How a 20-Minute Friday Habit Built My Entire Life System
Part of the Personal Operating System that’s helping me build a life I don’t want to retire from
Every Friday, around 4 PM, I stop whatever semi-productive chaos I’m in the middle of, open a blank page, and write:
“Week 25.”
Yes, I number my weeks. Like we do in Denmark. Even though I live in Texas now and no one here knows what I’m talking about.
It’s not a quirk. It’s a tool. A quiet marker that reminds me:
time doesn’t ask if I’m ready, it moves.
With or without me.
What shows up here on Fridays shapes everything else
I’m not great at planning.
I’m not great at execution.
(I used to say I’m great at forgetting what I said I’d do—but that’s not true. I remember exactly what I said. I just didn’t do it.)
That’s the part I started paying attention to.
Over time, here’s what I’ve noticed:
If I’m not doing something, it’s rarely because I ran out of time. It’s usually one of these reasons:
It wasn’t clearly aligned in the first place.
I’m distracted, entertained, caught up in the news cycle, too busy working on other people’s things, or too comfortable.
This happens in my personal life more than anywhere else.
I like to think.
And thinking doesn’t feel dramatic. It feels like nothing. It feels like another week of meaning to exercise, meaning to build, meaning to.
One week of that is harmless.
Five weeks? That’s signal.
That’s what these weekly reviews protect me from—not burnout, but inertia.
The slow, sneaky kind that feels like “rest,” but is really just avoidance in athleisure.
Most Fridays, I sit down and run through a version of this:
Wins and delights — What worked? What felt good? What actually moved?
Misses and regrets — What didn’t happen (again)? What quietly annoyed me all week?
Lessons and realizations — What am I learning about how I work, what I want, or what I keep pretending isn’t a problem?
Edits for next week — What needs to shift? What’s worth trying instead of just re-highlighting in yellow?
Sometimes the answers are obvious.
Other times, I write the same thing I wrote the week before:
“Too busy.”
“Didn’t prioritize it.”
“Next week.”
It’s practically a greatest hits album of procrastination.
But that’s the beauty of doing this every week. I don’t just collect reflections—I build signal. I watch the excuses evolve. I notice which ones I believe too easily. I get to track the shape of my resistance before it turns into a full-blown identity crisis.
So when I do finally move on something, I’m not guessing.
I’m not improvising from scratch.
I’ve already been paying attention.
And when something keeps showing up—same regret, same hesitation—I don’t just keep writing it down. I escalate it.
That’s what my quarterly review is for. That’s when I zoom out, ask bigger questions, and decide what this season is actually for.
The weekly review is how I catch signal.
The quarterly review is how I stop pretending.
The smallest ritual in my Personal OS—but the one that builds the most signal over time
When people hear the phrase “personal operating system,” they imagine some kind of life dashboard. Widgets. Color-coded inputs. A calendar synced with your soul.
That’s not what this is.
This system didn’t come from a productivity blog.
It came from years of catching myself in the same loops.
From watching my own resistance.
From realizing that clarity doesn’t arrive—it’s built.
Week by week. Season by season.
I’ve iterated on this for decades. And it’s still evolving.
But what I have now is a system that makes my long-term outcomes feel inevitable—because I’m not reacting week to week. I’m shaping my trajectory over time.
It doesn’t start with a vision board or a 5-year plan.
It starts with a 20-minute check-in and a diet coke.
P.S.
This weekly review is just one piece of my full Personal OS—a system of weekly, quarterly, and yearly reviews designed to push back against distractions of modern life. If you’ve ever lived the same month twice and wondered where it went, I’ll show you what changed everything for me. More soon.