How to do your Annual Review & Planning

Personal Message

You do not need to do it as I do. Look at my approach as options you may choose from when approaching your regular reflections. As I have already mentioned multiple times, I am not the super brain coming up with revolutionary ideas. My approach to doing reviews & plans is a synthesis of

• Anthony Gustin's approach

• Ray Dalio's approach to principles and

• Ryan Kulp's approach to productivity and

• Tiago Forte's PARA Model

The Goal

This Epic helps you to structure your annual reflection & your planning for the year ahead. If you believe you do not have the time to consider all the concepts, you may choose the one which relates the most to your personality.

What you will learn

1. Past - Retrospective: Reflect on what you did and understand why

2. Present - Values & Principles: Understand your modus operandi & question it

3. Future - Setting goals for your Areas of Responsibilities

4. Tracking - Tracking Sheet: Reflect regularly if you are still on your path of if your path is still correct

If I would need to rank them for the value the exercises bring you, I would keep it exactly like the outline.

Why plan & review annually?

Satisfaction

If you look back at a year and go over the decisive moments, you will get a feeling of satisfaction.

Maybe it won't be happiness because you went through a rough time. Nevertheless, it will feel good because you have managed to overcome the obstacles life threw at you. You can be proud of yourself.

Maybe it will be happiness. Then you can re-experience them by thinking of them or even writing them down.

When you plan ahead and imagine mentally how it will feel to achieve the thing you are after, it will boost your motivation (physiologically). Imagine, how you will look like, what others will say about you, how you will feel when taking a moment of appreciation...

Appreciation & Motivation

Gratefulness is one of the most serotonin (therefore mood) enhancers. Therefore, it kills pain; it elevates your mood, makes you present to the moment.

Therefore, I highly recommend to you to regularly look at the things that are already there, your privileges, how you have been spoiled. I mean, you are reading this on a device that connects you to more information than could have been imagined by anybody 20 years ago.

The more regularly you look at what is already behind you and what is still in front of you out of your daily context, the less you will feel afraid and the more you will be positively minded towards everything.

Clarity of mind

If you focus on reflection or planning, your brain can't help but ‌to draw connections between your ideas and expand them to different paths lying ahead of you. You will experience things differently as you will always "connect the dots" (Steve Jobs) between what is happening right now to what happened in the past and trying to take away something for the future.

A lot of things will start to make sense because you will see patterns emerge either in behavior or in results. In fixing broken logics, you gain clarity of thought and clarity of mind as you can look at everything from a "bigger picture" perspective instead of being too involved.

Who should read this?

People who have never done any exercise like this (putting something tangible on "paper")

• Parents who want to take a break from everyday challenges

• Business People who want to take their productivity to the next level

• Couples who want to align their personalities on a deeper level

• Coaches who search for inspiring models to improve their approaches

I urge you to at least read the "Past" part in a silent environment. Over the next 30 min, you will become a more reflective person which understands why they are doing what they are doing. Additionally, you will regain the sense of time back if you feel like time is passing too fast.