with a time. That is how the Score step connects to the Set step, where Peter Gollwitzer's research on if-then plans suggests specific plans help people get started. If you want a daily layer for that action, see Plan your day in five minutes.
Questions people ask
How many numbers should I track?
About three business numbers and two habit checks. More than five total usually becomes a chore.
Should I track hours?
Only if time is what you sell or what you are short of. Otherwise it is an activity number.
How long before I can trust a trend?
There is no fixed rule. Three or four weeks in the same direction is a reasonable minimum before acting on it.
What if my numbers are bad?
Write them down anyway. A review that only records good weeks is a diary, not a tool.
Where to go next
Put your three numbers into the free template and run it this Friday. The step by step lesson is Lesson 6.4: Your weekly review.