Do You Use AI to Review Your Week?

I've been doing this for the past few months and I'm still surprised by how much clarity I get in just a few minutes.

This article is the "story" behind that feature and how it works in Self-Manager, the task & project manager I've been building and using daily.

Why Weekly Reviews Matter (Especially in Hard Periods)

Every time I've taken weekly reviews seriously, my life got noticeably better:

• I stopped drifting into low-value work.
• I became more honest about where my time actually goes.
• I could see progress even in stressful periods when it felt like I did nothing.

The problem?

Manual reviews are hard to sustain. They take time, they require focus, and it's tempting to skip them "just this week."

That's exactly why I decided to bring AI into the process.

Why I Built AI Weekly (and Monthly) Reviews into Self-Manager

When I started adding AI features to Self-Manager, I asked myself a simple question:

What would actually help me make better decisions next week?

Not another generic AI chatbot. I wanted something that:

• Understands my real work, not just what I tell it in one prompt.
• Uses the actual data from my tasks, time tracking and notes.
• Gives me structured insight I can act on in a few minutes.

That's how AI reviews for any week or month were born.

AI is very good at understanding large amounts of data. But the real "secret" is the rich context Self-Manager gives it.

The Rich Context AI Gets from Your Data

In Self-Manager, your work lives in tables attached to calendar days. Each table can represent:

• A day of tasks
• A project
• A client
• A workflow you repeat

The AI doesn't just see a flat list of tasks. It sees structure and metadata, for example:

• Specific days the tasks were assigned to
• Time tracking for each task (how long you actually worked)
• Metadata on every task
  • created at
  • started at
  • completed at
  • last edited at
• Notes on the table itself (context, ideas, summaries)
• Priorities (0–5) on each task
• Progress status (0–5) so it knows what's done, in progress or stuck
• Logs (if enabled) that store the actions you took on tasks
• Your own comments, which can also be included in the review

Because of all this, the AI can form a pretty accurate mental model of your week:

• What you planned
• What you actually completed
• Where you spent time
• What slipped through the cracks
• What you kept editing but never finished

If you write clear task names and notes, it gets even better.

What an AI Weekly Review Actually Feels Like

When I run an AI review for a week in Self-Manager, it feels like having a super-fast PhD assistant who:

• Reads through all my tasks, time logs, notes and comments
• Understands what moved forward and what didn't
• Highlights patterns that I might miss

A typical AI weekly review will give me:

• A high-level summary of how the week went
• What I actually accomplished vs what was just "busy work"
• Where my time went (meetings, deep work, small tasks, context switching)
• Bottlenecks and stuck tasks that keep reappearing
• Patterns like:
  • "You start a lot of tasks on Mondays but complete most of them Thursdays."
  • "High-priority tasks are often left incomplete until the end of the week."
• Suggestions for next week, such as:
  • What to drop
  • What to delegate
  • What to schedule earlier in the day
  • Where to batch similar tasks

And it doesn't stop at a single answer.

I often follow up with questions, like:

• "Why do you think I felt overwhelmed this week?"
• "Which tasks should I absolutely prioritize next week?"
• "What should I stop doing based on this data?"
• "Can you turn this review into a short plan for next week?"

Because the AI already has context from my tables, its responses are specific, not generic.

Reviews for Any Week or Any Month

You're not limited to "this week."

Self-Manager lets you run AI reviews for any week or any month in your history. That means you can:

• Compare good months vs bad months
• See how your focus changed over time
• Understand where your energy and consistency drop
• Review a client project or a specific area of your life (e.g. health, learning) if you keep those in separate tables

And because everything is based on dates, time tracking and real data, the AI isn't guessing – it's analyzing.

Other AI Features in Self-Manager That Make Reviews Even Better

The weekly/monthly review is just one part of the AI layer in Self-Manager. Here are some of the other AI features that work together with it:

1. Turn Any Text into a Clear To-Do List

Paste in:

• Meeting notes
• A messy brain dump
• A long email
• A project brief

…and let the AI convert it into structured tasks with:

• Titles
• Optional descriptions
• Suggested priorities
• Optional time estimates

You can then tweak them and run your normal workflow. At the end of the week, those tasks become part of the AI review context.

2. Chat with AI About a Specific Table (Project, Day or Client)

You can open any table and chat directly with AI about it.

For example:

• "Which tasks are blocking progress on this project?"
• "Give me a short summary of what's happening in this table."
• "Which tasks should I move to next week?"
• "Can you group these tasks into milestones?"

The AI understands:

• Completion status
• Priorities
• Time spent
• Deadlines (if you use date fields in tasks)
• The notes and comments you wrote

So you're not explaining everything from scratch – you're asking questions about data that's already there.

3. Rewrite and Clarify Tasks So Future-You Understands Them

We've all seen this: A task like "fix stuff" or "check that thing with client" – and a week later you don't remember what it meant.

You can use AI to:

• Rewrite vague tasks into clear, actionable ones
• Add context to tasks so your future reviews become more insightful
• Turn one large task into smaller steps that are easier to track and complete

This improves not only your day-to-day work but also the quality of your AI reviews.

4. Ask AI to Design Your Next Week Based on This Week

After you run a weekly review, you can ask AI to:

• Propose 3–5 key priorities for next week
• Suggest what to schedule on which days
• Highlight tasks you keep postponing and ask:
  • "Should I really do this?"
  • "Can I simplify or drop it?"

Because the AI sees both finished and unfinished tasks, it can recommend a realistic plan, not an aspirational one.

5. Explain Your Stats and Metrics in Plain Language

Self-Manager already shows you:

• Completion percentage for a given day, week or month
• Total time tracked
• Number of tasks and comments
• Overview stats for any period

AI can interpret these numbers for you:

• "Your completion rate dropped in the second half of the month. Here's what changed."
• "Most of your time went into low-priority tasks this week."
• "You spent more time on admin and less on deep work compared to last month."

This turns raw numbers into insight.

What Using AI Weekly Reviews Changed for Me

After a few months of using AI weekly reviews, here's what I noticed:

• I'm more honest about where my time goes.
• It's easier to restart after a bad week because I understand why it was bad.
• I spend less time doing the review itself, but get more value out of it.
• I feel less guilt and more clarity: I see what I actually did, not just what I remember.

The combination of date-centric data + detailed metadata + AI feels like having a personal operations analyst for my life and work.

Are You Using AI to Review Your Week?

If you're already using AI, you might just be using it for:

• Writing
• Brainstorming
• Answering questions

But using AI to review your own data – your tasks, time, and projects – is where it becomes truly personal and powerful.

That's what I built into Self-Manager.

If you're curious:

• Try running an AI review on a week where you felt productive.
• Then run one on a week where you struggled.

You'll be surprised how much you can learn from both.

👉 You can read more about all AI features here: /ai-features

👉 Or just sign in on self-manager.net and let AI review your next week.

Key Takeaways

• AI reviews save time and add clarity: Get structured insights in minutes instead of spending hours on manual reviews
• Rich context matters: AI sees your tasks, time tracking, metadata, notes, and comments – not just titles
• Patterns become visible: Discover when you're most productive, what tasks you postpone, and where time goes
• Review any period: Compare weeks, analyze months, or focus on specific projects
• Follow-up questions unlock more: The AI conversation continues with context-aware answers
• Better data leads to better reviews: Clear task names and notes improve AI insights