End-of-Year Reflections

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I’m a devotee of the Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity method, which emphasizes regular review of your systems and tasks to make sure everything’s up to date and tidy up some of the mess that daily life makes of your plans. In the GTD system, this is called the “Weekly Review”, and I have a checklist that pops up in my to-do app every Friday and walks me through it. I don’t always get to it, but when I don’t, I feel noticeably off-kilter the next week, like I’ve forgotten something important.

GTD also recommends periodic “big picture” reviews, looking at your higher-level or longer-term goals and making sure your day-to-day actions are aligned with those. One way I incorporate these is through a “Semester Review”—a broader Weekly Review, done at the end of every academic semester. The aim is to reflect on what I’ve been up to professionally in the previous months, clean up my systems, get prepared for the next semester, and set some aspirations or goals. I’ve been going through my Semester Review today, and figured I’d kill two birds with one stone and write a post about my process—whatever system or non-system you use to get things done, a little end-of-year reflection never hurt.

My checklist for this review has three main sections: “tidy and reset”, “look forward”, “reflect and plan”. The idea is to clean up my physical and digital space and tie up loose ends so that I’m starting the next semester with a relatively clean slate; to preview the next semester and identify any actions I can take to make it go smoothly; and to reflect on my own feelings and thoughts about the prior semester, my own experiences of my work rather than external measures of success or productivity. That last section is a sort of anti-burnout measure as well as an early burnout detection system. Here’s my whole list, with a few clarifying notes:

Tidy and Reset

  • Filing cabinet – organize, and file documents appropriately or destroy as needed
  • Computer – clear out Downloads folder, file or delete stray documents
  • Tidy up desk and office
  • Review currently open projects, tickets, tasks – satisfy myself that they’re on-track, or if they’re stuck, decide if they’re really things I intend to do. Figuring out how to get unstuck can come later—just taking inventory and pruning right now.

Look Forward

  • What’s on the calendar next semester? No need to plan for it during this review, just reminding myself of what’s there to mentally prepare.
  • Identify likely vacation days and request in advance.
  • Any changes or tweaks needed to systems? During one of these reviews I realized I’d accumulated a lot of non-urgent tasks that I didn’t really want to do and kept putting off. After my semester review I added a little “black hole” emoji tag to those tasks in my to-do app and committed to taking some action on at least one black hole each week. A minor tweak that ended up working pretty well for me, but I needed to reflect and consciously realize there was a problem first.
  • Any stuff I should get or remove to make something easier or nicer? This is for those little nagging issues that you keep meaning to address but something else always takes priority. This semester, it prompted me to finally get a new mouse and adjust my wobbly monitor.

Reflect and Plan

There’s nothing too me-specific about this list – feel free to use it as-is, modify it for your own situation, or just take this as a suggestion to do a little free-form reflecting before you switch off work-mode for the year.