At the start of every year, we set goals. Most of them are forgotten by February. The problem isn't motivation — it's that the goals were never connected to a real picture of where we actually are.
A yearly self-review fixes that. It's the difference between setting goals and setting informed goals.
What a good review covers
A useful review looks back before it looks forward. Three areas matter most:
- What worked — the wins you want to repeat.
- What drained you — the commitments that weren't worth it.
- What changed — the shifts in your priorities you've been ignoring.
Why it beats a to-do list
A to-do list tells you what to do next week. A review tells you what's worth doing at all. That's a bigger question, and it deserves more than five minutes in December.
Our Annual Planning Report is built around exactly this process — it turns a year of lived experience into a structured plan for the next one.