Conduct a Personal ‘After-Action Review’ to Improve Your Productivity

Planning out what you’re going to do is huge for productivity, which is why SMART goals (and their alternatives) are so popular throughout the working world. Another important—but perhaps more overlooked—element of the productivity process is the assessment, however.

Reviewing what you did is just as integral as planning how you’ll do it—in reviewing, you get a chance to plan better (and improve!) for next time, while also carving out space to appreciate what you did well—also a major motivator!

What is an after-action review? 

An after-action review, or AAR, is a way to measure the results of your performance and improve on your processes. It was first introduced by the U.S. Army to give units feedback after they had collective training exercises. The Army has actually released a ton of literature on it, but all you need to know is that when carried out right, it’s standardized, done the same way every time, and useful for building a framework that can enhance future labor. 

If you do end up diving into that mountain of literature on the AAR, you’ll notice that it was designed for units or teams and is typically conducted by a facilitator who encourages members to discuss each part of the effort with the group. But it can be useful for individuals, too, since the process of completing an AAR is standardized and easy to follow. Build time into your schedule to conduct your own personal AAR after completing a major project, whether at work or in your personal life. You can complete it at the end of every week, or once you've finished a specific project. Either way, you'll want to keep notes of these reviews, whether in your planner or in a document you can add to a larger file about the project, like a single source of truth (SSOT).

You may feel silly "reviewing" work you just completed, but the arguments for it—and the potential benefits—are substantial. First, if you're honest with yourself about what went wrong, you can figure out why the parts that didn't work were inefficient or ineffective, then seek solutions. In identifying what went well, you can set plans to replicate your process in the future, and find a little motivation in a job well done.

An AAR (or something similar) is an integral part of many popular productivity techniques, including Getting Things Done and Agile Results. All the planning in the world doesn't matter if you never reflect on how it all went so you can improve next time around.

What you should put into your after-action review

This is where we get into the rigid, structured process of the Army. There are four questions you’ll ask yourself when conducting your AAR and they’ll always be the same: 

1. What did I intend to accomplish?

2. What did I do?

3. Why did it happen the way it did?

4. What will I do to change my strategy or execution for a better outcome next time OR how can I duplicate my success?

Essentially, consider what you wanted to get done, what you actually got done, what impacted the outcome, and what you can take away for future attempts. Even running over this checklist in your head is a good practice, but writing it down is best, so you can refer back to it next time you’re in the planning stages on a new project. 

For instance, say you want to clean your kitchen. That’s the answer to the first question. What you really did, whether it was clean the kitchen, avoid the task, or only give it a half-effort, is the answer to the second. The third question is where you get introspective: If you did clean the kitchen, was it because you had company coming over and felt a sense of urgency, aligning your productivity with the Yerkes-Dodson Law? Or maybe it was because you needed to feel a sense of accomplishment after an otherwise unproductive week, but you were so burned out that you didn't do a great job. If you didn’t clean, was it because you felt overwhelmed? Did you get too busy? Did you lack the right tools for the job? Once you’ve established your reasons, you can build them into the answer to the fourth question, writing something like, “I will clean my kitchen weekly to make sure I’m always ready for unexpected company,” “I will follow a regimented cleaning method to avoid feeling overwhelmed,” or, “I will invest in better cleaning tools to make the next attempt go smoother.” 

When cleaning time rolls around again, you’ll pre-plan your actions as normal, scheduling out time for the activity and setting goals. Refer back to your AAR to refresh your memory on what went right and what went wrong the last time you tried to do the task. Eventually, you’ll smooth out the issues that are preventing you from being most efficient and get more results. 

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