I started a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly review habit in November of 2023. Between then and now, I’ve recorded:
That’s not perfect consistency, but it’s pretty darn good by my standards.
These numbers are meaningless, though.
What really matters to me is the incredible ways this practice has improved my life. So much of life zooms by unnoticed, unobserved, and unexamined. Taking just a minute at the end of each day to jot down a few of the happenings and learnings can be a great way to enjoy the benefits of a mindfulness and gratitude.
But that’s just the beginning.
I’ve set up my review templates so they build on each other. This provides two main benefits.
First, and most importantly, it helps me create, edit, and appreciate the narrative of my life. It helps me notice connections and potential causations. And it helps me realize that even boring days contribute to great weeks, even hard weeks contribute to great months, and so on.
Secondly, it saves me a lot of time. Weekly reviews are fast because all I have to do is look at my daily reviews and pick the “best of” items.
In fact, monthly reviews are often faster than weekly reviews even though they cover a greater time period, because I only have to review 4 entries, one for each week, as opposed to 7 entries for a weekly review.