Yearly audit
Seven questions and a scroll through the year's photos before setting goals
Before deciding anything about next year, look hard at the last one. The version Mel Robbins popularized starts with scrolling back through twelve months of phone photos to jog the memory, then works through seven questions: highlights, lows, lessons, what to stop, what to start, what to continue, and one first step to take today. Couples and families often do it together. What comes out is a set of directions drawn from what actually happened, not a list of resolutions written from a blank page.
People on record
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Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Mel RobbinsDoes it
Author and podcaster · The Let Them Theory
She and her husband have done a year-end audit together for 20 years and now include their kids. It starts with scrolling back through the year's photos, then seven questions; she says the last one told her to do less rather than take on more.
Source: The Mel Robbins Podcast: 7 Questions to Make Next Year the Best Year - Tiago ForteDoes it
Productivity writer · Building a Second Brain
At the close of each year he writes a gratitude list, works through a dozen questions about the twelve months just gone, then answers a second set about the year ahead. He calls the exercise a rearchitecture rather than planning, because what gets adjusted is the narrative he lives by.
Source: fortelabs.com: The Annual Review is a Rearchitecture
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