How to complete an annual review for better focus in the year ahead
It’s the end of November 2022 is coming to an end. Time to complete my annual review before I go on a well-earned Christmas break.
What is an annual review?
You have probably completed an annual review at work where your manager, in a one-to-one, told you about your successes and failures at your job and set priorities for the months ahead.
An annual personal review is similar, although less formal and most likely less of an anxiety-inducing experience.
In a nutshell, an annual review is looking back at the year just gone and planning for the year ahead:
A personal annual review is an opportunity to step back and take stock of your hits, misses, and learnings from the past 12 months.
Not only does an annual review help you uncover insights and set better goals for next year, but thanks to a psychological principle called the peak-end rule it can even change your perspective.
Why Should you conduct an annual review?
An annual review provides an opportunity to look back at the highs and lows of the past year, evaluate them and draw conclusions. It allows you to learn from your mistakes and build on your successes for an even better 2023.
Doist, in a blog post, defines the importance of an annual review as follows:
In the absence of regular reflection, we move from year to year without celebrating our successes, learning from our failures, and assessing whether what we’re doing in life is what we actually want to be doing in life. Sitting down to review your life, one piece at a time, will uncover hidden lessons and important insights you can take into the next year.
Though there are 8,760 hours in a year, most of us spend scant few on targeted reflection.
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An annual review is a chance to take a handful of those hours and walk away with insights to inform the year to come. A quiet revelation that arises from your review might convince you to seek out a more fulfilling job or reconnect with a loved one. Without a force to knock us off our tired trajectory, we can default to doing the same things day in and day out. Your annual review can be that force.
How to complete an annual review
Set aside time in your calendar. How much depends, but I suggest an afternoon to start you off. Let everyone around you know you will need a few hours of uninterrupted work time. Last year I went to Bath and sat in a cafe for my annual review. But getting away from your desk or home might not be feasible.
Make sure you have pen and paper, your calendar, your journal (if you keep one), a cuppa of your favourite drink and plenty of water to hand.
Look back on last year.
Start by looking back at the year that’s just gone. You can do this by re-reading your journal, reviewing your calendar, to-do list and any other place where you keep notes.
Write down anything that went wrong and think about why it did. Also, think of ways how it could be improved or avoided in the future.
Next to do, the same for anything that went well last year. Analyse why it went well and what you can learn from it.
Look ahead to the upcoming year.
Now that you have analysed the last year let’s turn our attention to the upcoming. Think about what you want to achieve in the year ahead. What is your focus?
Do some goal-setting so you can start the year with a focus rather than wander around like a headless chicken. You don’t want to be bebusy but aimless. I usually have no more than five goals each year. One is financial, one is private, one is for work, and one is health-related.
Once I have done the above, I go over the various areas of my life and analyse whether any procedures need updating. To give concrete examples, I look at my webpage and decide whether it needs a refresh. I check my email templates, Facebook page, fitness regime, etc. I don’t update any at this point, but I make a note and pencil them in the diary for the first quarter of the new year.
And to end my annual review, I go over my calendar to slot in any big projects I have coming up and downtime.
What’s your annual review like? Do you do one? If you want to try but are unsure where to start, let me lend you a helping hand. You can reach me at [email protected] Or head over to my website www.life-organised.co.uk for more helpful tips and tricks on how to be more productive and organised.
trabantbettina
Bettina Anna Trabant, Founder of Life Organised, your professional organising and decluttering service in East London. Eco-conscious minimalist and avid tea drinker,