How to Complete Your Own Annual Review

Reflect on work, health, finances, and more with a personal year in review

Basically, my Annual Review forces me to look at my actions over the past 12 months and ask, ‘Are my choices helping me live the life I want to live?’”

Download our <a href="http://todo.ist/annual-review-todoist-template">annual review Todoist template</a>

App callout note: Download our annual review Todoist template to...

Download our annual review Todoist template to reflect and answer key questions about your work, productivity, health, finances, and more over the passing year.

Why you should do an annual review

Dedicated time for reflection

Celebrate your accomplishments

Unearth opportunities for improvement

When you review your year as a whole, seemingly unrelated parts of your life come into focus at once, enabling you to connect the dots.

Set better goals

How to do an annual review

Everything you'll need for your annual review

Work

App callout note: 📈 What data you’ll need: Turn to...

📈 What data you’ll need: Turn to your work emails, your work calendar, or your company’s internal emails to get a full picture of what you did at work in 2023. If your company or department does monthly or annual updates, it’s worth looking back at those and situating your own role and responsibilities within the wider context. Look back on notes from 1:1s with your managers and/or reports.

Productivity

App callout note: 📈 What data you’ll need: If you...

📈 What data you’ll need: If you write to-do lists and tasks in a daily or weekly paper planner, flip through that. Alternatively, look through your notes app or whatever digital spot where you might keep track of your tasks (e.g. Bear, Notion, etc). If you’re a digital taskmaster, turn to your digital to-list app (like Todoist) for a complete task history. You can also take a look back at your productivity with time tracking apps like RescueTime. To assess your distractions, look through your browser site history and Screen Time on your mobile device to build greater awareness of the time you spent on social media and entertainment. Sites like Netflix and YouTube will often have your watch history available too.

Track and review your productivity in apps like RescueTime

App callout note: Todoist Tip: View your completed tasks in...

Todoist Tip: View your completed tasks in Todoist inside projects. See precisely what you got done across your different projects to assess your productivity.

Review your daily and weekly productivity in Todoist

Health

App callout note: 📈 What data you’ll need: If you...

📈 What data you’ll need: If you track your eating, consult paper food logs or digital food tracking tools (e.g. MyFitnessPal). Digital grocery orders and bank statements will also provide a trail of clues into your nutrition over 2023. Review your workout app of choice (e.g. Strava, Peloton, etc) to assess your exercise levels, note if you gained or lost fat and/or muscle or you achieved new personal bests in any lifts or races. Check any other physical activity data you might have. Consult your journal to peer into your emotional health throughout the year. Check your calendar and to-do lists to see if you prioritized time spent on self-care and activities for emotional wellbeing (e.g. vacation time, coaching, therapy, etc). Look into any sleep data you might have from a wearable health device.

Finances

App callout note: 📈 What data you’ll need: Take a...

📈 What data you’ll need: Take a look at your bank account balances and credit card statements online. If you have a dedicated budget, consult your spreadsheets or apps like YNAB or Personal Capital. Also check-in on any investments you may have made and whether they’ve gone up or down.

Relationships

App callout note: 📈 What data you’ll need: Look back...

📈 What data you’ll need: Look back to your calendar or to-do list to check for time spent with the people in your life. Review text messages, phone logs, emails, and even your social media messages. Flip through the camera roll on your phone. Refer back to journal entries where you may have mentioned the people in your life.

Learning

App callout note: 📈 What data you’ll need: Look to...

📈 What data you’ll need: Look to your calendar or emails for reminders of the courses or conferences you attended. Turn to your bookshelf or reading apps (e.g. GoodReads, Kindle, Audible, Pocket) to account for everything you read. Consult your notes or journal for any life lessons you picked up along the way, whether through reflection or conversations with others.

Before forging head-first into the future, take time to reflect on the past.

App callout note: Use our annual review Todoist template to...

Use our annual review Todoist template to run through your work, productivity, health, finances, and more over the last 365 days.

Fadeke Adegbuyi

Fadeke is a writer and marketer. She's passionate about telling stories of better ways to live and work.

Productivity