Of all of the tools and templates I’ve put together for myself over the years, one of the most valuable is not what I expected. It isn’t a fancy code automation tool or some kind of complex system of interweaving magic. It’s a humble weekly update.
That may sound like a huge chore to you. Especially if you’re reading this, thinking about the kind of weekly updates you may have to do at work. Mindlessly sending them into the work email void for no one to actually read. It’s nothing like that, I promise you. These are actually useful. If they weren’t, I wouldn’t waste my time with them.
The weekly updates that I write are simple and straightforward. They don’t have any fluff. They capture my thoughts, accomplishments, and failures in my work over the past week in a structured way. I write them as if I’m sending them out to other people to read, except I never do. These are mine.
Weekly updates at a glance
Though the format has evolved over the years I’ve been doing these, the current one has been unchanged since late 2023. The title for each update contains the date, the name of the project, and the words “Weekly Report” to help me organize them in my notetaking app, Obsidian. The template I use has three simple sections:
What’s new?
Current challenges
Coming next
By the way, don’t worry if you’re taking notes I’ll have the template I use at the end of this article.
Section details
The sections themselves are nothing deep. They simply go over exactly what those three headings say in somewhere between 1 to 3 paragraphs. Occasionally they’re even shorter if I’ve been traveling or distracted in some way. I write these even when I don’t actually do anything on the game that week. Those updates are much shorter, maybe a few sentences, and mostly consist of me shaming myself for not accomplishing anything that week regardless of how small it could have been. Incremental progress, after all.
Within three sections in the template I include some guide text to myself. This isn’t just so it looks like when I share it. Having a short prompt under each heading has two purposes. It destroys blank page syndrome, because the page isn’t blank, and corrects for drift, making sure I consistently answering the same questions week over week. Like the headings, these statements are simple:
Cover what happened since the last report. What went well?
What challenges are we currently facing?
What are we doing next? How does it address challenges?
Combining these three simple headings into a short weekly update, week over week, has helped me in more ways than I can write about. Or more than you probably want me to write about. I’ve spotted long term trends to change and caught problems before they’ve happened. It also jump starts project planning, which I also do weekly in Linear. The best part is that writing these updates takes me only about 30 minutes per week while providing much greater benefit.
Using the updates in practice
There are a few other practical points surrounding the weekly updates which help me use them effectively. I use Obsidian to handle all of these, though copy them to other places like project updates in Linear. Mostly I copy them into Linear as a way of deciding if the project is on track or not and marking it (again for myself) in the tool. Where you write your updates doesn’t really matter, it’s the result that matters.
I also include a short Executive Summary at the top of the reports. This is nothing more than a sentence or two which, as you probably guessed, summarizes what I go through in the more detailed sections below. It’s handy to have when you go trough historical updates. Speaking of…
Each weekly update links to the next and previous updates. I even went in and backfilled old links, which was surprisingly useful for finding a few things for Trace Hunters that I wrote up nearly a year ago at this point. In Obsidian, you can link to different files by their title, and since I title them all with the date they are automatically in chronological order. Also because of that title, they are automatically grouped by the project and the document type, Weekly Report, in Obsidian’s search tools. Handy, huh?
Speaking of practical points here is that template I promised you, in Markdown format.
Prev:
Next:
*Include overview of here along with relevant data for discussion*
# What's new?
*Cover what happened since the last report. What went well?*
# Current Challenges
*What challenges are we currently facing?*
# Coming next
*What are we doing next? How does it address challenges?*
See, I told you it’s simple. Let me know if you incorporate this into your work in the comments.
Find of the Week
For this week, I want to introduce you all to one of my affiliate partners, Ovani Sound. I used Ovani’s sound packs for my first game, Trace Hunters. The music and sound effects that Ovani makes are awesome, and by far one of the largest complements about my game was its audio.
They also have a really interesting Wav of the Week program in their newsletter where they give you a free sound (commercial use included) each week. This is a unique approach I haven’t seen other asset creation studios do very often. I’d be really interested to see something like this used as a game marketing technique as well.
If you do decide to buy something from Ovani, make sure to use my affiliate link to get 30% off your purchase. I get a small commission for this, and it costs you absolutely nothing extra.
Affiliate Links
Use these affiliate links to support my work. There is no extra cost for you, and I receive a small commission if you make a purchase.
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Ovani Sound - https://ovanisound.com/discount/KYLEMMG?rs_ref=5pMzsiuF
Carrd - https://try.carrd.co/5wmj71kf