How 268 People Do Their Year in Review

I wanted to know how people actually do a year in review. Not “10 questions to ask yourself.” Real people, showing their own review of a real year.

So I read and watched 268 of them. A birder who photographed 250 species in one state. A medical resident who scrolls her camera roll month by month. A SaaS founder who works out his real hourly wage from the year’s profit. A writer who counts her rejections. A couple who go away for three days every November. Charles Darwin, who often fit a whole year on one page of a pocket notebook.

Most of them aren’t famous. I leaned toward people known in their own small world, and everyday people with a YouTube channel and a few hundred views. That’s where the surprises were.

First, what I found across all 268. Then every person, with a link to their review.

What they have in common

Only 33 of 268 bring up New Year’s resolutions

That’s not a surprise. This is a year in review, so it’s about what happened, not what’s next. The 33 who do bring them up are the interesting ones, because they don’t agree.

14 say skip resolutions and do something else. Tim Ferriss books things into his calendar and keeps a not-to-do list. Dan Koe calls resolutions stupid and does a one-day reset. Emma Grede plans from her birthday in September instead. Dr. Jamie, a psychologist, skips January and runs a 90-day plan.

11 are for them, mostly in an old-fashioned way. Jonathan Edwards wrote 70 dated resolutions in the 1720s and read them every week. Samuel Pepys paid fines into a box whenever he broke his. Mirya Holman, a political scientist, makes hers countable: champagne on 50 occasions.

8 mention them without taking a side. Virginia Woolf’s first resolution of 1931 was to have no resolutions.

211 review alone. 56 do it with someone

Of the 56, 23 do it with a partner, 12 with a work team, 9 with family, 6 with a community, 3 with friends and 3 with a coach or therapist.

• A couple: Amy Throndsen and her husband take the Friday after Thanksgiving to Sunday, phones off, no cooking.
• A family: Christina from Our Rich Journey interviews each person in her family on camera, as a time capsule to rewatch in 2030.
• A work team: Philip Joubert surveys his whole remote staff, then runs a retro with his senior leaders.
• Friends: podcast co-hosts Rob Walling and Mike Taber grade each other’s goals from 1 to 5, live on air.
• A community: in Washington State, birders keep a year list with one compiler in each of the state’s 39 counties, and have done it for 19 years.

113 review before the year is even over

85 wait until the year has ended, and 49 don’t use the calendar year at all. The rest don’t say.

The busiest week is December 20 to 31, with about 61 people. Another 44 do it in the first week of January, and 24 later in January. That’s usually the people who need final numbers: money, miles, books, words.

Tantek Çelik argues the early ones are doing it wrong. His point is that a Wrapped style review in early December is premature, and you should wait until all 366 days are over.

The 49 on their own cycle are some of my favorites:

• Birthdays: Brad Feld numbers himself like software (v53.0) every birthday. Buster Benson spends a weekend alone around his.
• School years: teachers review in June when the room is packed up.
• After the busy season: a landscaper in December, a flower farm when it’s asleep, an accountant just before tax season.
• Anniversaries: a sobriety date, a first nursing job, the day a business was incorporated.
• Industry calendars: Stewart Lynch, an iOS developer, reviews from one Apple WWDC to the next, so his comes out in June.

Most people don’t say how long it takes

Only 57 of 268 say. Here’s how those 57 break down:

• Under an hour: 16
• 1 to 3 hours: 5
• Half a day: 3
• A full day: 2
• 2 or 3 days: 10
• A week or more: 5
• Spread over several weeks: 16

So it’s not a bell curve. It’s two camps. One camp sits down once and is done in under an hour. The other spreads it out, over a weekend away or a few weeks of evenings.

The review is only as good as what you kept

52 people review from memory alone. Everyone else looks back at something they kept during the year:

• An app’s own numbers: 82 (Strava, Goodreads, StoryGraph, YouTube Studio, Spotify)
• A spreadsheet, tracker or database: 56
• A journal, diary or planner: 26
• Their calendar: 23
• Their photos: 19
• Their own smaller reviews: 17
• Bank statements, accounts or a P&L: 9

Some build the year review out of smaller ones. 38 keep a daily log, 12 do a monthly review and use the twelve of them, 10 do a weekly review, and 5 do one every quarter.

What they look back at

Lessons (146) and numbers (139) come first. Then what they did (94), milestones and firsts (91), last year’s goals graded (87), and how it felt (83). 57 count what they made: videos, books, posts, quilts.

The numbers get very specific. YouTubers pull subscribers, views, watch hours and ad income from YouTube Studio. SaaS founders post their MRR and profit. Patrick McKenzie published 1,422 sales and a 1.4% refund rate. Josh Bernoff tracks how many days his clients take to pay. Simon Howard counts tumble dryer cycles and paper cups.

Business (100) and life in general (96) come up most. Then hobbies (72), relationships (66), money (63), creative work (62), the day job (59) and health (59).

Most show their own year. Few just teach

203 walk through their own real year. 26 mostly teach a method. 38 do both.

56 use someone else’s system

Tim Ferriss’s past year review is the most borrowed (Sahil Bloom, Blake Crosley, Chris Cordry, Josh Gonsalves). YearCompass shows up four times. Writers borrow Kim Liao’s 100 rejections a year. Book bloggers share spreadsheet templates passed from reader to reader since 2017. Two UK nurses use their regulator’s revalidation form, and one teacher uses her principal’s survey. Matt D’Avella copied Jim Collins. Seneca copied his teacher, Quintus Sextius.

The fast ones still find something

You’d think an hour isn’t enough to look at a whole year. But some of the shortest reviews found the biggest things.

Blake Crosley spends about 30 minutes marking every week of the year as good, bad or neutral. Building things was good in 48 of 52 weeks. Coordinating people was bad in 35. He quit a 12-year VP job. Matt from Code, Tech, and Tutorials looked at a year of YouTube Studio and saw his ad income drop whenever he stopped posting, so he committed to two videos a week. McKenna from Palm Creative checked her market spreadsheet and found she’d hit 1,000 orders by midyear, after 268 the year before.

The slow ones go away

Almost everyone who takes two or three days leaves home. Chad and Tori Masters go away for three days and two nights, to a hotel or a borrowed lake house. Emma Parnell books the same Airbnb in the town where she registered her company, on the anniversary, and stays three nights alone. Buster Benson goes to Calistoga, updates his life expectancy estimate and adds the year to his life-in-weeks chart.

Three full days is about 1% of the year spent looking at the other 99%. What they do with the time is different too. They don’t just list what happened. They write values, a mission, a three-year vision, and they do it as a couple.

The most surprising ones

• Anna Lenkovska writes 12 goals on slips of paper at the winter solstice and burns one each day without looking. The one left is her goal for the year.
• Kim Liao aims for 100 rejections a year, so failures are the score. Ratika Deshpande kept a rejection tally for years, then quit because the number was steering what she wrote.
• Abigail Koffler’s answers get locked in an online vault and emailed back to her a year later.
• Dominic Hart writes his own eulogy as part of his review.
• Bemmu Sepponen, who runs Candy Japan, divides the year’s profit by about 1,000 hours worked. His real wage fell from about $50 to about $16 an hour.
• Jo Case rebuilt her 98 book year by walking around her house with a laptop and reading her shelves.
• Eric from Tech Time With Eric records his channel review in his car, in a grocery store parking lot.
• Elisa Menck times every diamond painting kit to the minute. One took 49 hours. She reviewed all 92.
• rockinchimp logged 880 films in one year, about 17 a week.

Five ways people review a year

Most reviews are one of these, or two mixed together.

1. Count it

Books read, miles run, words written, rejections, revenue, species seen. You pick the number and look at it.

Jim Collins logs his creative hours in three spreadsheet cells a night and aims for 1,000 a year. Darwin wrote work on one side of a page and life on the other. The oldest year reviews in history are money ledgers, and they still work.

2. Walk through it

Go through the year month by month, using your calendar or your camera roll.

Sahil Bloom colors every event in last year’s calendar by whether it gave him energy or drained it. Dr. Kamilla, a medical resident, puts exam dates next to a best friend’s wedding and sees the whole year at once.

3. Read the app’s wrap

Strava, Goodreads, StoryGraph, Spotify, YouTube. The app does the counting, and the person adds the story.

This is where most hobby reviews start. Jeanie Marie’s whole review is YouTube’s own year in review email, read out on camera.

4. Grade last year’s plan

Pull out the goals you set a year ago and score each one.

Tomasz Tunguz, a VC, grades his predictions with half points against a 70% accuracy bar. Two podcast hosts grade each other. This is the review that makes next year’s plan better, because you see what you always overpromise.

5. Tell the story

A letter, a post, a video.

Warren Buffett writes a yearly letter. Bruce Booth explains a year of biotech data before Thanksgiving. Most of the YouTubers here are doing this one: the video is the review.

How to do it in an hour

Based on Tim Ferriss, Blake Crosley and Lauren Hall, who all do it in about 30 to 60 minutes:

1. Open your calendar for the whole year. Go week by week. Don’t trust memory.
2. Mark each week good, bad or neutral, on gut feel. Note the people, places and projects behind the strongest ones.
3. Write two lists: do more, do less. Put the do-more items straight into next year’s calendar.

How to do it in a day

Based on Dr. Jamie, Dan Koe and the couples who go away:

1. Morning: gather everything. Calendar, camera roll, last year’s goals, your bank account, any app with a year in review. Scroll the photos first. Dr. Jamie does this on purpose, because we remember the bad parts more than the good.
2. Midday: count and grade. Pull the few numbers that matter to you and score last year’s goals one by one.
3. Afternoon: write what changes. What to keep, what to drop, and one thing to focus on. If you do it with a partner, write alone first, then compare.

What to keep so next year’s review is easy

The best reviews here weren’t the longest ones. They were the ones with something to look back at: a calendar, a log, a spreadsheet, photos, a few numbers. Start keeping one of those now and next December takes an hour.

Here are all 268, by group.

Readers and hobbyists

1. Jaime Fok

Lets the audience pick the review format (tier list) and treats the annual review as a roll-up of 12 monthly wrap-ups.

• Poll viewers on wrap-up format
• Use a tier list for all 156 books
• Give each book ~10 seconds
• Point to monthly wrap-ups for depth
• Note books/authors to read more of next year

When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: tier list

2. Melissa Lyttle

Has tallied author gender and race for about seven years to notice trends, explicitly not to optimise.

• Log books in StoryGraph (left Goodreads a year ago)
• Count books read
• Tally author gender and race
• Compare with her 2021-2024 year-end posts
• Name favourites and honourable mentions

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: StoryGraph; Goodreads (left)

3. Simon Thomas (Stuck in a Book)

Compares gender split year on year while setting no targets, plus whimsical counts like books with animals in the title.

• Count total books and split audio vs print
• Split by author gender, fiction vs non-fiction
• Count translations by language
• Count re-reads and new-to-me authors
• Compare each figure with 2024 and 2023
• Explain the shifts (audiobooks drove the rise)

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Audible (cancelled); BorrowBox; Libby

4. Myra Garces-Bacsal (Gathering Books)

Mostly picturebooks (146 of 202); tracks her rank among UAE Goodreads readers and countries/languages read for her own challenge.

• Track all reading on Goodreads against a target (150)
• Screenshot Goodreads stats and Year in Books
• Sort books by genre and format (picturebooks, adult fiction, poetry)
• Note shortest, longest, most and least shelved
• Compare totals 2021-2025 and UAE reader ranking
• Report #ReadTheWorld countries and languages

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: with a group/mastermind · Keeps it in: Goodreads; Goodreads Year in Books infographic; screenshots

5. frankie’s shelf

Nearly 3-hour ranking of every book; openly refuses to reconcile StoryGraph vs Goodreads counts and only brags about buying almost nothing new.

• Pull the year’s list from StoryGraph and Goodreads
• Accept the two apps disagree on the total
• Note share of books from the library vs bought new
• Rank every book in one marathon video

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: StoryGraph; Goodreads; public library

6. Elizabeth (Plant Based Bride)

Gamifies reading with spin wheels and a points system calculated automatically by Notion databases; sells that tracker to Patreon tiers.

• Check last year’s goals (only the 125-book count was met)
• Explain why the rest slipped (bereavement)
• Raise the number goal to 150
• Add a read-every-day streak on Fable
• Continue spin-the-wheel ‘read it or unhaul it’ TBR challenge, now biweekly
• Restart reading-around-the-world wheel challenge

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Notion (reading tracker databases); Fable (streaks); spin wheel; TikTok/Instagram for mini reviews

7. Ben (Ben Reads Good)

Calls hobby goals ‘a fool’s game’, renames them intentions, and deliberately reads fewer books after hitting 101.

• Recap each 2025 goal (read fewer, read bigger books, classics)
• Check page-count average on StoryGraph
• Review three reading challenges he joined
• Cut goal count because last year had too many
• Drop the numeric book goal entirely
• Carry over ‘bigger books’ and Booker winners

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: StoryGraph (stats, his Read Good Challenge); TBR Spin challenge

8. Kate (Hello Garden)

Re-reviews her own year of videos as the record; usually done off camera at the table with her partner.

• Sit at the table with her partner
• Go through the year video by video, month by month
• Ask what went well, what disappointed
• Re-judge past recommendations (tools, plants)
• Ask where they’re headed
• Preview 2026 (greenhouse build)

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with partner · Where: home · Keeps it in: her own YouTube videos as the archive

9. Jo Case

Rebuilt her year’s list by walking the house with a laptop reading her shelves, and tallied why she picked up each book.

• Quit Goodreads; try a paper notebook for two months
• At year end, walk the house with a laptop checking bookshelves
• List books roughly in reading order, skip unfinished ones
• Note why she picked up each book and a verdict
• Count sources: reviews/radio, social media, word of mouth, bookshops
• Count women authors, 2025 releases, re-reads

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: notebook (abandoned after two months); laptop; Goodreads (abandoned 2025)

10. Carolyn (CarolynMarieReads)

Remembers the exact day and city she wrote last year’s goals; drops all numbers because logging in apps felt like ‘insane pressure’.

• Reopen the goals handwritten in her reading journal on Dec 12 2024
• Score each (78/80 books, classic a month, handwritten reviews, bookshops, shelves)
• Name the pressure the number goal created
• Set 2026 with no quantitative goals
• Read intuitively and observe what kind of reader she is

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: handwritten reading journal (refillable, sponsor); Fable; Goodreads; Notes app

11. Steph (Noveltea Corner)

Spreadsheet doubles as her review-notes archive (searches it with Cmd+F); tracks money saved via review copies.

• Copy forward last year’s Google Sheet
• Update year references and trackers
• Log each book with dates, pages, format, country, genres, steam rating, Kindle Unlimited
• Keep reading notes in the sheet for later reviews
• Track acquisitions, cost and ARC savings
• Read the auto graphs for year stats

When: late Nov · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Sheets (free template, charts); Kindle Unlimited

12. Cassidy (CoverswithCassidy)

Invented a weighted star rating where enjoyment counts double; ships four versions of her sheet each December.

• Rebuild the yearly spreadsheet before Jan 1
• Keep her weighted rating (enjoyment counts double)
• Add quarterly and monthly stats tabs
• Add a no-weighting version to match her goal of reading on vibes
• Add tabs for each reading challenge/bingo she joins
• Track hauls per month and DNF pages

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: spreadsheet (Google Sheets style, shared copy); genre blanket; Sarah’s horror bingo; Kitty’s Kindle bingo

13. Library Unbounded

Third-generation Google Sheets tracker with self-written Apps Script submission forms; compares your ratings with public ratings.

• Set a reading goal on the setup tab
• Log every book in a journal tab (start/finish, owned or borrowed)
• Keep a library tab of owned books
• Track series and TBR
• Read automatic annual and all-time stats
• Migrate from the previous version

When: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Sheets; Apps Script; Google Forms-style submission forms

14. Champion (Google Sheets Dashboard & AI)

Frames tracking as the cause of reading more; says the template sold 5,000+ copies.

• Log each book with recommender, start/end dates, pages
• Status column
• Dashboard charts update from the data tab
• Watch books-per-month and genre breakdown

When: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Sheets dashboard template

15. SB Sarah (Smart Bitches, Trashy Books) and community

Spreadsheet built by readers since 2017 (Andrea, Estelle, Max, Elizabeth, Bransler) and re-released every January.

• Make a copy of the view-only Google Sheet
• Delete sample rows
• Log each book (dates, pages, format, genre, diversity, source)
• Use consistent terms so stats match
• Set a weekly Friday reminder in Todoist
• Read the auto Statistics tab

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: first week Jan · With: with a group/mastermind · Keeps it in: Google Sheets; Excel version; Todoist; Google Calendar; StoryGraph; Goodreads

16. Danish Musings

Goal for the new year may be to knit less; says years taught her plans aren’t ‘carved in stone’.

• Show finished objects in the order finished
• Point to Ravelry for details
• Check 2025 aims (knit from stash, new Japanese designers)
• Set 2026 loose plans
• Maybe knit less

When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Ravelry

17. Tirzah Price

Tracks money spent on books and how many purchased books actually got read that year.

• Copy the Google Sheets template
• Log title, author, pages/audio length, diversity stats
• Track Read Harder progress tab
• Log book spending and same-year reads of bought books
• At year end read Stats and Charts tabs
• Set new goals and revisit favourites

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Sheets; Excel download; Book Riot Read Harder challenge

18. Rebecca Foster (Bookish Beck)

Inherited spreadsheet passed blogger to blogger; measures percentage of reading from her own shelves (30.3%).

• Fill her Excel template (from Marcie at Buried in Print)
• Pull page counts and ratings from Goodreads
• Compute totals vs last year (313 vs 352)
• Break down genre, author demographics, translation, backlist, format, source
• Measure share read from own shelves
• Set 2026 goals on backlist, rereads, translation and BIPOC share

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Excel template (from Buried in Print); Goodreads; StoryGraph (considering move)

19. Matt Birchler (Birchtree)

Dropped his 100-film goal: ‘watch how many you feel like’ after four straight 100+ years.

• Pull Letterboxd year-in-review
• Analyse rewatches, share of new releases, ratings vs others
• Rank top 10 (may change)
• Note standouts and disappointments
• Look at 2026 watchlist (20 films queued)

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Letterboxd (since 2012; year in review; watchlist)

20. Matt Bartels (Washington Birder)

A community year list: one compiler per county, 19 years of totals kept in an annual spreadsheet.

• Collect sightings via eBird plus compilers in all 39 counties
• Compare state, east and west totals with prior years and 19-year averages
• Flag county records and up/down counts
• Tally species by number of counties
• List misses
• Start 2026 compiling and ask for sightings

When: later Jan · With: with a group/mastermind · Keeps it in: eBird; Excel county totals spreadsheet (2007-2025); WA Birder county Excel sheet with needs lists; wabirder.com

21. Ric Gazarian (GlobalGaz)

Annual review since 2015 built on Excel plus Flighty/TripIt, counting down to all 193 UN countries.

• Generate a flight map in Flighty
• Combine with TripIt and his Excel sheet
• Compile flights, airlines, airports, miles, nights
• Count new vs repeat countries (181 to 186 of 193)
• Write highlights and lowlights
• List 2026-27 trips toward the final countries

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Excel; Flighty; TripIt; NomadMania

22. Meg (Seed to Fork)

Renames last year’s spreadsheet each year as the ‘master plan’; admits records stop once she’s outdoors.

• Copy last year’s garden plan sheet and rename for the new year
• One tab per month of seed starting and planting
• Adjust totals from what was grown
• Keep notes in the sheet
• Records fade after June once outside

With: alone · Keeps it in: spreadsheets (garden plan + second sheet)

23. Ruth Maramis (FlixChatter)

Year measured against a ‘52 films by women’ challenge and last year’s exact count.

• Pull Letterboxd year stats (200+ films)
• Count new-to-me films by women vs last year (62 vs 63)
• Rank top 10 by women, rewatches, TV and scores
• Set 2026 aim to beat the women-directors tally

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Letterboxd

24. Tantek Celik

Merges Strava with Swarm check-ins and memory; calls it a first version to iterate next year.

• Combine Strava, Swarm check-ins and notes
• Verify lifting numbers in Strava Progress
• Compare totals to 2024
• List races and declines
• Set 2026 race goals and rhythms

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Strava; Swarm

25. JT_Birder

The challenge itself is the year plan; the review is a montage stitched from 30 in-year episodes.

• Set a Jan 1 challenge: photograph 250 species in-state
• Document it in 30 videos through the year
• Rebuild the year month by month in chronological order
• Track the running year-list counter
• Note lifers and home-patch finds

How long: spread over weeks · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: while traveling · Keeps it in: camera; year list counter

26. Ashley (Ashley On the Run)

Reads the year entirely through Strava’s auto-wrap, including percentile ranks and kudos.

• Open Strava Year in Sport
• Translate distance into a map comparison
• Note who gave most kudos and training partners
• Check streak (49 weeks) and percentile ranks
• Name standout activity
• Aim to finish the 52-week streak

How long: under 1 hour · When: early Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Strava Year in Sport

27. A Serious Hobby Jogger

Three-year volume comparison ties results to one training-method change.

• Total km (6,037) and weekly average
• Compare volume with previous two years
• Credit method change (Norwegian singles)
• Walk races month by month
• Name the low point
• Point to next race

When: first week Jan · With: alone

28. The Books are Everywhere

Reviews the year twice, spreadsheet then StoryGraph, and enjoys hunting the discrepancies between them.

• Open her own spreadsheet (old Reader Voracious template plus her own tabs)
• Walk through books, ARCs and hauls per month
• Open StoryGraph’s wrap-up
• Compare the two side by side
• Note where counts disagree

When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Reader Voracious spreadsheet template; StoryGraph; calendar tab

29. rockinchimp

Keeps rule-based Letterboxd lists all year (any 4.5+ first-time pre-2025 film auto-joins) so the review is mostly ready.

• Open Letterboxd profile and stats
• Compare total with last year (880 vs 810)
• Walk custom lists (e.g. pre-2025 first-time 4.5+ star)
• Favourites and least favourites
• Oldest/newest/longest film stats

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Letterboxd (lists, stats)

30. Spatzicus3_Outdoors

Escalates target from 200 to 300 after overshooting; requires evidence (photo/audio) for every tick.

• Recap 2025 (goal 200, ended ~262, ~220-230 photographed)
• Raise 2026 target to 300
• Same rule: photo, video or audio of every bird
• Start Jan 1 chasing a target bird
• Keep records more organised this year

How long: spread over weeks · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: while traveling

31. Celeste (A Literary Escape)

Reviews the blog as a small media business, traffic sources and SEO, alongside reading, then grades 11 goals.

• Pull blog stats from WordPress: posts, views, visitors, likes, comments
• Rank traffic sources and top posts
• Pull reading stats from StoryGraph and spreadsheet charts
• Break down format, genre, backlist vs ARCs, LGBTQ+ share
• Grade each of 11 goals success, partial or failed
• Explain dips (Google updates, leaving Twitter)

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: StoryGraph; Reader Voracious’s Ultimate Book Blogger / Reader Spreadsheet Template (2024 version); WordPress stats; Bluesky; Twitter

32. Kate Gardner (Nose in a Book)

Her stats show surgery recovery: one-handed short books early in the year, so average length is part of the story.

• Open the StoryGraph stats tab
• Add translation count from her own records
• Count series books, settings and author countries
• Note how the year shaped length (short books after surgery)
• Pick a top five
• Decide on goals (none for 2026)

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: StoryGraph

33. Julia (Pages of Julia)

Splits her year into pleasure reading vs assigned reviews, and counts books she chose not to review because she disliked them.

• Post best-of list first
• Count books and fiction share
• Break down genres and formats (ebook, audio)
• Split read-for-pleasure vs assigned review, bought vs sent
• Tally author gender, race and queer identity vs last year
• Count rereads and books left unreviewed

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Shelf Awareness (review assignments); e-books; audiobooks

34. Susan Roberts

Read 136 books mainly by cutting news and most TV; drops goals for the next year.

• Set a Goodreads goal (130)
• Track every book in Goodreads
• At year end total books, pages, average rating
• Split by genre and women authors
• Count DNFs
• Reflect on what freed reading time (no news, less TV)

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Goodreads (reading goal)

35. Emma Cazabonne (WordsAndPeace)

Charts even title patterns (animals, numbers, place names) and the countries and US states her books ‘visited’.

• Add data to her Excel tracker after each book
• Keep the same charts every year so only data changes
• Pull a few graphs from CAWPILE
• Publish stats: books vs audio, pages, minutes, nationality, language, settings, publication years, title patterns

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Excel (own charts); Book Roast’s CAWPILE

36. Push The Pace

A/B/C goal tiers per distance, with tune-up races scheduled to test progress before the goal race.

• Recap first year of racing (5K from 39:25 to 27:22)
• Show race stats on screen
• Set C, B and A goals for every distance
• Choose one big goal (sub-2 half)
• Map tune-up races month by month
• Leave December as a break

When: later Jan · With: alone

37. Bongo Twisty

Wrote his own command-line app to check pace against the yearly distance goal mid-year, avoiding a December scramble.

• Record rides on Ride with GPS
• Pull data with a self-built CLI
• Check progress against annual distance target through the year
• Track Eddington number
• Compare 2025 with 2015
• Set 2026 goals from Audax UK awards (RRtY, 50 points) and a 2,200 km tour

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Ride with GPS; self-built stats CLI; ListenBrainz

38. Crystal Cox (31 Threads)

Most finishes were gifts, so the review runs on photos; plans live in a binder gifted by her daughter.

• Look back via laptop photos (most quilts given away)
• Walk each 2025 finish and who it went to
• Goal 1: get organised
• Move project records into a quilt binder
• Join block-of-the-month quilt-alongs
• Budget an hour a week for a long project

When: later Jan · With: with family · Where: home · Keeps it in: Lori Holt quilt binder; Busy Bee binder pages; printed paper record; laptop photos

39. Francesca (Diary of a Yorkshire Gardener)

Excel seed inventory with sowing and harvest tabs, built because she has ‘literally millions’ of seeds.

• List every seed in an inventory tab by category and type
• Mark stock and rough counts
• Use a sowing tab for what to sow when
• Log harvests in a harvest tab
• Review what she enjoyed growing

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Excel spreadsheet

40. Jenna (Falling Letters)

16th annual ‘Wrapping Up, Looking Forward’ post; knows she blogs steadily Nov-Feb and plans around it.

• Tally posts published
• Check each 2025 goal (books, middle grade, owned books, posts, Family Reads, review rate, views)
• Note posting and reading patterns
• Set numbered 2026 goals (80 books, 30 middle grade, 6 Tolkien…)
• Plan the year’s posts in a calendar

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: StoryGraph (logs, stats); Goodreads (TBR, reviews); WordPress post calendar; Bluesky; Substack

41. Kimberly Hirsh

Goal is always ‘one more book than last year’, reachable right up to Dec 31.

• Tally books on Micro.blog (accepts the count is inflated)
• Split by category (children’s, romance)
• Check the main goal: read one more than last year
• Mark stretch goals met or missed
• Note patterns
• Sketch loose ideas for 2026

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Micro.blog bookshelves; Pagebound; NetGalley

42. guyeatsfood (Burn After Running)

Session-level spreadsheet since 2020 with COUNTIF formulas for GM-vs-player and online-vs-table split.

• Log every game session in a spreadsheet all year
• Check total vs annual target (96 of 100)
• COUNTIF share run as GM (58%)
• Share face-to-face (48% vs 56% last year)
• Count new games (37)
• Reflect on highlights

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: spreadsheet (COUNTIF, filters)

43. The Minor Details of Flat Gap Farm

3-2-1 countdown format: three wins, two fails, one big project.

• Name three successes (land cleared, 300+ pasture chickens)
• Name two fails
• Pick one big project for 2026 (barn)
• List 2026 goals continuing poultry and coop

When: first week Jan · With: with partner · Where: home

44. Chris Bissette

Sheet has a random-pick tab that chooses his next TBR book; goals are percentages, not counts.

• Log each book in a Google Sheet tracker
• Auto-generate stats on a Statistics tab
• Keep TBR lists
• Use a random ‘Pick A Book’ tab to choose next read
• Set 2025 target percentages for nonfiction and translated fiction

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Sheets (free template); Goodreads; StoryGraph

45. joelchrono

Audits purchases against playtime, then sets a no-buying goal for the backlog.

• Write a month-by-month narrative
• Copy stats from Backloggd
• List finished, started, in-progress by platform
• List purchases with playtime
• Closing thoughts and 2026 aim: buy nothing, play backlog

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Backloggd; Humble Choice/Bundle; Jekyll blog

46. Mile by Mile Running blogger

Missed every 2025 goal, called it a successful year anyway, and re-set mostly the same targets.

• Revisit each 2025 goal
• Review four races
• Compare mileage and times to goals (all missed)
• Note lessons
• Set 2026 goals (1,600 miles, sub-1:45 half, sub-3:50 marathon, mindset)

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone

47. Fiz (Every Page She Turns)

Grades seven goals honestly (most missed) and rewrites each vague goal as a countable number for next year.

• Link Goodreads and StoryGraph year-in-review stats
• List top 10 and 20 favourites
• Go through each 2024 goal and say met, partly or not
• Diagnose why (monthly classics too much, new releases beat rereads)
• Rewrite vague goals as numbers
• Set five 2025 goals

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Goodreads; StoryGraph; Wix (earlier blog)

Creators

48. Sahil Bloom

‘Energy calendar’: goes back through the whole year’s calendar and color-codes every event by whether it gave or drained energy.

• What did I change my mind on?
• Color-code the past year’s calendar green/yellow/red by energy (‘energy calendar’)
• What gave me energy? Plan to do more of it
• What drained energy? Batch or cut it
• What were the ‘boat anchors’ (people, habits) holding me back?
• What didn’t I do because of fear? Run Tim Ferriss’s fear-setting

Keeps it in: calendar (energy calendar color-coding); Tim Ferriss fear-setting; free printable PDF annual review template; annual planning template

49. Aileen Xu (Lavendaire)

Journal-along video built on her own printed workbook prompts; treats mistakes as proof you tried; always ends the review on gratitude.

• Sum up the year in one phrase (‘2022 was a year that I…’)
• List highlights and accomplishments
• What worked: wins and strategies
• What didn’t work: mistakes and failures
• What I learned
• How my life evolved

Keeps it in: Artist of Life Workbook (‘Goodbye 2022’ section); any notebook or note-taking device; Get Ready for the New Year email challenge; Instagram New Year challenge (@shoplavendaire)

50. Campbell Walker (struthless)

Eight-page rhyming worksheet that blends Spotify-Wrapped-style shareable fun with reflection; celebrates ‘subverted’ goals and the mundane everyday days.

• Overview page: highlights, one good decision, setbacks
• Photo page: morning/noon/night of a normal day, nature shot, progress pic, home and away
• Goals hit, missed and ‘subverted’, plus a skill, a project and a small silly win
• Media page: book, film, album, outfit, things that made you laugh/cry/learn
• People page: met, missed, helped
• Second photo page: nostalgia, chaos, laughter, before/after

Keeps it in: Rhyming Review template (struthless.org); photos; Spotify Wrapped (named as a contrast); engraving pen (a project)

51. Tiago Forte

Treats perception, not plans, as the goal; two-thirds of his ARC method is looking backward; uses spouse feedback as a key input; shares pieces publicly.

• Book the review in the calendar like an important meeting
• Read the book’s prologue and first four chapters beforehand
• Put yourself in a state of gratitude first (music, embodiment, art, writing)
• Appreciate the past: study what happened, why, and what helped or hurt
• Reflect on the present: answer a standard question set across health, money, relationships, home, work
• Talk what emerges over with spouse or family for feedback

How long: 2 to 3 days (his ideal now, a weekend; recommends at least 8 hours, splittable; first one in 2008 took an hour) · With: with partner (asks his wife about what the review surfaces) · Keeps it in: pocket notebook (first review, 2008); blog (publishes parts of his reviews); calendar (recommended for booking); book checklists (3.5-page checklist per part of Life in Perspective); business financial numbers

52. Ali Abdaal

Gratitude-led review in Notion toggles; rejects numerical/SMART goals in favour of systems; keeps an unrealistic 50+ item bucket list as background prompting.

• Open the annual review page in his Notion ‘Life OS’
• List experiences he is grateful for, with short memory-jogging notes
• List people he is grateful for and why
• List accomplishments
• List things he is grateful for plus ‘game changers’
• List things discovered (books, courses, methods)

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · Keeps it in: Notion (Life OS workspace, toggles); Notion annual review template; Evernote (used for earlier reviews); physical notebook; Audible; weekly email newsletter (source of life lessons)

53. Jesse Itzler

Whole year on one dry-erase wall calendar, personal fun booked before work; rolls it up as his year’s ‘autobiography’; mails 20-30 handwritten thank-you letters.

• Take inventory of the year: what worked, what didn’t, what you did
• Close out the year: declutter closet and desk, get inbox to zero
• Write 20-30 handwritten thank-you letters (2-3 hours)
• ‘Blender’ exercise: rate whole life 1-10 and note the 2-3 things pulling it down
• Pick one year-defining ‘Misogi’
• Apply ‘Kevin’s Rule’: six mini-adventures, one every other month

Keeps it in: The Big Ass Calendar (dry-erase wall calendar, color-coded markers/stickers); handwritten letters, envelopes and stamps; email inbox (inbox zero)

54. Grace Beverley

Gathers vision-board material all year in Instagram saved folders; sorts misses into controllable vs uncontrollable; goal milestones roll up into progress automatically.

• Revisit last year’s goals in her digital planner: what worked, what didn’t, what was achieved off-list
• Sort misses into things she could and couldn’t control
• Brain-dump a vision in three areas: who to be, how to live, what to do
• Build a vision board from year-round saved Instagram folders and Pinterest
• Set SMART goals in six categories
• Add milestones to each goal

Keeps it in: The Productivity Method (TPM) Digital Planner 2.0 (Notion template); Notion; Instagram saved folders; Pinterest; phone lock-screen vision board; notes app; ChatGPT/AI for turning goals into habits; habit tracker with streaks; whiteboard star chart; pen and paper

55. David Perell

Public scorecard of numeric goals vs actuals with causes; deliberately sets fewer goals; seeks one project merging many goals (‘palm into a fist’).

• Name the theme of the year (commitment)
• Score each 2021 goal against the actual number
• Explain why each miss happened
• Draw lessons (e.g. some goals you only want to want)
• Set fewer goals for 2022
• For each goal, list concrete tactics

Keeps it in: Google Docs (YouTube retention notes); YouTube analytics; email list stats; Twitter; Readwise (OCR); Evernote; Kindle; sticky tabs in hardcover books; phone voice notes

56. Jade (UnJaded Jade)

Sets about 70 to 100 goals but treats them as predictions; keeps a ‘continue’ section for habits already automatic; tarot card shapes her motto.

• Work through the YearCompass booklet: camera roll and calendar, month by month
• Sort the year’s events by life area and let go of what no longer serves
• Review last year’s Notion goals: celebrate wins, make peace with misses
• Brainstorm next year with YearCompass questions; pick a motto and big themes (tarot-inspired)
• Write goals in Notion by category, incl. a ‘continue’ list of internalised habits
• Brain dump roughly which month each goal happens, then plan week by week

Keeps it in: YearCompass; Notion (2026 Goals and Reflections template); camera roll; calendar; tarot cards; vision board; phone lock screen; Headspace

57. Tam Kaur

Reads her astrology birth chart to set the year’s purpose; vlogs daily on Snapchat as public accountability.

• Check last year’s vision board against what came true
• Pick a theme of the year and your why
• Choose up to about 20 goals in that theme, split by life area
• Make each goal SMART and turn the list into a vision board seen daily
• Convert goals into daily/weekly/monthly checklists and calendar reminders
• Set up systems: birth-chart notes, habit stacking in a habit app, Notes-app glow-up list

Keeps it in: vision board; Pinterest; xTiles; Notion; Habit app; Structured app; Notes app; plain notebook; Self-Obsessed growth journal; calendar alerts; Snapchat; TikTok; Spotify; Atomic Habits (book)

58. Dan Koe

Starts from an ‘anti-vision’ of the life you refuse; interrupts the day with scheduled reminder questions; frames goals as video-game levels.

• Morning: journal on tolerated dissatisfaction and repeated complaints from the past year
• Write an anti-vision: an average Tuesday if nothing changes in 5 and 10 years
• Write a minimum viable vision and an identity statement
• Daytime: set phone reminders at fixed times with self-interrogation questions
• Evening: name the real enemy, compress anti-vision and vision into one sentence each
• Set a 1-year lens, 1-month project and 2-3 daily time-blocked levers

How long: full day · With: alone · Keeps it in: pen and paper; phone reminders / calendar events

59. August Bradley

Accomplishments and disappointments are logged weekly in Notion databases all year, so the annual review just rolls them up; you write your own questions.

• Do the weekly review, then the December monthly review
• Review accomplishments and disappointments logged all year, with lessons
• Reflect on 12 months using task manager, calendar and journal
• List meaningful people, places and experiences; write your own probing questions
• Interpret why each mattered and find recurring themes/values
• Update guiding principles

How long: 2 to 3 days · When: varies · Keeps it in: Notion; Pillars, Pipelines & Vaults (PPV) system; free Notion annual review template pack; accomplishments/disappointments databases; task manager; calendar; journal

60. Scarlett Cochran

Reviews the year through seven ‘types of wealth’ from her book: money, health, time, experiences, relationships, knowledge, options.

• Go month by month listing highs, lows, accomplishments and quirky moments
• Assess the seven areas of wealth with five questions each (best/worst investments, over/under-invested, happy with progress)
• Review last year’s goals: achieved or not, why, still matters?
• Answer reflection questions: five biggest lessons, living by values, worries that didn’t matter
• Rate the year 1 to 10, judging only what was in your control
• Keep each year’s review to reread years later

How long: 1 to 3 hours (about an hour; can split into 15 minutes a day) · When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · Keeps it in: One Big Happy Life Year in Review workbook; It’s Not About the Money (her book)

61. Stewart Lynch

His year runs WWDC to WWDC, not January to December; he calls his videos his developer notebook and journal.

• Time the review to the eve of WWDC, covering the year since the last one
• Group the 50+ videos by category, not by date
• Name each series (WWDC deep dives, deeper understanding, My Tallies, technique videos)
• Personal highlight: speaking at Deep Dish Swift
• Side tools built: video search Mac app, custom GPT on his transcripts
• New newsletter and first paid course

When: other: eve of WWDC (early June) · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube; NotebookLM; custom ChatGPT (GPT) trained on his transcripts; his own Mac app listing all videos; newsletter

62. Jamie Lim Yin Yin

Annual review as a couple’s ritual with candle and playlist, split across blocked days because it is mentally draining.

• Sit down with her partner in the second half of December
• Set the mood: instrumental Spotify playlist and a candle
• Re-read her previous year’s answers
• Recall the year through calendar and photos
• Gratitude prompts
• Reflect on each life area (family, romance, finances, health)

How long: 2 to 3 days (blocked chunks; hers took 2 days) · When: second half of December · With: with partner · Keeps it in: Spotify; candle; The Ultimate Annual Review (Steve Schlafman); YearCompass; Ali Abdaal newsletter prompts; calendar; photos; reMarkable 2

63. Tams (Paper Tams)

Year review rolls up from Sunday, monthly and quarterly reflections in one Hobonichi, ending with a letter to herself.

• Through the year: Sunday weekly reflections, monthly reflections and quarterly reset weeks in her Hobonichi
• Take Christmas week off; schedule a reset week for the last week of December
• List wins, then challenges, under four ranked categories: wellness, family, community, work
• Jot thoughts in a separate notebook
• Write a letter to herself in the new planner summarising the year
• Note opportunities (evening routine, reading, sleep)

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Hobonichi Techo Cousin; bullet journal; notebook; Canva; Substack

64. Anangsha Alammyan

Has kept journals since her teens and spreads the review over three days, one per prompt bracket; drops goals she admits aren’t priorities.

• Set aside pen and paper or a device plus uninterrupted time
• Gather the year’s records: calendar notes, journal, stray notes
• Answer prompts on obstacles, how she got through them, strengths and recurring patterns
• Answer prompts on happy memories, comfort-zone moments and how she changed
• Carry lessons forward: life goal, relevant skills, honest pace check, priorities to drop
• Set next-year goals each paired with daily habits

How long: 2 to 3 days (4 to 5 hours total spread over three days) · With: alone · Keeps it in: pen and paper; journal; calendar; phone notes; free printable annual review template; Notion templates (Gumroad)

65. The Productivity Psychologist (personal name not stated)

Psychologist-built review that includes a net worth delta, a standardized VIA strengths retest compared with 2022, and defining your own 10/10 before rating life areas.

• Open a new yearly review page from her Notion template
• Scroll the year’s photos month by month and drop highlights into Canva slides
• Click through her color-coded calendar for patterns
• Review spending in YNAB using a representative month, plus a yearly net worth spreadsheet
• Journal on how she felt about the year
• Reassess values: VIA Character Strengths survey, value-word clustering, admired people

Keeps it in: Notion (life operating system dashboard; yearly review template; reviews, reflections and resets section); Canva (visual review slides, life-domain bar chart); printable PDF; Photos app on MacBook; Google Calendar (color-coded; separate calendar for a typical week); You Need a Budget (YNAB); Google net worth spreadsheet with formulas and charts (10-year sheet; she calls it a Google Doc); Zillow; Kelley Blue Book; VIA Character Strengths Survey; ChatGPT (clustering value words); screenshots

66. Lon Seidman (Lon.TV)

Calls his yearly report the ‘state of the channel’; splits views from this year’s uploads from evergreen back-catalogue views, and shows his least-watched videos too.

• Thank viewers and contributors (Patreon, Floatplane, memberships, Donorbox)
• Count uploads, hours of content, views on this year’s uploads vs all views
• Watch time and subscribers added vs last year
• Share of views from subscribers
• Most and least watched videos of the year
• Which topics win (cord cutting, printers) and which flop (laptops, off-topic)

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube analytics; Patreon; Floatplane; YouTube memberships; Donorbox; Amazon affiliate program; Amazon on-site video program; email digest; iPhone one-handed rig

67. Hardware.ai channel host (personal name not stated)

Works out his YouTube pay per hour ($2.30) and has an ‘epic fail’ section on his AI-voiced series.

• Switch from yearly text post to a video
• Revisit last year’s community poll and why it misled him
• Admit the robotics videos people voted for flopped
• Stats: views and watch time at their highest, monetization regained after a 1.5-year break
• Revenue per hour ($92 for 28 days over ~40 hours)
• Epic fail: bi-weekly AI-voiced news series, burnout

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube community posts/polls; YouTube analytics; Bark TTS; Patreon; AliExpress affiliate program

68. muchelleb

Refuses yearly goals: sets loose year-end intentions plus quarterly goals, and reviews against her vision board rather than a goals list.

• List biggest wins, starting with the last week then month by month
• Scan the calendar for forgotten wins
• Check last year’s vision-board intentions: which happened, which didn’t
• Draw lessons about how her goal setting went
• Name what to do differently next year
• Set loose intentions for the year, not yearly goals

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · Keeps it in: vision board; calendar; Life Map Collective planners (Life Map Daily, Life Map Daily Digital); Life Map Notion Pack; Life Map Dream Guide; Skillshare course

69. Layla Pomper

Spends half the time just thinking; uses rewatching her own public quarterly livestreams as her journal; ‘grandma check’ for pride.

• Review company vision, mission, values (1 to 2 hours)
• Define point A: what hurts, SWOT, where time/energy/money went
• Gather data: financials, time tracking, company ideas list, rewatch her quarterly ‘Lookback’ livestreams
• Define point Z as competencies to build; check it is big, proud (‘grandma check’), inspiring
• Set big numbers (savings, expenses, profit, revenue) and role metrics (~2 hours)
• Record a video of the plan and send it to leadership, mastermind, friend, advisor for critique

How long: 2 to 3 days (2 to 3 full workdays spread over about two weeks) · With: alone; with a team (work) · Keeps it in: whiteboard; SWOT analysis; financial data; time tracking data; company ideas list; YouTube Lookback livestreams; recorded video; Zoom

70. Jules Acree

Duplicates the yearly Notion goals page each year to build an archive; tags goals shared with her husband; gives each goal a quarter.

• Finish a 4-week Design Your Year challenge (reset, declutter, vision board)
• Choose a word of the year
• Brain dump goals
• Tag each goal personal, professional, or shared with husband
• Assign each goal to a quarter
• Break goals into supporting actions with a due month, then micro-tasks

Keeps it in: Notion; Design Your Year Notion Pack; Notion AI / Notion Q&A; vision board; Nourish Notes Notion template; DYY Challenge Notion Hub

71. Daniel Canosa

Does it publicly with real ratings, then sorts categories by score to see what he neglected; every ‘next’ becomes a scheduled task.

• Open his yearly review template in Notion
• For nine life categories write what went right, wrong and next (plus-minus-next)
• Rate each category 1 to 10
• Sort by rating to spot imbalance
• Answer proudest accomplishments, challenges, goals
• Turn each ‘next’ into a scheduled task in his tasks database

How long: about 1 hour (recommended) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Notion; annual review template (Notion); Notion tasks database; Notion habit tracker (Gumroad); Ness Labs plus-minus-next; Twitter; YouTube; Facebook ads

72. Peter Fisher (How To Code Well)

Uses the review to explain moving free YouTube courses behind members, Patreon and his own site; notes a sponsor series filled a gap on his contractor CV.

• Admit a stretch of the year with no work on the channel (life, contracting)
• Note the last 2-3 months of full focus
• Show the new website howtocodewell.net
• Move YouTube course playlists to members-only and paid courses
• Note sponsored Laravel series (Cloudways) and what it did for his CV
• Plans: subscriptions, forum, recommendations

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: howtocodewell.net; YouTube memberships; Patreon; Discord; Cloudways (sponsor); Laravel

73. Anand (Simple-Homelab)

Grades two numeric targets (memberships, series parts) in a recap filmed days after losing a 15-year job.

• Personal news first (lost his job of 15 years)
• Website: rebrand and its traffic hit
• Memberships vs target (143 of 200)
• 30-part guide series vs target (26 of 30 published)
• Deployrr usage counts
• YouTube: less active, hit 10K subscribers on New Year’s Day

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: simplehomelab.com; Deployrr; Discord; n8n; Docker; Proxmox; Traefik; Let’s Encrypt

74. Bec Stewart

Mid-year (June) recalibration instead of New Year; Keep/Release/Adjust sort; ends with a physical, digital and social reset.

• Journal six audit prompts: gone well, proud of, not to plan, out of alignment, draining, energising
• Spot recurring patterns (burnout, no progress, disconnection)
• Sort habits and commitments into Keep, Release, Adjust
• Pick a theme for the rest of the year
• Make the theme concrete as non-negotiables
• Attach habits, routines and rituals and track them in a habit tracker

When: mid-year (June) · Keeps it in: journal; The Habit Tracker; laptop notes; Coplenty budgeting template

75. Anna Lenkovska

Winter-solstice ritual burning 11 of 12 goal slips unseen; ChatGPT quizzes her into honest life-area scores; plans repeat audits mid-year.

• Draft 10-year and 3-year vision and a rough goal list (previous video)
• On winter solstice write 12 goals on slips; burn one unseen each day; the last one left is hers to act on
• Life audit in her Notion hub: rate 10 life areas 1 to 10 using a rating guide
• Paste the guide into ChatGPT for a quiz to sharpen each score; add short notes
• Track average, min and max ratings to compare at later audits
• Make a Pinterest vision board plus phone and computer lock screens

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · Keeps it in: Notion Productivity Hub (her template); ChatGPT; paper slips; scissors; Pinterest; phone and computer lock screens; Notes app; Whoop; online Bisaya course; Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems (book); 75 Soft; 12-week year

76. Simranjeet Kaur Mann

Turns her yearly goal mind-map into her laptop wallpaper so it is unmissable, plus calendared quarterly check-ins.

• Diagnose why past resolutions failed (buried in phone notes, never revisited)
• Do the annual review with Ali Abdaal’s Notion template
• Re-read her previous year’s review to see progress
• Build a goal roadmap in XMind split by life area
• Write process goals (habits) instead of outcomes
• Export roadmap onto a Canva wallpaper as her desktop background

How long: one evening (planning setup) · Keeps it in: Notion; Ali Abdaal annual review template (Notion); XMind; Canva; phone notes app; calendar; Atomic Habits (book); TikTok

77. Simon (Better Creating)

Adds a milestones database between goals and projects, with an 80/20 pass on wins and losses.

• List wins and losses by category (people, experiences, projects, knowledge, things, health)
• Jog memory with Google Calendar and his monthly reviews
• Write the lesson from each win and loss
• 80/20 recap of the most impactful wins and losses
• Set up to three goals, written as already achieved
• Add 3 to 5 milestones with deadlines, plus obstacles and solutions

Keeps it in: Notion; Notion goal-setting template; Complete Life OS (Notion); stoic journal template; Google Calendar; habit/practice tracker; Gumroad; The One Thing; The 10X Rule; Essentialism; Tim Ferriss podcast

78. Charlie Cotton

Never rereads last year’s written goals until filming next year’s review; films nearly two hours unscripted on camera.

• Keep notes and cards of lessons through the year
• At year end, film a long talk-through of the notes by theme
• Judge the year’s main goal (self-love)
• Cover relationships, faith and work
• Open last year’s written review for the first time since writing it
• Check his predicted skills and obstacles against what happened

How long: 1 to 3 hours (under two hours on camera) · With: alone · Keeps it in: notes; postcards/cards stack; computer document of last year’s review; camera; ChatGPT

79. Leia (SimplyLay)

Mines playlists, group chats and trinket jars for memories; ends with an oracle card pull.

• Gather data: camera roll, social posts, calendar, emails, chats, notes apps, Pinterest, memory boxes, journals, playlists
• Optionally piece the year together with friends at Friendsgiving
• Make a timeline with three points per month
• Two columns, different vs same as last year; highlight the biggest impacts
• Dig with questions: under/overestimating, unacted ideas, patterns, failures
• Pick 3 to 5 themes as filters

How long: spread over weeks (November) · When: November · With: alone · Keeps it in: camera roll; calendar; physical planner; email; group chats; Google Drive; Notion; notes app; journal app; Pinterest; Canva; Spotify; Apple Music; memory box; Substack; Wild Animal Pocket Deck

80. Venus Kwong

Reviews the year against a theme she set at last year’s review, and counts ‘invisible metrics’ like sleep and calm.

• At each annual review, set a theme for the next year (2024: letting go)
• List what changed month by month
• Weigh results: independence, time, peace, less income
• Reflect on what freedom and ‘enough’ mean
• Name a guiding principle
• Use a quitting framework for decisions

Keeps it in: Steven Bartlett quitting flowchart; Oliver Burkeman article; Art of Manliness article; newsletter

81. Pradeep (TDevelopers / Pradeep AGI)

Each year’s video grades last year’s on-camera promise; the 2025 one pivots the channel from tutorials to showing his own app revenue.

• Open YouTube’s year-end stats (top video, engagement, countries)
• Check last year’s promise against this year (more Shorts: 200+ made)
• Count long-form videos (12)
• Judge Shorts too short for quality, go back to long form
• Explain quiet last two months (building apps)
• Show RevenueCat app revenue dashboard

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube year-in-review stats email; YouTube Studio; RevenueCat dashboard; Flutter

82. Christopher (Plan Your Truth)

Counts partial progress as a win; budgets actual available hours per quarter (HB90) before cutting the brain dump.

• Reflect on positives first: camera roll, calendar, planners, last year’s goal sheets
• Then note stressors and partial progress; decide which missed goals to carry over
• Check the vision board in his manifesting journal
• Brain dump goal ideas across life areas; mind-map or colour-code into patterns
• Picture the big vision: diary entry written as yourself in 10 years
• Prioritise against that vision and realistic time and energy (HB90 hours method)

Where: while traveling (mind map drafted in a friend’s car) · Keeps it in: camera roll; phone calendar; planners; goal sheets; vision board; manifesting journal; journal; highlighters; mind map; HB90 goals course and planner; Happy Planner

83. Brian Oginga

A three-minute review from a 400-subscriber channel that counts connections and mentorship requests before code.

• Take a three-minute pause to reflect
• Highlights: people met at developer conferences, mentorship requests
• Thank viewers for 400+ new subscribers
• Projects built, including his first microfinance product
• Channel changes: guest experts, weekly live coding
• Store update since the channel isn’t monetized

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Django; his online store

84. Matt (Code, Tech, and Tutorials)

Opens YouTube Studio live on New Year’s Day and reviews unscripted, including his most-disliked video and that only ~4% of watchers subscribe.

• Switch YouTube Studio to 365 days on Jan 1
• Views and subscriber growth graphs vs the year before
• Top videos of the year
• Look at his most-disliked old video that still gets views
• Monetization: about $500 for the year, ~$3 a day
• Top earning videos

How long: under 1 hour · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube Studio analytics; Patreon; vcpkg; Blender; CMake

85. Eric (Tech Time With Eric)

Films his state-of-the-channel in his car in a grocery store parking lot; says he never wants to be as big as LTT.

• Record unscripted in his car in a grocery store parking lot
• Count videos (47) and live streams (22) against a two-a-month minimum
• Note that staying on tech topics did best
• Plan 2025: monthly Linux video for Windows 10 leavers, ChromeOS Flex
• Money: best AdSense year but still below what he spends
• Weigh renting an office for a studio

When: early Dec · With: alone · Where: other: his car in a parking lot · Keeps it in: YouTube AdSense; Patreon; Super Thanks; Super Chats; Linux; ChromeOS Flex

86. Sean DeLaney

Adds a misogi, one frightening challenge with at best 50% odds; does the review alongside his wife.

• Block an hour each morning for a week, in solitude
• Spend a day or two answering review questions on 2022 in a notebook or Google Doc
• Name the number one goal and who you must become
• Write a vision story dated Dec 31, 2023, with the why
• Choose Big Five life areas, review each, set specific measurable goals
• Find three key habits plus one to start and one to stop

How long: a week (an hour each morning) · With: alone; with partner · Keeps it in: notebook; Google Doc; downloadable presentation/worksheet; You Unleashed course

87. Rob McDonald (WPEdge Solutions)

Grades his weekly-upload goal bluntly (12 of 52) and names learning and gear as procrastination.

• Say why he started the channel and chose the niche
• Grade the goal: one video a week planned, about 12 made
• Name the four-month stall after the first nine
• Diagnose it: watching videos about YouTube, gear, analysis paralysis
• List what he learned (camera, editing, iMovie to Final Cut Pro)
• 2026 plan: one WordPress video a week, no overthinking

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: iMovie; Final Cut Pro; WordPress

88. Saurav Dhyani

Reviews LinkedIn alongside YouTube, drills down to top Indian cities, and asks viewers to rewrite his plan in the comments.

• LinkedIn first: impressions, engagement, new followers
• YouTube top five videos and top playlists
• Viewer ages
• Top countries, then top Indian cities
• Subscribed vs not
• Compare 2023 to 2024: subs, views, uploads

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube Studio analytics; LinkedIn analytics; unnamed YouTube metrics tool; Power Automate; Business Central

89. Ben Carcich (Building Better Games)

Compares podcast episodes’ first-7-day and first-90-day downloads with all-time, and admits he came closest yet to closing the business.

• Courses released (two) and how they were received
• Agile Fundamentals runs (three) and the switch from two full days to four half days
• Contract work and repeated client problems
• Speaking (GDC)
• Content: shift from audio to video podcast, narrower niche, 1,000+ subs
• Newsletter dropped and restarted, LinkedIn less often

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube; podcast host stats; LinkedIn; newsletter

90. Jeremy Grifski (The Renegade Coder)

Publishes his money-losing numbers each year (net -$656 in 2024) and picks one favorite piece per month.

• List the year’s accomplishments
• Favorite photos of the year
• Favorite creation from each month
• Five-year metrics table: page views, top posts, traffic sources, countries
• YouTube views, subscribers, watch hours
• Revenue by source, expenses, net income

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Plausible; WordFence; Patreon; Amazon Associates; YouTube analytics

91. Brian Alonso

Rates just three categories on a 1 to 3 scale and optimises for having no regrets; first-ever review.

• Overall summary of the year
• Review three life categories: health, wealth, relationships
• Note regrets (aims to minimise them)
• Rate each category 1 to 3
• Show the year’s projects (website, model, blog)
• Pick a theme for next year (exploitation)

With: alone · Keeps it in: personal website; blog; X; YouTube; GitHub; minimal ‘dumb phone’ setup

92. Chioma Nwano

Plans the year in prayer during the January church fasting season and puts scriptures on her vision board.

• Reread last year’s goals in notebook or planner and call yourself out
• Set specific, realistic goals for every life area
• Break them into quarterly, monthly and weekly targets
• Pray and plan with God; join January church fasting
• Build a vision board with scriptures, as wallpaper or on a door
• Apply pressure, no excuses

When: January (fasting season) · Keeps it in: notebook; planner; Canva vision board template; Notion goal-setting template with habit tracker; Bible

93. Amara (Life with Amara)

Ditched yearly goals for quarterly ones after a year of monthly reviews with her husband; savings split between pounds and a naira friends’ savings group.

• List last year’s written goals
• Score each and explain why it slipped
• Roll missed goals into 2026 with a new strategy
• Switch from whole-year goals to quarterly goals
• Set measurable Q1 targets (weight, certifications, interviews, savings)
• Keep reviewing goals monthly with her husband

With: with partner · Keeps it in: written goals; Jack and Jill (job-matching tool); 24-hour gym; friends’ savings group

94. buyi idera

Skipped goals entirely in 2024 to lower pressure, then returned to goals so she has something to check against.

• Note she set no goals last year and ran on vibes
• List what she is grateful for and achieved in 2024
• Set goals by area: content, money, health, travel, spirituality
• Name a theme for the year (progress)
• Break big goals into small monthly goals
• Make a vision board

With: alone · Keeps it in: vision board; Kindle; DJI Osmo Pocket 3; CapCut; Instagram; TikTok

95. Stephanie Knox Steiner

Runs the review as a seasonal ritual peaking at the winter solstice, where she writes a spell; charts the year as a pie chart.

• Start in early December
• Open with a few breaths and a candle or incense
• Brainstorm the year in a Google Doc from memory and Google Calendar
• Group it into categories (milestones, health, relationships, travel, learning, work, fun)
• Make a pie chart of the year
• Name what to carry forward and what to release

How long: spread over weeks · When: early Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Doc; Google Calendar; Many Moons lunar planner; CHANI app; vision board; candle; incense; pie chart

Writers, artists and makers

96. Erin Benzakein (Floret Flower Farm)

Times the review to the farm’s dormant month and frames it as ‘what grew, in us too’.

• Wait for December when the farm is asleep
• Take stock of what was done, not what needs doing
• Walk through the year’s big projects (flower-arranging course, plant preservation ‘ark’, a new book)
• Talk them through with team members on camera
• Thank the community

When: December (not more specific) · With: with a team (work) · Where: cabin/nature (farm)

97. Austin Kleon

No goals or metrics at all: a 100-item delight list, fed by a one-line-a-day logbook kept since 2008.

• Keep a daily logbook all year (what he did, where he ate, what he watched)
• Keep a separate diary
• At year end, write a numbered list of 100 short things that made the year
• Publish it, then return to his weekly list of 10

With: alone · Where: home (kitchen table, where diaries are kept) · Keeps it in: logbook; diary; 1-year and 5-year diaries kept by the kitchen table; weekly ‘list of 10’ newsletter

98. Brandon Sanderson

Plans the reader’s calendar, not his own: a multi-year public release schedule (to 2030) built around crowdfunds and his December convention.

• Reconstruct the year from his book-progress spreadsheet
• Report on primary projects
• Update secondary projects
• Crowdfunding update
• Film/TV/games
• Company news and international partners

With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: book-progress spreadsheet

99. Chris Guillebeau

Two decades on, the elaborate 11-category spreadsheet has shrunk to two lists plus gratitude; still publishes every year.

• List what went well
• List what didn’t go well
• Write a shorter gratitude list
• Publish a recap with a look-ahead to next year’s commitments

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone

100. Marc Lou

Reviews his body age, VO2 max and daily steps right alongside 15 income streams.

• Total income vs last year
• Revenue by stream across his portfolio
• Biggest win product with MRR, churn and growth
• Surprise product
• Investing results
• Failed launches

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: while traveling · Keeps it in: WHOOP; X; S&P 500 index

101. Max Rozen

Measures progress against one fixed goal, being self-sufficient as a web developer, at this time every year.

• Recap how he indiehacks (side projects around a job)
• Tools he invested in
• Books read
• Year in review: jobs and side projects
• Writing habit and readership
• Financials

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Tailwind UI; Divjoy; Terraform; Airtable (CRM); Jira; Confluence; React; Postgres; CircleCI; Gumroad; notebook; phone notes

102. Tony Dinh

Year recap is a month list with emoji wins and fails, including apps that made $0.

• Mark turning 30 with a decade of career milestones
• December update: new app, what it earned and cost
• What he learned building it
• Main product update
• Month-by-month highlights of 2023 with an emoji each
• Three-line verdict on the year

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Next.js app router; Stripe; Paddle; Lemon Squeezy; ElevenLabs; resemble.ai; FFmpeg

103. Laura Maylene Walter

Doubled the target to 215 by batching: each story sent to many journals at once.

• Adopt the 100-rejections goal
• Send about 15 stories plus essays, pitches, grants and residency applications in batch ‘submission frenzies’
• Track rejections per piece
• Total the year: 215 rejections, 12 acceptances (~5%)

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · With: alone

104. Harry Collins

Year is a chain of trips and workshops; the review is one hero photo per trip.

• Go through the year trip by trip in date order
• Show his favorite frame from each trip and the story behind it
• Note gear and settings for standout shots
• Include the workshops he led

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Canon R1

105. Jim Zub

Each year’s review links back to every previous one, so the series doubles as a 15-year career archive.

• Open with links to every past annual review
• Big career change (left teaching to freelance)
• Travel and events (24 comic/gaming events)
• Home life and routine
• Writing projects
• Reflections on the world

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone

106. Kim Liao

Counts failures as the score: the goal is 100 rejections, which forces enough submissions to get acceptances.

• Set a yearly target of 100 rejections (not acceptances)
• Submit widely to magazines, residencies, fellowships
• Log every submission and response in a private annotated, color-coded Excel sheet
• Tally the year’s rejections, acceptances and encouraging ‘send more’ notes
• Set next year’s target to beat the record

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Excel spreadsheet (color-coded, annotated)

107. Sunflowers (band)

A band’s year is a tour map: dates booked months ahead via agents, logistics kept in spreadsheets.

• Recap the year’s last shows (six in Portugal)
• Thank the community and road friends
• Plan, book and map the next year with agents and promoters
• Lay out the tour calendar (Eurosonic, then a 33-date European tour)
• Maybe sketch new music
• Share lessons from 11 years on the road

When: first week Jan · With: with a group/mastermind · Keeps it in: spreadsheets (tour logistics); agents/promoters

108. Josh Bernoff

Measures how fast clients pay (12 days weighted) as a yearly business health metric.

• Pull the year’s tracked business data
• Count clients (16) and invoices (65) with average/high/low
• Measure days-to-payment
• Split income by service and by client source
• Check concentration (top two clients ~22% each)
• Decide what to drop and what to focus on next year

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: business tracking (tool not named)

109. Sebastian Röhl

Admits he finished barely half his goal list and decides to review goals more often next year.

• TL;DR of the year’s headline wins
• Highlights: quitting his job, $10k MRR, Times Square contest, MKBHD video
• List what he shipped, including halted projects
• Retell the quit-the-job story from 2022 on
• Lessons learned
• Modest goals for next year

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: RevenueCat; Kotlin; Jetpack Compose; Swift; SwiftUI; Flutter; Substack; Threads; X; YouTube; App Store; Google Play

110. Andrea Bizzotto

Grades five numeric targets (revenue, visitors, subscribers, followers) with a tick or cross, then spends most of the review on revenue charts.

• Score last year’s five numeric goals with ticks and crosses
• Headline revenue vs last year
• Course launch breakdown and pricing
• Revenue by stream and expenses
• Monthly and lifetime revenue charts
• Website traffic and SEO

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Teachable; Udemy; ConvertKit; Twitter; LinkedIn; Reddit; Slack; Google Search; YouTube

111. The Program audio series (showrunner)

Publishes falling numbers openly (downloads 240K -> 170K -> 140K) plus an annual listener survey.

• Compare with prior years
• Count episodes released
• Supporter counts (Patreon, Apple subscriptions)
• Platform changes and engagement
• Annual audience survey
• Discovery sources, listener countries, podcast players

With: alone · Keeps it in: podcast host stats; Patreon; Apple Podcasts subscriptions; annual audience survey

112. Jessica (All Things Freelance Writing)

Highs/lows/averages per metric compared to last year: a plain stats table, shared as a free template.

• At the start of the year, open her year-end review spreadsheet
• Fill in the year’s metrics
• Note highs, lows and averages
• Compare with the previous year
• Note what did and didn’t help growth
• Set the coming year’s targets

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: year-end review spreadsheet (free template)

113. Lisa (Mile By Mile)

Publishes a near-total miss year openly and carries the missed goals forward instead of dropping them.

• Restate last year’s goals
• List the year’s races
• Score each goal honestly (missed 1,600 miles, marathon PR, sub-1:45 half; met strength twice a week)
• Write lessons learned
• Set 2026 goals, keeping some missed ones
• Note what she’ll do differently

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone

114. Jillian Anthony

Tracks pitch acceptance rate and late fees collected, and grades goals with checkmarks and X’s.

• Review the year by the numbers: average monthly income, estimated hourly wage
• Highest and lowest invoice months
• Income sources and anchor-client share
• Pitches sent vs accepted, acceptance rate
• Subscriptions and late fees
• Grade last year’s goals with checks and X’s

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Canva; YNAB; Descript

115. Jeanie Marie

Her review is literally YouTube’s auto-generated recap email, read on camera.

• Open YouTube’s own year-in-review email for the channel
• Walk through subscribers, views, top videos on her laptop
• Count uploads (76, aiming for weekly)
• Ask viewers what content they want next
• Share a small new-year resolution (stand more while working)

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: usual desk · Keeps it in: YouTube year-in-review email; YouTube analytics; standing desk

116. Elisa Menck (Menck Arts and Crafts)

Three running counters (month, year, all-time) in a paper log book, rolled up from monthly review videos.

• Log every finished kit in a log book through the year
• Track monthly finishes, yearly finishes and all-time total
• Show each finished canvas in order with enhancements she added
• Point to monthly review videos for detail
• Start a fresh log book for the new year

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: log book (paper)

117. Ali (Ali Risby)

The review is the physical stack of sketchbooks; the count of books filled is the metric.

• Gather every sketchbook filled that year
• Flip through each in order, page by page
• Rate each drawing honestly (proud / rushed)
• Note which papers and markers worked
• Surprised by how many sketchbooks he filled

How long: under 1 hour · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: sketchbooks; acrylic markers; alcohol markers

118. Michelle (Chaotic Kitz)

Counts journaling words alongside fiction words; keeps word goals deliberately soft.

• Recap the author year: books published and republished by series
• Report income
• Report word counts by month (best month 35,000 words)
• Compare with her best year (2023, first year she tracked)
• Set soft monthly word goal (~18,000) without pressure
• Write 2026 goals in a dedicated notebook with journaling prompts

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: word-count log; 2026 journaling notebook

119. Ari (Ari’s Pages)

Charts monthly words against life events (job change) to see why output dipped.

• Go month by month, manuscript by manuscript, giving word counts
• Total the year (~156,500 words)
• Chart words by month to see ebb and flow around life events
• Note other wins (short story published, 27 books read vs 30 goal)
• Set three writing goals for 2025 (clean draft, beta readers, finish a draft)

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Where: usual desk · Keeps it in: computer word-count records; charts (‘figures’)

120. Jackie (Jackie Reads and Writes)

Treats query letters as a yearly tally next to words; hopes the notebook log ‘becomes a tradition’.

• Log words written in a notebook all year
• Total the year (~77,000 words, admits some edits weren’t logged)
• Count short story submissions (1 accepted, 1 rejected, 1 pending)
• Count agent queries (49 across two books)
• Report the agent signing
• Look ahead: hopes to report a book deal next year

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: notebook word log

121. Hill and Valley Creative

Two partners review the year as a filmed conversation; the ops win was retiring the whiteboards.

• Sit down together on Dec 23 for an unscripted talk
• Name the year’s biggest challenge (joining several business lines into one brand)
• Review operations: moved client tracking from whiteboards to ClickUp
• Review favorite projects and gear bought
• Pick next year’s improvements: steadier workload, more marketing, double studio rentals, more behind-the-scenes videos

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with partner · Where: usual desk (their studio) · Keeps it in: whiteboards; ClickUp; email; calendar

122. Elsa (somebodyelsa)

Plans in trimesters (four-month blocks) and ties the review to producing her sellable calendar.

• Start because she has to make next year’s calendar product
• Review the year’s highlights (two books illustrated, first magazine job, new products)
• Name what was hard (staying motivated in quiet client periods)
• Set discipline goals: realistic daily/weekly to-do lists, work outside home weekly
• Plan focus areas per trimester (four-month blocks)
• Commit to one YouTube video a week

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: bullet journal; downloadable illustrated calendar

123. Julie Broberg

Review by recipient: each knit logged with who it was made for.

• Photograph each finished knit through the year
• At year end, post them all with finish date, yarn/pattern notes and recipient
• Note works still on the needles
• Set one intention: finish all WIPs in 2026

How long: under 1 hour · When: mid Dec · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: photos; blog

124. Farmer Keith

Plans in fall because ‘by spring you forget’; uses point-of-sale data to cut about 50 varieties down.

• Plan in the fall, before winter, to avoid forgetting the season’s pain
• Pull sales by crop from the point-of-sale system (market and online)
• Cut crops that didn’t sell (peppers, eggplant, turnips, lettuce)
• Merge summer/winter varieties into one
• Take in-season notes on a whiteboard
• Walk the plots to see what’s where

When: after peak season · With: alone · Where: cabin/nature (on the farm) · Keeps it in: point-of-sale system; whiteboards; farm journal

125. Ratika Deshpande

Kept the rejection tally for years, then deliberately quit it because the number pushed her to write for editors, not herself.

• Start a new spreadsheet each year
• Log submissions, deadlines and responses
• Aim for 100 submissions (never reached)
• Notice the count was steering what she wrote
• Drop the number goal
• Replace with qualitative aims: finish pieces, read physical books, try new subjects, widen vocabulary

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · With: alone · Keeps it in: yearly submissions spreadsheet

126. Jason Leow

Does his review from the tax-season sums, and scores it against a ramen-profitability bar of $5k a month.

• Add up indie revenue at tax time
• Split it by product
• Compare with last year’s per-product sums
• Compare like-for-like growth on surviving products
• Measure against his $5k/month ramen goal
• List three levers: grow, add, cut

When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: Carrd; Lifelog; Buy Me A Coffee; Twitter

Founders, investors and business owners

127. Emma Grede

Plans from her birthday, just before Q4, giving personal life the detail of a business plan; started as a ‘30 plan’.

• Every birthday start a fresh plan
• Look at last year’s missed goals and why
• Answer planning questions (joy, priorities)
• Four life categories, three stepping-stone goals each
• Write it down, reread for a few days
• Keep goals in a phone note, check weekly

How long: spread over weeks · When: birthday · With: alone; with an accountability partner · Keeps it in: journal, pen and paper, phone Notes app, vision boards (earlier)

128. Jeff Bezos

Re-attaches his first (1997) letter every year, so each annual review is read against the founding promise.

• Write the yearly shareholder letter
• Pick one theme (Day 1 vs Day 2)
• Give tactics for staying Day 1
• Attach the original 1997 letter again

With: alone · Keeps it in: shareholder letter; 1997 letter as fixed reference

129. Brad Feld

Personal year starts on his birthday, numbered like software releases (v53.0), with a run of his age in minutes.

• On his birthday write a letter to himself
• Run for as many minutes as his age
• Grade the previous version’s goals candidly
• Choose qualities to be (not tasks) for the next version
• Publish as a versioned post

When: birthday · With: alone · Keeps it in: blog post / letter

130. Fred Wilson

A public two-day pair: look back on New Year’s Eve, predict on New Year’s Day.

• Dec 31: write what happened in tech, startups and VC
• Link back to last year’s prediction post
• Jan 1: publish what will happen in the new year

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31); first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: blog (AVC)

131. Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn

Company year runs from its launch anniversary; the review lands in Birthday Week with product ‘gifts’.

• Publish during Birthday Week (launch anniversary, Sept 27)
• Review the past year’s focus (reliability after incidents)
• Name outside threats
• Announce product launches for the year ahead

When: same fixed date every year · With: with partner (co-founder) · Keeps it in: blog

132. Marty Grunder

Landscaper reviews right after the season with a colleague and rereads a goals journal from his early 40s.

• December sit-down with a senior colleague on camera
• People wins and hires
• Revenue, headcount and profit
• Branch results vs budget
• Biggest lesson (cash management, daily cash and AR review)
• Reread an old goals journal from 14 years ago

When: after peak season · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: journal, budget, quarterly playbook review

133. Jordan Maylea

Mother-daughter business reviews flops before wins, then turns it into a yearly worksheet series.

• Share flops first
• Then five things that worked
• Lessons for viewers
• Kick off the yearly ‘Breakthrough Year Blueprint’ series with a year-in-review worksheet
• Goals next

When: mid Dec · With: with family (mother/business partner) · Keeps it in: year-in-review worksheet

134. Cory Zue

Starts from a yearly time report of where his work hours went, then checks it against income; calls the review a window for future-him.

• Check the year against the focus set in his January planning post
• Time report: where work hours went
• Revenue graph for the main product
• Product improvements, month by month
• Marketing efforts by channel with numbers
• Other projects, including the one in decline

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: time report; GitHub integration; YouTube; Open Source Pledge; Twitter/X; Bluesky

135. Maciej Cegłowski (Pinboard)

Each birthday he extends one cumulative table, all years side by side, with funding always 0.

• Mark the site’s birthday
• Table of yearly metrics for every year since launch
• Big story of the year
• What went wrong for users
• Thank users
• Link every previous anniversary post

When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: none

136. Nat Eliason

Reviews the business year as four growth phases, with revenue checkpoints, written on the agency’s first birthday.

• Mark the business birthday with where it started
• State where it stands now (MRR, team, clients)
• Split the year into four growth phases
• For each phase: what he did, who he hired, revenue at that point
• Count where early clients came from

When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: email newsletter; blog

137. Amy Hoy

Moved her yearly retrospective to tax season, reading the year off the P&L sheet.

• Do the retrospective at tax season instead of January
• Retell how the business started
• Revenue for each year since 2008
• Compare 2011 with her estimate
• Her mixed reaction to the numbers
• Spending on developers

When: varies · With: with partner · Keeps it in: P&L sheet; Noko

138. Nikhil Basu Trivedi and Mike Smith

Two-partner fund reviews itself on its founding anniversary, counting the portfolio by stage rather than reporting returns.

• Mark the firm’s third anniversary
• Count the portfolio by stage (13 companies: 6 Seed, 6 Series A, 1 growth)
• Name the past year’s new investments
• Describe support resources the ops team built
• Note the new SF office, dinners and offsites
• Reflect on how bumpy company building is

When: fund anniversary (April) · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: Substack

139. Bruce Booth

A ~48-minute data deck on video each year, released before Thanksgiving, with a ten-year comparison.

• Macro and policy preamble
• Biopharma industry review: approvals, sales, R&D efficiency
• Venture ecosystem deep dive with a 10-year look-back
• Brief update on the firm and its portfolio

With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: slide deck, video

140. Bemmu Sepponen (Candy Japan)

Divides yearly profit by hours worked to get his real hourly wage ($16, down from ~$50).

• Subscriber chart: start vs end of year
• Sales, expenses by category, profit vs last year
• Estimate hours worked and hourly wage
• Site traffic stats
• What went wrong
• What went right

With: alone · Keeps it in: Stripe subscriptions; YouTube ads; tracking script; newsletter

141. Julia Evans

Builds the year’s record from work artifacts (PRs, tickets) before review season; runs group brag-doc sessions.

• One marathon session every 6 months or year
• Go through pull requests, tickets, launch emails, design docs
• Write goals for this and next year
• List projects, collaboration, design docs, company building, learnings
• Add the impact, not just the task
• Share with manager and peer reviewers

How long: single sitting · With: alone; with friends (group sessions) · Keeps it in: template in post

142. Jade Beason

Sets next year’s target by annualising the months after she quit her job.

• State the year’s original goals and context
• Revenue by stream (AdSense, ebook, course, membership, brands)
• Audience growth
• Lessons rather than failures
• Next year: revenue target (GBP 350K) from her post-job run rate
• Work-less goal (four-day week)

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Shopify, Kajabi, YouTube AdSense

143. Chris Koerner

Reviews the year as a net-worth breakdown in percentages, recorded late at night in a hotel during a family train trip.

• Walk through the year’s projects in order (tree business boot camp, podcast launch, RV park partnership)
• Break net worth into percentages by asset: stocks, crypto, home, land, RV parks, angel deals, own companies
• Estimate net worth growth for the year
• Retell investing mistakes and the rule he took from them (never sell early)
• Review audience growth
• Set goals only for things he controls for 2025

With: alone · Where: while traveling · Keeps it in: net-worth spreadsheet; MacBook webcam; Bluetooth mic; Robinhood

144. Iron Brands (Simple Analytics)

Holds a yearly talk with his co-founder about feelings and what went well, then writes the review from that talk.

• Take time off first
• Sit down with co-founder to talk through the year
• Overview in numbers
• What each founder accomplished
• Highlights (community meetups, working from Bali and Cape Town)
• What didn’t work

When: later Jan · With: with a team (work) · Where: while traveling · Keeps it in: Substack; Twitter/X; Reddit

145. Tomasz Tunguz

Grades his own forecasts with half points against a stated 70% success bar.

• Late Dec: list five predictions for next year
• Score last year’s five, half points allowed
• Total the score (3.5/5 for 2021)
• Judge against a 70% accuracy bar
• Reflect on a decade of change

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: blog

146. Sasha Page

Reviews her angel year as a funnel: meetings to deals, by sourcing channel, against a meeting target.

• Set a yearly target for startup meetings (230)
• Count conversations (393) and investments (25)
• Break sourcing down by channel %
• Compare deal types (token vs equity)
• Review portfolio support given
• Set next-year focus and automation goals

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Airtable, Otter, Granola, Llama, Claude, OpenAI o1 via Poe, Google Docs

147. Will Larson

Grades decade-long goals (set 2019, revised 2022) with status tags each December rather than setting fresh yearly goals.

• Summarise the year
• Grade long-running goals with status tags (Completed / In progress / New)
• Sections on books, speaking, health, family finances
• Personal projects
• Reading list
• Note next-year intentions

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Monarch Money (family cashflow)

148. Greg Kogan

Turns each win into a ‘Try it’ tip; writes the review to fight memory’s bias toward setbacks.

• List what went well, each with a ‘Try it’ note for readers
• List what could be better
• Check goals (essays, books)
• Set next year’s goals (12 essays, more reading, a month off)

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: none named (hired an assistant for scheduling)

149. Brennan Dunn

Freelance-business review with revenue split to the cent by course, SaaS and consulting.

• Tell the year’s story (rough start, recovery)
• Revenue by product line and consulting
• Expenses and overhead
• Email list growth and opt-in rate
• What went well / what didn’t
• What’s next: yearly goals broken into milestones

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Gumroad, Planscope, WordPress, WooCommerce

150. Nathan Barry

Company revenue target, workouts, farm projects and flight hours on one public scorecard; shows the $53M target he missed.

• Review each business with metrics (Kit, personal brand, side ventures)
• Fitness, family, travel, flying hours
• Goals scorecard: hit, missed, partly met
• Set numeric goals for next year
• Closing reflection on overcommitting

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Kit, Kit App Store, Relevance.com, Starlink Mini

151. Michael Lynch

Gives each of last year’s goals a school letter grade (B-, A+, B) beside a full line-item P&L.

• Headline revenue and profit for the year
• Link every previous yearly update
• Full income/expense table vs prior year
• Stories of the year’s big events (office sprinkler scare, 3PL, metal case)
• Lessons learned
• Grade each of last year’s three goals with a letter grade

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: 3PL warehouse; contract manufacturer; 3D printers; index funds

152. Patrick McKenzie (patio11)

Runs the same stats/what-went-right/what-didn’t template for each of three businesses, every year since 2006.

• Intro and the year’s big change (quit day job Apr 1)
• Per business: stats table vs last year
• Narrative of the year
• What went right
• What didn’t
• Repeat for consulting and Appointment Reminder

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: MailChimp; Heroku; Spreedly; Twilio; PayPal; AdWords; Google Analytics-style web stats; staging server; source control

153. C Chaitanya (KooKoo / Ozonetel)

Runs the yearly review on the company’s launch anniversary in October, not the calendar year.

• Tie the review to the launch anniversary
• List major milestones (ARR, profitable, customers)
• Approximate platform metrics
• Most fun
• Thanks
• Next year goals

When: varies · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: KooKoo; Cloudagent; BizPhone

154. Philip Joubert

Whole remote team is surveyed before leaders meet; mixes Scaling Up’s one-page plan with Amazon-style six-pagers.

• Team survey on a Google Form (one week)
• Leadership retro on the past 12 months (90-120 min, Miro)
• Three-day senior offsite: long-term plan, annual plan, initiatives
• Owners write six-page initiative docs within two weeks
• Long-form plan in Slab, presented at All Hands
• Budget and headcount in Google Sheets within burn and headcount caps

How long: spread over weeks · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: Google Forms, Miro, One-Page Strategic Plan (Scaling Up), Amazon six-page template, Slab, Google Sheets, All Hands

155. Rob Walling and Mike Taber

Two co-hosts grade each other’s goals 1-5 on air every December; separate predictions episode.

• Replay goals set in an earlier episode (372)
• Score each goal 1-5
• Talk through why (e.g. health, sleep apnea)
• Set new business, personal and health goals
• Revisit the yearly prediction
• Plan a check-in in 3-4 months

When: mid Dec · With: with friends (co-host) · Keeps it in: podcast episodes, 1-5 scale

156. Island Crown (channel)

Counts units, not dollars: plan sales and furniture pieces built, filmed in his backyard workshop while finishing the year’s last batch.

• Film while making the year’s last furniture batch
• Recall the 2024 baseline: 366 online sales, 31 furniture pieces
• Describe new products: full-size paper templates, MDF templates with printed booklets
• Compare 2025: 887 online sales, 116 pieces
• Note his other carpentry jobs had their slowest year
• Name the most meaningful project

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Facebook posts; Outdoor Furniture Makers Facebook group; 36-in paper rolls; 1/4-in MDF templates; printed booklets

157. Neil Redfern

Films his year review on a walk round Entwistle Reservoir rather than at his desk.

• Walk around a favourite reservoir instead of filming at home
• Thank couples and recap weddings, incl. abroad
• Slideshow of favourite moments
• Count workshops (8) and where attendees came from
• Note next year’s sold-out workshops
• Separate ‘best of’ portfolio post to follow

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: walking · Keeps it in: video, slideshow

158. Tina (Made with April)

Reviews on the shop’s first anniversary, not at New Year; goal is less mental load, not more sales.

• Compare with earlier shop-talk videos
• Sources of income over time (Facebook Marketplace to markets to online store)
• Events vs conventions pros and cons
• Problems and fixes
• Goal for the coming year (free up brain space)

How long: under 1 hour · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Shopify, Etsy, Facebook Marketplace

159. Morgan (Morgan’s Creations)

Works out net profit for each craft show to the cent, including one that lost money, and lands on a $713 profit for the year.

• Name the best-selling product and units sold per channel
• Commissions: count and net profit vs last year
• Online shop: orders, items, net profit, Square sales report month by month vs 2024
• Craft shows: items sold and net profit per show
• Total business expenses
• Profit by platform (eBay, Mercari, Depop)

With: alone · Keeps it in: Square Online; Square sales report; eBay; Mercari; Depop; GoDaddy; Microsoft 365; YouTube Studio

160. Olivia (Olivia Is Crocheting)

Reviews her first shop year by opening Etsy’s built-in recap live on camera, then correcting its numbers because it ran a week early.

• Leave Etsy’s auto-made 2024 Year in Review unopened until filming
• Open it in the Etsy seller app on camera
• Guess, then reveal, top search terms and the visits each brought
• First sale date
• Read a glowing review
• Orders from social shares, ad clicks, offsite ads

With: alone · Keeps it in: Etsy seller app; Etsy Year in Review; Etsy Ads; Etsy Offsite Ads; Share and Save

161. McKenna (Palm Creative)

Market seller who tallies event days and best single days from a spreadsheet, Shopify POS for all sales.

• Overall feeling of the year first
• Count markets (31 events, 43 market days)
• Best sellers
• Best single sales days from her market spreadsheet
• Orders vs goal (goal 1,000; prior year 268)
• Goals saved for a separate video

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Shopify, Shopify POS, Etsy, spreadsheet, phone notes

162. Milly (Blink Lettering)

Watches her own goals video from a year ago on camera and grades it live.

• Rewatch last January’s goals video on camera
• Check goals stored in Notion
• Grade by section: productivity, projects, financial
• Reflect on workload and health
• Set measurable goals for the new year

How long: under 1 hour · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Notion, accountant, bookkeeping

163. Emma Parnell

Returns each December to the town where she registered her company, for a solo three-night review on the incorporation anniversary.

• Book the same Airbnb in Broadstairs, where she registered her company
• Go just before Christmas, on the incorporation anniversary
• Stay alone three nights (first retreat was two)
• Choose somewhere cosy with a good bath to hunker down
• Follow a rough structure (details paywalled)

How long: 2 to 3 days · When: just before Christmas · With: alone · Where: hotel/rental apartment · Keeps it in: Airbnb

164. Oku (OkuPoku)

Plans the year on a visual quarterly board, then reviews by showing the board, including the abandoned half.

• Show last year’s goal board split into quarters
• Tick what got done each quarter
• Admit Q3-Q4 were abandoned
• Highlights (conventions, first wholesale order)
• Set 2026 goals in the same board
• Fix stock tracking

How long: under 1 hour · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Milanote (captions garble the name), convention calendar

165. Traci (Chester & Pearl)

Checks her sales split against an even one-third across online, wholesale and markets, as insurance if one channel collapses.

• List every new product and collection made
• Sales summary: 5,748 orders, growth by channel
• Compare the channel split with her ideal of one third each
• Total donations raised through collections
• Go through each channel (Shopify, Etsy coupons and fees, top states, Faire, markets)
• Wins and fails

With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Shopify; paid Shopify theme; Etsy; Etsy coupons; Faire

166. Joy Michelle

Her review/plan window is the off season, not New Year; plans six months ahead.

• Treat the off season as stock-taking time
• Look at what worked and what didn’t
• Blog unshared shoots and tag vendors
• Submit work for features
• Map out the next six months; check bookings
• Update the website

How long: spread over weeks · When: after peak season · With: alone · Keeps it in: blog, website, Instagram, calendar

167. Jacob Godar

Reviews each location and the dealership separately by revenue and crew count, then sets a 50%-a-year growth target for five years.

• Recap the year’s new venture (a Scag dealership in Illinois)
• Dealership sales (about $250K)
• Illinois landscape company: crews and growth (17.9%, about $2.39M)
• Florida location revenue ($1.56M to $2.56M)
• Whole-company total (just under $5.2M)
• Team and culture lessons

With: alone · Keeps it in: none named (says 2024 budgeting is done)

Families, couples and people of faith

168. Erin Ryan

Resolutions written to the new-baby routine, including not tracking the baby’s percentiles.

• Look back on a year spent pregnant then catching up with a baby
• Lower the bar to fit the new routine
• List seven resolutions (run again, embroidery instead of scrolling, fewer rewatches, ignore percentiles, one-in-two-out clothes)
• Include support for other mothers and remember she’s more than a mother

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: none

169. Leandra Yomo

Reviews her first year at the end of a vacation vlog and lands on ‘I don’t mind the job’ instead of ‘I like it’.

• Vlog the weeks around her one-year anniversary of moving to New York and starting BigLaw
• Close with a year-in-review section
• Answer whether she still likes BigLaw: ‘wonderfully terrible’
• Pros: pay, access, exit options
• Cons: hours, no control of schedule, never off, impostor syndrome
• Note she renewed her lease and wants to return to her old practice group

When: varies · With: alone · Where: while traveling · Keeps it in: YouTube vlogs

170. Jeff Smith (The Tactical Empire)

Good/better/best outcomes per target and a ‘domino target’; each spouse writes the 1,000-day vision separately first.

• Get away for a four-day planning trip
• Reflect: wins, misses and why each was missed
• Pull out last year’s goals
• Each writes a detailed three-year (1,000-day) vision separately
• Set one-year targets across family, freedom, finances, fitness
• Pick the domino target

How long: 2-3 days · When: mid Dec · With: with partner · Where: hotel/rental apartment · Keeps it in: Streaks app (habit tracking, years of data); notepad; Google Calendar; time blocking

171. Trent and Karissa Zimmer

Uses Keller Williams/The One Thing couple’s retreat agenda; core-value words become the filter for every decision all year.

• Kids go to grandparents; travel the night before
• Date-night dinner, no agenda
• Morning: coffee, then reflect and celebrate the year
• Each picks core value words alone, then narrow to 3-5 together
• Plan personal/family pillar
• Plan business pillar

How long: 2-3 days · When: other: November · With: with partner · Where: hotel/rental apartment · Keeps it in: flip chart and easel; core value word sheet; The One Thing (book); hotel vs Airbnb

172. Avory Faucette

Warns ADHD brains hoard five year-end journals; rereads old YearCompass booklets years later to see time’s spiral.

• Split year-end into reflection, review, ritual, planning
• Reflection: skim journal, tarot/astrology journal, social posts, highlights over data
• Fill one guided booklet (YearCompass or Unravel Your Year), not five
• Use calendar to recall what happened
• Review: which systems worked
• Ritual as the transition

How long: spread over weeks · When: early Dec · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: YearCompass; Unravel Your Year (Susannah Conway); tarot journal; astrology journal; bullet journal; calendar

173. Cassie Winter

Uses story structure (hero’s journey, Save the Cat) as the year reflection tool; ‘potential’ is the trap.

• Name the villain: ableism, not yourself or your body
• Drop ‘perfect accommodation’ expectations
• Set doable expectations from actual abilities
• Draft a hero’s journey of ‘achieving your potential’
• Draft a second hero’s journey of your own story
• Choose which to follow

How long: spread over weeks · When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: hero’s journey worksheet; Save the Cat (book)

174. Jill Simons

Uses last year’s word as the lens for the year review; clicks a generator for ideas but never uses its word.

• Every December pray: ask the Holy Spirit for a word
• If none comes, list words that recurred through the year
• Include words others prayed over you
• Click a word-of-the-year generator for inspiration
• Look back on the year through last year’s word

How long: spread over weeks · When: early Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: word of the year generator (Jennifer Weiler)

175. Amy Throndsen

Ran it at home with phones off and no cooking; next year moved to a hotel with tasks split.

• Book the Friday after Thanksgiving to Sunday
• Phones off except breaks; no cooking
• Each answers The One Thing retreat questions alone first
• Review spiritual life, health, marriage, kids, aging parents, budget, causes, work, business
• Use Post-it notes
• Leave with small first steps, not a to-do list

How long: 2-3 days · When: other: Thanksgiving weekend (late Nov) · With: with partner · Where: home · Keeps it in: The One Thing couple’s retreat guide and questions; Post-it notes; 411 tool; budget

176. Rachel Hewitt

Year marker is grief’s stages, not achievements; the review is of the loss, not goals.

• At each New Year write a reflection
• Track how grief has changed stage by stage, not the year’s milestones
• Publish for other bereaved people

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Substack

177. Celeste Yvonne

Ritual object instead of a written review: a yearly gift marks the year.

• Track sober time continuously
• Each December soberversary give herself a gift
• Past gifts: labeled sparkling cider, dinner out with husband, massage or pedicure
• This year: a 5-year sober chip

When: personal anniversary · With: with partner (some years) · Keeps it in: sober chip; sobriety counter (time tracking)

178. Buster Benson

On each birthday he recalculates his life expectancy and fills in his life-in-weeks chart, then rewrites a personal book of beliefs.

• Take a weekend alone (Calistoga) around his birthday
• Update his life-expectancy estimate
• Add the year to his life-in-weeks chart
• List the past 15 annual reviews
• Review last year, including his mistaken word of the year
• Name three books that shaped this year

How long: 2 to 3 days · When: birthday · With: alone · Where: hotel/rental apartment · Keeps it in: life-in-weeks chart; book of beliefs; Medium; Substack

179. Christina (Carolina Charm)

Splits the ritual into a work meeting and a separate celebration dinner; restaurant and short lunch formats failed for them.

• Print this year’s planning spreadsheet and give it to spouse to review
• Send reflection questions days ahead
• Hold a multi-hour planning meeting in a quiet spot
• Cover family, personal, marriage, finance, business, home, travel and holiday goals
• Kids set their own goals at family dinner
• Hold a separate celebration dinner sharing answers to reflection questions

How long: half day · With: with partner; kids at family dinner · Where: home · Keeps it in: Excel planning spreadsheet (printed); free PDF family plans and goals sheet; reflection questions; Google Docs or notebook as alternatives; calendar invites

180. Kara Powell

Fixed slot in the New Year’s Day TV schedule; quiet solo minutes for introverts; goals copied into her prayer journal.

• Gather on January 1 between the Rose Parade and the football game
• Serve treats
• Read last year’s goals together
• Talk about why the family sets goals
• Quiet minutes alone to think
• Each person writes or draws goals on paper

When: first week Jan · With: with family · Where: home · Keeps it in: paper; pens; crayons; markers; prayer journal

181. Christina (Our Rich Journey)

Year review as a family video interview with a 10-year look-ahead, made to rewatch in 2030.

• Film each family member answering the same questions
• Favorite memory, what made you laugh, proudest moment of the year
• Where you will be and what you expect by 2030
• Next vacation wish
• Save as a time capsule to rewatch in 2030

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with family · Where: home · Keeps it in: video camera; YouTube

182. Abigail Koffler

Answers are locked away and mailed back a year later; the review is reading your past self.

• Answer one 10Q question a day in the Ten Days of Awe
• Submit to the online vault
• A year later the answers come back by email
• Read last year’s answers before writing new ones
• Repeat

How long: spread over weeks · When: same fixed date every year · With: alone · Keeps it in: 10Q (doyou10q.com, Reboot)

183. Chris and Melissa Smith (Family Brand)

Award ceremony with a family MVP; review only counts successes and things overcome, not failures.

• Family year-end review focused on wins and what was overcome
• Ask reflective questions
• Link last year’s lessons to next year
• Each person and the family pick one word
• Turn the word into games for kids
• Award ceremony for each child plus family MVP

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with family · Keeps it in: family word; reflection questions; awards; vision board

184. Holly Packiam

Year review built on the Ignatian Examen; prefers small frequent adjustments over big overcorrections.

• Take a couple retreat around end of Dec or start of Jan
• Reflect on the past year and further back
• Pray the Examen: rejoice, repent, make requests
• Journal prayers and thoughts in each phase
• Look ahead to the coming year
• Choose a word for the year

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with partner · Keeps it in: The Intentional Year (book); The Intentional Year Journal; 7 Questions for Reflecting on the Year (free download)

185. Marcella Runell Hall

Collects photos and magazines all year for the NYE board night; boards become conversation starters for action.

• Stay home with daughters on New Year’s Eve
• Light candles, sundae bar, playlist and dance breaks
• Look back on the year (and decade), highs and lows
• Use photos and magazines saved all year
• Each makes a personal board
• Make one family board together

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with family · Where: home · Keeps it in: glittery poster board; glue sticks; glitter glue; puffy paint; markers; paint pens; stickers; scrapbook embellishments; magazines; photos

186. Katie (Marriage Confessions)

1-10 happiness score opens the talk; done at a restaurant, not home.

• Go out to dinner before making New Year’s resolutions
• Review the year and celebrate what went well
• Make a financial plan and talk upcoming big events
• Each rates happiness 1-10 and says why
• Set shared priorities in order
• Talk mistakes calmly; table it if heated

How long: under 1 hour · With: with partner · Where: café · Keeps it in: 1-10 happiness score

187. Chad and Tori Masters

Rule that at least 51% of the retreat should feel joyful; weekly ‘Soft Launch Sundays’ meeting.

• Go away 3 days/2 nights (hotel, borrowed lake house or coffee shop)
• Day 1: review the year across spiritual, relational, physical, emotional, financial, vocational, community
• Day 2: what must change, mission statement, vision
• Mission built on identity, purpose, strengths, passions, what breaks their hearts
• 365-day vision with goals
• Action page: first step, date, accountability person

How long: 2-3 days · With: with partner · Where: hotel/rental apartment · Keeps it in: PLAN workbook (50+ pages, 8 sessions); quarterly check-in pages; weekly meeting guide; video walkthrough

188. MrPuckett

Year count runs from the recovery date; review is a ledger of what sobriety made possible.

• Mark the recovery date with a video
• Look back at 17 years of addiction across states
• Count what three years brought: home, freedom, self-love
• List giving back: shelter supply drives, Wigs for Kids hair donation
• Share in 12-step rooms without shame

When: personal anniversary · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: 12-step program

189. Kristen Marie

Reviews the year in fixed sections she reuses across reflections; the review pinpoints night shift as the cause and records the switch.

• Mark 365 days since her July 26 start date
• Break the reflection into timestamped sections, as in her earlier reflections
• Orientation: online hospital orientation, day then night preceptors
• Night shift toll: sickness, weight, caffeine
• Switch to day shift in April and what she learned faster
• Anxiety about her license and work environment

When: varies · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: nurse residency program; earlier reflection videos; August reset video

190. Manny (Hanke & Apolonio Wealth Advisors)

A financial planner whose yearly marker is his sobriety date, not January 1.

• Record a reflection on the sobriety date
• Recall the trigger four years ago (divorce, failing CFP exam)
• Take inventory of what changed: passed CFP, promotion, homes
• Weigh relationships with mom, family, friends above money
• Invite the curious to try sobriety

When: personal anniversary · With: alone · Keeps it in: therapy

191. April Fogg

Turns her first-year review into a resource audit: names the exact references she opened daily, including her own handwritten pharmacology notes.

• Take notes ahead of filming on what the year taught her
• Sit down Sunday morning in her home office with a latte
• Go through lessons one by one (you won’t know everything, stay current on research)
• Name the resources she actually uses each day
• Recount the GI job that didn’t work out
• Close with what’s next: a mobile Botox side business

When: varies · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: UpToDate; Epocrates; Primary Care Pocket Book; her own pharmacology notes (sold on Etsy); AHA blood pressure guidelines; ASCVD guidelines; Curbsiders podcast; TikTok

192. Nathan Kudlapur

Uses his start-of-year video as the baseline and checks a year later that his attitude held up.

• Compare against his first reflection video from the start of intern year
• Pick five thoughts
• You don’t need all the answers, just where to look
• What being first-line for patients means
• The emotional toll of patient deaths, especially in the cardiac ICU
• Making the hospital feel like home by knowing staff

How long: under 1 hour · When: school year · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube reflection series

193. Natasha Green

Her year review runs off a reflective journal that also serves as NMC revalidation evidence, plus an earlier six-month reflection.

• Mark the anniversary (July 14)
• Look back at the early months: nerves, crying in the car
• Credit support: a friend a year ahead, mentor, line manager
• Review her action plan with mentor and manager
• Track progress in a reflective journal that doubles as revalidation evidence
• Name what she discovered (advocacy) and her next step (advocate training)

When: varies · With: with a coach · Keeps it in: reflective journal; action plan; preceptorship; six-month reflection

194. MedBros (channel)

Ends by grading his intern year on an A-to-F scale, a ‘big fat C’, and explains why it wasn’t an A or an F.

• Rewatch his first vlog of the year to see where he started
• Walk the year rotation by rotation (GI elective, inpatient at the main center)
• Weigh what he expected against reality (logistics, paperwork, less learning than med school)
• Note free time, procedures, attendings
• Give the whole year a letter grade: C

When: school year · With: alone · Keeps it in: UpToDate; earlier vlogs

195. Rebecca Maguire

Her first year was spent as a locum across many pharmacies, so she reviews it by what each team taught her.

• Look back on registering and being named Responsible Pharmacist with no pre-reg tutor
• Review locum shifts across independent pharmacies
• List skills university didn’t teach
• Credit team support and second opinions
• Set intent: keep learning, patient safety at the centre

When: varies · With: alone

196. Matthew and Lexi (The Empty Nester Diaries)

Whole year on the wall with travel placed first, before money goals; empty months prompt the less-planful spouse to dream.

• Review last year’s goals honestly (YouTube goal missed by half)
• Write goals down
• Buy a big-number desk calendar and cut it into 12 months on the office wall
• Put travel and vacations on first
• Add birthdays and anniversaries
• Spot empty months and dream up trips

When: other: November · With: with partner · Where: usual desk · Keeps it in: desk calendar (Staples/Office Max) cut and hung on wall

197. Sheri (My Name Is Sheri)

Reviews intern year while rearranging her fish tank on camera, and tracks the new plan with workout minutes and calories.

• Reflect while resetting her aquarium
• Admit the year was a ‘hot mess’ and count the crying
• Name the six-month burnout and when it lifted (around March)
• Name the mistake: not caring for herself
• Set this year’s fix: work out 5-6 of 7 days, skate, one thing she enjoys weekly
• Advice: ask for help, pick a program for support, not name

When: school year · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: workout tracking (minutes, calories); mentors

198. Michael W. Harris

Treats his birthday as a personal New Year: a hike that grew from a 3.3-mile loop to 10.5 miles with 3,000+ ft of gain.

• Each birthday, hike a trail near Boulder, harder each year
• Look back on the year’s accomplishments and setbacks
• Renew a private promise to do better
• Recommit to honesty with himself, e.g. tracking food and exercise accurately
• Since 2017, bring friends along

When: birthday · With: with friends · Where: cabin/nature · Keeps it in: none named

199. Levi Lian

Year-start themes become the review’s headings; framed as a catch-up note for friends.

• Set a three-part theme at the start of the year (relationships, ideas, fun)
• At year end sort the year into those three headings
• Bullet anecdotes with photos
• Defer the ‘how’ introspection to a later post

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Substack; photos

200. M Haag (The Retiring Sort)

Retirement, grief and a new blog reviewed together; next year’s goals shared with their ‘beloved’.

• Name the year’s three big changes (mother’s death, retirement, starting the blog)
• Reflect on how each affected them
• Follow with a goals post for 2013 (find retirement destination, plan financing, take a great vacation)

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: blog

Doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professionals

201. Logan Graf

Publishes line-by-line revenue, expenses and return counts every year since 2022; says others now copy the format on LinkedIn.

• Name the year’s theme
• Check it against last year’s prediction
• Break income by business and service line
• Count returns by type; work out average price per return and per client
• List expenses, biggest first
• Take-home pay and hours breakdown

When: before tax season (late Feb) · With: alone · Keeps it in: UltraTax (via Verito virtual desktop); QuickBooks Online; LinkedIn; tax-return scheduling system

202. Emily Logan Stedman

Gave her year a name, ‘the year of the nap’, and reads all the naps as a sign she was recovering from her associate years.

• Record on Jan 7, a week into her second year as partner
• Trace back to her Sept 2022 annual review with her mentor that set the partner goal
• Recall what making partner felt like (relief)
• State her first-year goal: take pressure off
• Review billable hours against the 2,400 required
• List what she built: business-development mastermind, coach, values and mission statement, podcast, LinkedIn

When: first week Jan · With: with a coach · Keeps it in: annual review with mentor; business development mastermind; business development coach; LinkedIn; podcast

203. Dr. Jessica Louie

Household money tracked in one Excel file back to 2015 (husband’s too) for year-over-year comparison; goals run through her own CURATE method.

• Recall her word of the year (abundance)
• Go goal by goal through her 10-pillar ‘weekly joy check’ categories
• Mark each met, mostly met, or pushed back, and why
• Name what to let go that no longer fits her values
• Review money goals against year-over-year data
• Close by judging the year against the word

With: alone (finances include husband’s data) · Keeps it in: Excel file (2015 to now); pen-and-paper money download; weekly joy check (10 pillars); CURATE goal method; SMART goals; word of the year

204. Armand Simonian (Pharmacy Informatics Professor)

Reviews the year through why his teaching channel exists, starting from the gap he found while researching how pharmacy schools teach informatics.

• At New Year, look back on 2020 and the channel’s launch
• Retrace why he launched (talks from 2018-19, only 25% of schools require informatics)
• Reflect on what the pandemic made him value
• Ask viewers to reset priorities
• Note what’s ahead: NAPLEX now tests informatics, more episodes in 2021

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: YouTube channel

205. Sunshine & Stationery (channel)

Reviews the year by auditing her planner: each spread is judged by whether she actually used it.

• When classes end, flip through the teacher bullet journal from page one
• Judge each spread: keep, change or drop
• Drop what went unused (curriculum calendar, library hours)
• Fix annoyances (type passwords onto a reusable insert)
• Keep the monthlies and color-coded weeklies that worked
• Move unit planning to digital

When: school year · With: alone · Keeps it in: teacher bullet journal; sticky notes; ruler; color-coded pens; digital curriculum planning

206. Lauren Hall

Deliberately ‘ad hoc’, no template; separate shorter family review with her husband.

• Gather last year’s goals, priorities and strategic plan
• Scroll calendar and email to jog memory
• List accomplishments
• Answer: what went well, what didn’t, what’s next
• Look for patterns (travel broke workouts and writing; phone distraction)
• Do a shorter family version with her husband

How long: under 1 hour (public write-up took a few hours) · When: first week Jan · With: alone; with partner (family version) · Keeps it in: pad of paper and pen; digital calendar; email; plan of work; Full Focus Planner (used previously); Substack analytics

207. Susan Jones (Susan Jones Teaching)

Reviews the school year as a physical classroom tour of keeps and changes, splitting changes into ones she controls and ones she doesn’t.

• With 4.5 school days left, sit down and write a list of keeps and changes
• Walk the classroom showing each keep (magnet word-building boards, morning meeting slides, layout, Haggerty hedgehog, happy mail, WIN and literacy rotations)
• Say why each works, with counts (18 boards for 15 kids)
• List changes forced on her (iPads to Chromebooks, schedule shift)
• List changes she chooses (morning play, writing station that produced too little writing)
• Carry the list into next year’s setup

When: school year · With: alone · Where: usual desk · Keeps it in: Hand2Mind magnetic word-building boards; IXL (Spark Studio Jeopardy generator); morning meeting slides; Lexia; Epic; Seesaw; Clever; Chromebooks; iPads; Haggerty phonemic awareness program; happy mail template

208. Kevin Jubbal, M.D.

Does it on Christmas Day; caps next year’s improvement list at 10 so it actually happens.

• Gratitude, split into people, experiences, accomplishments, possessions
• What I did right this year, across five categories
• What I learned
• What I want to improve next year (10 items or fewer)
• Rework the template each year from others’ examples

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: Notion template; daily journal (3 gratitudes each morning)

209. Laura Park Figueroa (Therapy in the Great Outdoors)

Publishes her practice’s full numbers every year, own pay included, and uses the public share as accountability.

• Pull revenue and expenses from budgeting software the weekend before recording
• Check latest numbers with her accountant
• Compare to goals ($300K revenue, $100K take-home)
• Share expenses, payroll, taxes and her own pay
• Compute profit and margin (under 5%)
• Set next year’s goals: $350K revenue, 10% margin

When: mid Dec · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: budgeting software; accountant; Profit First (Mike Michalowicz); The Long Game (book)

210. Dr. Jamie (The Productivity Psychologist)

Psychologist framing: photos and calendar first because memory skews negative; picks one ‘emblematic’ month of spending.

• Scroll the camera roll and calendar to counter negativity bias
• Make a Canva collage and drop it into Notion
• List everything done, from the calendar
• Review money in YNAB using one typical month
• Talk financial goals over with her husband
• Answer her 26 pre-new-year questions

How long: 1-2 days (‘a day or two’) · When: late Dec · With: alone; with partner (finances) · Keeps it in: Notion yearly reset template; Notion personal dashboard; Canva; YNAB (You Need a Budget); calendar; phone photos

211. Kayla Moran

Reviews by quarter and with her therapist; measures the lived year against last year’s vision board.

• Talk the year through with her therapist
• Recall highlights quarter by quarter
• Name the lessons (tradeoffs, letting go)
• Frame the year as foundation for the next
• Set 2026 goals by area: speaking, firm growth, marketing, teaching, investing, home
• Sum up the year ahead in two words

When: late Dec · With: with a therapist · Keeps it in: vision board

212. Mirya Holman

Turned YearCompass into a free ‘Year Compass for Academics’; playful countable resolutions beside academic goals.

• Wait until after the holidays for ‘sacred’ New Year planning
• Pick a word of the year (Purpose)
• Answer YearCompass-style questions about the past year
• Fill a ‘Goals for 2025’ page with MORE and LESS columns
• Set countable resolutions (2024: champagne on 50 occasions)
• Track them through the year

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: YearCompass workbook; Year Compass for Academics (Google Doc and PDF); spreadsheets of goal lists (other posts)

213. Carolyn Wall (Middle School Cafe)

Notices her own habit drift: positive referrals she used to file weekly had dwindled since COVID, so she sets it as next year’s goal.

• At summer break, sort the year into what’s staying and what’s changing
• Keeps: independent reading, monthly library visits, book talks, in-class student folders
• Say why each worked (fewer missing assignments, students finishing books)
• Changes: pull back on Chromebooks for more paper and pencil
• Restart positive notes home and positive behavior referrals she let slide
• Use the summer to rethink routines (warm-ups, transitions, group work)

When: school year · With: alone · Keeps it in: Chromebooks; student classroom folders; positive behavior referral forms; library visits; email

214. Mike Sherrard

Calls last year’s audit the GPS starting point; plan is an editable slide deck viewers copy and fill in live.

• 2025 audit: wins, friction, lessons
• Find the 20% of activities giving 80% of results; cut the rest
• Vision map
• ‘Success math’ to work the year’s numbers backward
• Quarterly sprints instead of annual goals
• Niche compass

With: alone · Keeps it in: editable presentation/workbook (File > Make a copy); calendar; Canva

215. Shawnda Fukano

An employer evaluation form becomes the trigger for a genuine personal review, rebuilt from her calendar and coaching log.

• About two weeks before her end-of-year evaluation, open the principal’s survey
• Go back through her calendar
• Skim her coaching log and notes
• Answer the survey (nearly an hour)
• Step back to the year as a whole
• List celebrations from her writing coaching

How long: under 1 hour · When: school year · With: alone · Keeps it in: principal’s survey; calendar; coaching log; notes

216. Dr Anna Volkmer

Gives herself her annual appraisal publicly, by blog, using the formal appraisal structure.

• Use the academic appraisal headings: achievements, external impact, internal citizenship
• Check her one-3*-paper-a-year target
• Review funding wins and a big disappointment
• Review training, mentoring, lab visits
• Review supervision and teaching
• Review clinical work and committees

When: February · With: alone · Keeps it in: blog post; planned impact log

217. Darcel Lobo

Last year’s goals were a bingo card; she missed a bingo but counts the squares. Firm goal: one ‘down week’ per quarter.

• Pull out last January’s vision-board bingo card
• Go square by square: done or not
• Note overshoots (more than six weeks of vacation) and raise next year’s bar
• Mix firm, consulting and personal goals
• Leave the 2026 plan (bingo again or vision board?) for a later session

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: vision board bingo card

218. Dr. Kamilla, DO

Camera roll, month by month, with medical milestones (rotations, COMLEX/Step 2) beside a best friend’s wedding.

• Borrow a creator’s month-by-month highs-and-lows format
• Go through photos and videos
• Walk the year chronologically
• Name each month’s high and low
• Include rotations, board exams and residency-application work beside friends and travel

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: phone photos and videos; Excel spreadsheet of residency programs

219. Hayley

Her confirmer is a social worker, so she used the sign-off meeting to teach her manager the NMC Code.

• Attend revalidation sessions at work
• Log practice hours in the NMC online log
• Gather three years of CPD evidence
• Collect feedback (a student, a patient review, annual appraisals)
• Write five reflective accounts
• Hour-long reflective discussion with a long-time CPN colleague

How long: spread over weeks · When: varies · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: NMC Online practice-hours log; portfolio; NMC ‘Information for confirmers’; NMC Code; appraisal records

220. Carol

Used payslips and her P60 as practice-hours evidence; folded the reflective discussion into routine monthly 1:1s.

• Open NMC Online early to find her revalidation date
• Build one folder with dividers for certificates and forms
• Prove 450 practice hours with payslips and P60 (no timesheets)
• Collect feedback: residents, relatives, thank-you letters, questionnaires, Care Inspectorate grades
• Write five short reflections linked to the Code
• Discuss them one by one in her existing monthly 1:1

How long: spread over weeks · When: varies · With: with a team (work) · Keeps it in: folder with dividers; NMC forms; NMC Online; payslips; P60; Care Inspectorate grades

221. Teacher Kaye

Candid review (dating, counseling, burnout from self-promotion) sold as her own two-workbook bundle.

• Top five accomplishments
• Highlights of the year
• What worked
• What didn’t work
• Carry the lessons into a separate yearly goals workbook

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: yearly review workbook; yearly goals workbook (digital, own product); Etsy

222. Michael J. Pospis

A solo lawyer’s year review on his firm’s own blog, dating the year by his last in-person court appearance.

• Sum up the year in a line
• Note his last in-person court appearance (March 13, 2020)
• Review how he moved intake, mediations and depositions online
• Review CLE teaching, mostly remote
• Review his blogging on employment law
• Close with a hope for 2021

When: late Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: firm blog

223. Steph (Success With Steph)

A ‘capacity audit’ of real hours before any goal; tiered fallback versions of a goal (90-min walk or 15-min yoga on bad days).

• Pick life categories (hers: spiritual, wealth, health, self-care, relationships, career, business, whimsical)
• Capacity audit: hours and energy left after work, commute, people
• Review last year’s goals: what to do more of, less of
• Set specific, stretch annual goals per category
• Break each into phases across the year
• Monthly check on the last weekend of every month

With: alone · Keeps it in: notepad and pen; diary/calendar; phone step counter; customizable goal template; WhatsApp accountability community; Atomic Habits (book)

224. Mariana Sanchez (Pencils and Magic Wands)

Films her reflection so she can rewatch it next year; grade-chair role and teacher well-being are their own categories.

• Wait until the classroom is packed up
• Write bullet points on paper across 7 areas: instruction, content, management, organization, PD, grade-chair duties, well-being
• For each: what she is proud of, then areas for growth
• Name concrete fixes (small-group differentiation, interactive notebooks, more novel studies)
• Plan self-guided PD over summer (books home, ProTeacher boards)
• Record the reflection on video to rewatch next year

When: school year · With: alone · Where: classroom (packed up) · Keeps it in: paper bullet notes; books on differentiated instruction; ProTeacher message boards; i-Ready; Wonders

225. Jessica Terry Schneider

One off-site planning morning with the whole team and printed numbers; ‘what drained us’ is a standing question.

• Book one planning morning at a restaurant or café that won’t rush you
• Bring laptop, printed numbers, P&L and the team
• Review volume, average price, GCI vs net, referral vs new, conversion, client feedback
• Ask what drained us and what paid best for least stress
• Set income goal as GCI and net, plus units and price
• Plan staffing, leverage and family time

How long: half day (one planning morning) · With: with a team (work) · Where: café · Keeps it in: laptop; printed P&L and sales numbers; marketing calendar

226. Rachel Vincent

Two passes: 3-2-1 for the classroom, stop/start/continue for herself (less evening scrolling, leave at contract hours).

• 3-2-1: three things that went well, two that didn’t, one focus for next year
• Stop / start / continue for personal teacher habits
• Run through areas: student, parent and coworker relationships, management, organization, routines, setup, curriculum
• Choose only one main focus (grammar and word study)
• Journal through a written question list
• Read up on the focus over summer

When: school year · With: alone · Keeps it in: written question list; gratitude journal (restarting)

227. Dr Yas (Yasmin) Karsan

Makes the vision board alongside her kids; second checkpoint is her own birthday.

• A few weeks before 1 January, reopen last year’s vision board
• Sit with her children; each maps their own vision
• Split into 4-5 areas: business, education, family, mindset, sometimes spirituality and finances
• Put tangible numbers under each
• Keep the board on her phone
• Re-review around her birthday, a quarter into the year

When: late Dec (to 1 Jan); birthday · With: with family · Keeps it in: vision board (on phone)

228. Dr. Annie (Digital Nomad Therapist)

Reviews her year only through its mistakes, each turned into a rule for 2025, and admits repeating the same one several years running.

• List the biggest business mistakes of 2024
• Mistake 1: trying to grow too fast (branding, social manager, email list, group-practice coaching, lawyers at once)
• Mistake 2: buying courses under time-limited deals, including a $1,000 course she didn’t finish
• Mistake 3: not following her gut on starting YouTube
• Mistake: open-ended lawyer fees
• Pair each mistake with a lesson for 2025 (budget, no rushed buys, ask billing up front)

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Notion content calendar bundle (unused); social media manager; branding agency; group practice coaching; lawyers

229. Happy Pharm Life (channel)

Annual plan hangs on a board-certification eligibility clock and a 7-on/7-off night-shift pattern.

• Recap last year against her ‘this is my year’ Instagram post (5 students precepted, ASHP talk, business started)
• Pick a word of the year (health)
• Set one big credential goal: pediatric pharmacotherapy board exam, timed to eligibility
• Add precepting goals
• Set money goals (401k match, max Roth IRA, balance debt and investing)

With: alone · Keeps it in: Instagram post; ACCP pediatric pharmacotherapy book; exam prep books

230. James D. Crosby

Annual plan plus a month-by-month collections budget; says making the plan matters more than the document.

• Through December, judge the past year against last year’s plan
• Look at long-term good and bad trends
• Write a general statement of next year’s business goals
• Break into monetary, practice-performance and practice-development goals
• Build or modify a business plan in components, each with goals
• Draft a monthly and yearly budget of collections and expenses

How long: spread over weeks · When: December (whole month) · With: alone · Keeps it in: written business plan; budget

Data trackers

231. Matt D’Avella

Keyword tags on daily summaries showed ‘fun’ behind 27% of best days and work over 10 hours never scored positive.

• 7pm alarm each night
• Score the day -2 to +2 (Jim Collins-style)
• Write a one-line to one-paragraph summary
• Moved from handwritten journal to the Daylio app
• After 365 days pull everything into a spreadsheet: day, mood, summary, keywords
• Count days by score and average them

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: paper journal; Daylio app; spreadsheet (day, mood, summary, keywords); nightly phone alarm

232. Jim Collins

Year measured in creative hours on a rolling 365-day count, logged nightly in three spreadsheet cells.

• Every evening open a spreadsheet
• Cell 1: what happened that day
• Cell 2: number of creative hours
• Cell 3: subjective quality rating of the day
• Hold to 1,000+ creative hours per rolling 365 days

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: spreadsheet (3 cells per day)

233. Nicholas Felton

Ten years of designed printed annual reports of his own life; the original ‘personal annual report’ that others copy.

• Take notes as things happen and put them into a calendar
• Log manually with custom apps
• Wear trackers for steps, heart rate, sleep
• Use car and computer sensors
• Merge a year of data
• Design a printed annual report showing correlations

With: alone · Keeps it in: calendar (event notes); custom logging apps; Last.fm; Fitbit; Nike FuelBand; Basis watch; Automatic car sensor; RescueTime; breathalyzer

234. Mr. Money Mustache (Pete Adeney)

No budgeting at all; one card plus apps, added up once a year and compared with prior years.

• Put nearly all spending on one cash-back credit card
• Let Mint and Personal Capital categorize it
• No budget during the year
• Total by category at year end
• Compare each category with last year
• Strip optional items to estimate a no-frills cost

When: later Jan · With: with partner · Keeps it in: cash-back credit card; Mint; Personal Capital; family spreadsheet (kept by Mrs. MM in other years)

235. Stephen Wolfram

Decades of passive logs reviewed against life events; the calendar is one data stream among email, keystrokes and calls.

• Archive every sent email automatically
• Log keystrokes, phone calls, calendar meetings, steps
• Plot by time of day and day, week, month across decades
• Match dips and spikes to life events (e.g. writing his book)
• Check odd gaps against raw records

With: alone · Keeps it in: Mathematica; Wolfram|Alpha Pro; email archive script; keylogger; company phone system logs; calendar; pedometer; ~230K scanned paper pages

236. Tim Ferriss

Uses the calendar, not memory, as the data source; output is calendar bookings plus a not-to-do list.

• Block 30-60 min
• Draw two columns, positive and negative, on a notepad
• Go through last year’s calendar week by week
• Note people/activities/commitments that sparked strong highs or lows
• Pick the top 20% of each column
• Book the positive leaders into next year’s calendar now

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: notepad (paper, two columns); past year’s calendar; not-to-do list

237. Dominic Hart

After a year of daily ticks he cut to one focus habit a month; review includes eulogy and anti-goals.

• Each morning, 10 min with tea: write a memorable moment
• Tick good and bad habits and log a metric
• Look back at 400+ days of tracked habits
• Write a eulogy and pull its themes
• List limiting beliefs and priority areas
• Write 2026 goals and anti-goals

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: paper habit tracker journal (his own, Sanctuary Creations); pen; graphs drawn in the journal; vision board collage; rejects phone apps

238. FIRE v London (pseudonymous)

Same seven questions every year for 13 years, with a weighted benchmark (portfolio 10.5% vs 14% in 2025).

• Track the portfolio every month all year
• At year end answer the same seven questions
• 1 markets 2 vs benchmark 3 retirement progress 4 tax efficiency 5 fees 6 complexity 7 key risks
• Compare 2-3 year returns
• Note fixes (e.g. a poor offshore bond provider)

When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: monthly returns log on the blog (tracking tool not named)

239. Claire Fuller

With her husband, picks one photo per day for ten years and prints each year as a Blurb book.

• Take at least one photo every day
• If several, pick the most interesting
• Upload the chosen photo to the computer
• Husband lays out the year’s photos as a book in Blurb
• Print one book at the end of each year
• Look back across the shelf of books

How long: ongoing (daily photo) · With: with partner · Keeps it in: camera/phone; computer; Blurb photo books

240. Tantek Çelik

Argues against ‘premature’ Wrapped-style reviews; insists on all 366 days, on his own site.

• Wait until the year is actually over
• Request his year-in-review data from services (e.g. Spotify Wrapped, Strava)
• Extract what he wants and fill gaps
• Cover all 366 days
• Publish on his own site tagged #ownYourYearInReview

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: service exports (Spotify Wrapped, Strava Year in Sport); his own website; BBEdit

241. Bettina Makalintal

Avoids Goodreads and StoryGraph entirely; private five-field spreadsheet, and gives readers a blank copy.

• Photograph promising books in bookshops
• Scan Netgalley every few weeks, note picks in Notes app
• Log each finished book in a spreadsheet (title, author, genre, rating, date)
• Chart the year from the sheet
• Number everything read for fun, bold favourites
• Share a blank copy of the sheet

When: late Dec (Dec 20 to 31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: spreadsheet (own, blank copy shared); Notes app; Netgalley; phone camera

242. Josh Gonsalves

Adds phone photos to Ferriss’s calendar sweep and pre-pays the positives so he is forced to do them.

• Duplicate his free Notion templates
• Annual review: PYR positive/negative columns from calendar, journal and phone photos
• Pick top 20% peaks
• Book and pre-pay positive things (e.g. family ski trip)
• Pin the not-to-do list at the top
• Annual reflection prompts across life areas

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: Notion (4 free templates); calendar; journal; phone photos; says Google Docs, Apple Notes, Evernote or Word also work

243. Jill Walker Rettberg

Reads six years of calendar color density as an unplanned record of her working life.

• Open iCal year view
• Read color intensity (yellow to red) as busy-ness
• Spot wedding, births, sabbatical, parental leave, an election campaign
• Notice summers barely register

When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: iCal (Apple Calendar) year view heat map

244. M. Pattabiraman (freefincal)

Published every year since 2013 for accountability; judges by goal progress, not returns.

• Update the Google Sheets portfolio tracker (automated)
• Review retirement and child’s education portfolios separately
• Check asset allocation and fixed-income split
• Check XIRR per fund and vs Nifty 50 TRI
• Check FI status and withdrawal rate
• Decide allocation changes

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: freefincal Google Sheets stock + mutual fund tracker (started in Excel); freefincal robo-advisor; goal-based portfolio audit tool (Excel, paid)

245. Sacha Chua

Birthday review backed by her own time log: hours per week in each category compared with the year before, plus a 20-year time capsule.

• Write it at her birthday each August
• Month-by-month timeline with a by-month sketch
• Themes of the year (family, focus time, Emacs, drawing, piano, gardening, health)
• Time capsule looking back to 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020
• Priorities and open questions for next year
• Appendices: the year’s blog posts, sketches, time-log breakdown, biking

When: birthday · With: alone · Keeps it in: time-tracking log; Emacs; Org Mode; Noteful; Supernote A5X; iPad Air; Procreate; Simply Draw; Simply Piano; Syncthing; WhisperX; subed-record; mastodon.el; 11ty

246. Grace (Budgets! with Grace)

Cross-checks one year of net worth in three tools and explains why each gives a different number.

• Open YNAB net worth report for last year
• Explain jumps (new job, inheritance, three-paycheck months)
• Check Toolkit for YNAB breakdown (quality of life, nest egg, debt freedom)
• Check Wealthfront’s all-accounts number
• Hand-update her own Google Sheet from Vanguard app and others
• Read her charts with and without real estate

When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: YNAB; Toolkit for YNAB (browser extension); Wealthfront; Vanguard app; M1; Coinbase; her own Google Sheets net worth sheet with charts

247. Blake Crosley

Scores every week of the year; counts weeks (building positive 48/52) and used the tally to quit a 12-year job.

• Open 12 months of calendar entries
• Mark each week positive, negative or neutral on gut reaction
• Look for patterns by people, activities, projects, places
• Write a do-more list and a do-less list
• Put do-more items straight onto the calendar

How long: under 1 hour · When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Keeps it in: calendar app (unnamed); markdown table organized by quarter

248. Simon Howard

Counts oddities like tumble-dryer cycles, paper cups, stamps and blood pressure readings alongside miles walked and flights.

• Tally a set of everyday counts for the year
• Set counting rules (what counts as a country, a driving day)
• Order the 24 numbers from biggest to smallest
• Compare each with previous years
• Add a short comment on each

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: tumble dryer cycle counter; car insurance driving gadget (earlier years)

249. Jehiah Czebotar

Eight interactive annual reports; the 2017 one covers seven years of transportation spending; 2012 report hit HN front page (266 points).

• Log data streams through the year (texts, computer activity, code, transport costs, 311 complaints)
• Build an interactive yearly report
• Publish it each January

How long: spread over weeks · When: later Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: text message logs; computer activity logs; code activity; 311 complaint records (tools not named on page)

250. Abby (What I Knit)

A hobby-only year review: 13 finished objects, 6,985 yards, average WIP 128 days; shares a blank copy of the sheet.

• Log every project through the year in a big Google Sheet
• Formulas total each category
• Read the year: finished objects, yards, stash vs new yarn, days per WIP, made-for, patterns modified
• Name most frequent craft, item, fibre, weight, colour, designer
• Draw lessons (projects over ~3 months lose momentum)
• Set 2024 goals (start a sweater, knit more than 4, try linen, organize needles)

When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Google Sheets project tracker with formulas (free shared blank copy); Instagram bio link

251. Pam (Stationery Nerd)

Uses year-in-pixels grids to track goal habits, not mood; normally does her annual review on her mid-February birthday.

• Review last year’s goals
• Rough-outline goals for the year
• Brainstorm words that fit the goals
• Mind-map the chosen word (Daily)
• Set goals tied to the word
• Design three year-in-pixels trackers (personal development/reading, decluttering, one more)

How long: spread over weeks · When: birthday · With: alone · Keeps it in: journal (pencil and pens); word of the year; mind map; three printed year-in-pixels trackers she designed

252. Lorenzo Modolo

13.1K hand-logged habit entries in Obsidian plus 1.86M location points feeding a self-built life database.

• Aim for a whole-year dashboard (after Felton)
• Collect long-running, recovered and new 2024 data streams
• Log habits by hand in Obsidian daily notes
• Book transactions in Beancount
• Store everything in his own app, Lomnia
• Chart location, music, sleep, habits, money

When: later Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: Obsidian daily notes; Samsung Galaxy Fit3; OwnTracks; Pi-hole; YourSpotify; OpenMeteo; Beancount + Fava; Nominatim; own app Lomnia; home server

253. Chris Cordry

Keeps a multi-year Notion table of each year’s top items so the reviews can be compared over five years.

• Make positive/negative columns on paper or in a notes app
• Go through calendar and/or journal week by week
• Sort peak-emotion people and activities into columns
• Pick the top 20% of each
• Book more of the positives for next year
• Put the negatives on a not-to-do list

When: mid Dec · With: alone · Keeps it in: paper or notes app; calendar; journal; Notion (multi-year table)

254. Sabine Chu

Computes mean and median for days-to-finish, page length and publication year, maps author countries, then grades five goals.

• Log each book in Google Sheets and Goodreads through the year
• Chart books per month, days to finish, page length
• Break down by category, format, source, translation, publication year
• Map authors’ countries
• Show rating spread and average
• Grade each 2025 goal met or missed

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: Google Sheets; Goodreads; Kindle; MIT library

255. Savannah Apple

Publishes a side-by-side ‘reading data’ comparison every January, including average days per book and a countries challenge.

• Add current and upcoming books to Goodreads and StoryGraph all year
• Read one fiction and one nonfiction at a time
• At year end pull StoryGraph charts
• Compare each stat with last year’s post
• Check the 52-book goal
• Count Reading Around the World books and countries (Google Doc)

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Keeps it in: StoryGraph; Goodreads; Google Doc (Reading Around the World list); Kindle; audiobooks; library holds

From history

256. Seneca

Borrowed the habit from Quintus Sextius; a nightly court where he is judge and defendant. Separately, in December he practises a few days of poverty.

• Wait until the lamp is out and his wife has gone quiet
• Go over the whole day, word and deed
• Hide nothing, skip nothing
• Pardon himself for a fault and set a rule for next time
• Sleep

When: varies · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: none named

257. Warren Buffett

A public annual review written by the CEO himself for about 60 years.

• Write one long letter after each fiscal year
• Report results, including mistakes
• Explain decisions and outlook

When: fiscal year end · With: alone · Keeps it in: annual report

258. Charles Darwin

A year often fits on one page: work on the left, life on the right. A ledger of output, not a reflection.

• Back-fill his life from birth when starting in 1838
• Keep a tiny notebook of dated events
• From 1846, left page = work done, right page = family and travel
• Log illnesses and working time lost

With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: 3x4 inch pocket notebook

259. Samuel Pepys

Money count plus written vows with fines; he reread them weekly and renewed them each year.

• Close the month or year with a ‘Thus ends’ summary
• Count his money and estate (e.g. about 650 pounds at end of 1662)
• Note household, health, work standing
• Credit his written oaths against wine and plays
• Write fresh vows for the next year
• Read the vows every Sunday; pay forfeits into a box when broken

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: diary (shorthand), written vows/oaths, forfeit box, monthly accounts

260. John Quincy Adams

Blunt self-grading: one year ‘left no advantageous trace’; plus month summaries.

• Write a one-line summary of the month
• At year end, thank Heaven for the year
• Name how his situation and duties changed
• Judge himself: duties done, but indolence, no steady pursuit
• Pray for what he needs in the new year

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: line-a-day diary

261. Charles Lamb

Calls 1 January everyone’s second birthday; a mood piece about reviewing rather than a method.

• Hear the bells ring out the old year
• Gather up all the year’s images: done, suffered, neglected
• Feel the year’s worth as at a death
• Turn the reflection to his own mortality

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: none

262. Ryan Holiday / Stephen Hanselman (Daily Stoic)

What they actually cite is daily practice; I found no yearly review ritual of Holiday’s own in an opened source.

• Cite Seneca’s nightly review of the day
• Cite Marcus’s notebook and Epictetus ‘write it down day by day’
• Prescribe daily journaling (their 366-day journal)

When: varies · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: The Daily Stoic Journal (366 days)

263. Benjamin Franklin

A daily tally sheet run in 13-week cycles: four passes through all virtues per year. The yearly part is the cycle count, not a year-end review.

• List 13 virtues with a short precept each
• Order them so each makes the next easier
• Rule a little book: a page per virtue, columns for days, rows for virtues
• Each evening mark a black spot for each fault
• Focus on one virtue per week
• 13 weeks = one course, four courses a year

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: hand-ruled ‘little book’ grid (paper), later ivory memorandum leaves with red-ink lines, black-lead pencil, wet sponge; daily schedule page with morning question and evening question

264. Samuel Johnson

Three review dates a year (New Year, Easter, birthday), written in the small hours, with frank records of failure.

• Stay up past midnight on 1 January (entries at 1-2 a.m.)
• Write a prayer for the new year
• Look back on the year: what he resolved, what he did
• Write a short numbered list of resolutions (rise early, avoid idleness, read scripture, keep a journal)
• Repeat at Easter and on his birthday (18 Sept)
• Next time, record that he broke them

When: first week Jan · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: private diary/notebook of prayers

265. Virginia Woolf

Resolutions set for about three months, tied to the book she is writing; the first is to be unbound.

• Take a morning off work at year end to ‘sum up’ life in the diary
• Wish to capture friends, thoughts, projects at that moment
• In early January write a short list for the next months
• 1931: first resolution is to have no resolutions; be gentle, work on The Waves, buy good clothes
• 1936: read fewer weeklies until The Years is done

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: diary

266. Jonathan Edwards

Nightly, weekly, monthly and yearly checks against one written list; the dates on each resolution make it a running log.

• Write numbered resolutions, each dated (70 by Aug 1723)
• Read the whole list once a week
• Each night ask where he was negligent, what he did wrong, where he denied himself
• Repeat that inquiry at the end of every week, month and year

How long: ongoing (weekly/monthly roll-up) · When: varies · With: alone · Keeps it in: written list of resolutions; diary

267. John Evelyn

Uses his birthday as the main annual review, for about sixty years, with a money reckoning alongside.

• On his birthday set time apart
• Recollect the passages of the year
• Make up accounts
• Thank God, ask pardon
• Ask blessing for the year entering
• Repeat briefly on 31 Dec / 1 Jan

When: birthday · With: alone · Where: home · Keeps it in: diary; account books

268. Ihara Saikaku

An entire short-story collection about year-end settling day in Edo-era Osaka.

• Stories all set on New Year’s Eve
• All year’s credit falls due that night
• Households dodge, bargain, scheme to settle
• Debts must be squared before the new year

When: late Dec (Dec 20-31) · With: with family · Where: home · Keeps it in: account books

Aside: traditions that close the year

These aren’t people, so they’re not in the count. But whole cultures have their own way of closing a year, and some are older than any diary.

The Jesuits. Jesuits run a short examen twice a day, all year. Once a year they go on an eight-day silent retreat and look back over the whole year of weekly confessions. The yearly review is built out of the daily ones. Source

Rosh Hashanah. A month of the shofar as a wake-up call, then judgment at Rosh Hashanah, then ten days until Yom Kippur to make amends. The review comes with a deadline to fix what it finds. Source

The Japanese year end. Japan closes the year by cleaning, not writing. Soot-sweeping starts on December 13, the big house clean is done by the 31st, friends and coworkers hold “forget the year” parties, and temple bells ring 108 times on New Year’s Eve. Source

Chinese New Year in 1860s Fuzhou. The Kitchen God goes up to report on the family’s year. Creditors hand out their accounts, every debt has to be paid by the last night, and shops count their cash and stock. Anyone who doesn’t pay loses face and credit for the year ahead. Source

Diwali account books. Gujarati and Marwari traders close the old year’s accounts, buy new ledgers and bless the first blank page over prayers to Lakshmi and Ganesha. Today some do it over a laptop and their accounting software. Source

Hogmanay. Scots sat up until midnight and unbarred the door to let the old year out and the new one in, glad and sorry about the time spent, and resolving to do better. Source

The Babylonian king. Each spring at the Akitu festival, the high priest took away the king’s crown and slapped him. The king knelt and swore he had not neglected the god or harmed his city that year. A year review by denial. Source

How I found these 268

I looked for people who show their own review of a specific year. Every source was opened and read, and for videos I read the transcript. The steps above are my summary of what each person does, not their words. Where a source doesn’t say how long or when, I left it out rather than guess. The counts at the top come from tagging each of the 268 by hand from their source.