As the process of identifying potentially relevant articles in databases for our systematic review is finished, the review team faces the first serious challenge: a title and abstract screening. An overwhelming number of references to screen frequently arouses extreme emotions, especially in beginners. A tedious process, disagreements and misinterpretations lead to mistakes and, as a result, incomplete search results and poor-quality reviews. Unfortunately, we still cannot skip this step, but we can make it less burdensome.

After a year of arduous work you just finished your systematic review and you are ready to celebrate being over with it... and right away they ask you to do it again. Yuck. I have been doing (systematic) reviews for almost 20 years now and each time I finish one I really enjoy it (the finish, I mean). Don't know about you, but to me the idea of repeating the review immediately after I finished it is boring. I need to do something else (even a review on another topic) for a year or two to get even slightly interested in updating a review I have previously done. Yet, this is the very idea behind a living systematic review – perpetual updates.