How to do an effective year end review

hi! gm.

As I’m wrapping up the year, I was putting together a plan to facilitate a review of the past year for me and my husband and thought that this might be something you would be interested in as well.

I actually got this method a couple years ago from Tim Ferriss, an investor (Uber, FB, Twitter, among others) and author of 5 New York Times/Wall Street Journal bestselling books.

Tim talks a lot about self improvement, growth, and taking smart bets in life, and he was actually the first person who really impressed upon me that in order to set myself up for a new year, I’ve got to really understand how the previous year went.

If didn’t achieve certain goals that I set for myself last year, there’s probably a reason for that.

What types of obstacles did I/you face this year that I could have handled better? How can I/you create a plan to approach it differently? What are some of my/your strengths that shone through? How can I/you lean into those?

It takes a lot of practice and reflection to understand what you’re good at, what gives you energy, and how you can give back to the world in a way that is true to who you are.

This is how you find your ikigai, and that’s the core of living and building a fulfilling life imho.

If growth is something that’s important to you, here’s a quick framework for how you can effectively review your year.

Get clear on what you want out of this exercise

Corporate America has taught me a lot about human nature, and one of those lessons is that it’s always a good idea to make explicit what we want out of something before we start it because we often have no idea.

What you get out of the session may be different than what you jot down here, but it’s helpful even to see what you thought you were going to get out of it vs what you actually did.

Also, if you’re involving a partner, this part is helpful because they may be looking for something in this exercise you don’t even know about.

Go through your calendar

Pull up your GCal and a pen and paper. On a sheet of paper create a “peak positive” column and a “peak negative” column, and rows for “activities,” “people,” and “commitments”.

You’re also welcome to make a copy of this FigJam board I created.

Flipping through your calendar, write down the activities, people and commitment who stood out as giving disproportionate positive or negative vibes.

Try not to clutter the sheet with stuff that’s not particularly memorable or impactful for you.

COMMIT.

Once both you do that, circle the top positive or negative things you wrote down in each column.

Focus on the 20% of activities that gave you 80% of your energy. You’re selecting for the cream of the crop here!

Schedule those things that gave you energy.

For the negative things, create a NOT to do list and put it on your fridge or somewhere you’ll see for a few weeks. It’s just as important to take stuff off your plate as to put things on it.

And that’s it.

This exercise can take as long or as short as you want, but remember that you get out what you put in.

Happy reflecting!

Hiya folks, thanks for reading! ✨ 

This article marks 6 months of this newsletter being alive and I’ve learned so much from clicking publish every week and sharing my writing with you all.

It’s been super cool to have IRL frens and new Internet frens join me in this journey and I hope this writing is useful to you in navigating this complex (but fun) world.

Here’s to another spin around the globe 🌎️ ✨