The year-end journal review: a look back that isn't resolutions

The last week of the year is usually spent on next year. Goals, resolutions, a new system. Almost nobody spends it on the year that just happened, which is strange, because you can't plan well from a year you can't remember.

A review is a different exercise from resolutions. It asks what happened, not what you'll change. It's less fun and considerably more useful.

Reconstruct it before you judge it

Memory of a year is dominated by the last six weeks and by whatever was worst. Ask most people in December how their year was and you'll get a review of November.

So start with facts, not feelings. Go month by month with your calendar and photos open, and write two or three lines per month about what actually took place. This takes half an hour and reliably surprises people. There's always a month you'd completely lost.

Four questions that do most of the work

Once the year is reconstructed, the useful questions are short. What changed that I chose? What changed that I didn't choose? What did I spend the most time on? What did I spend the most worry on?

That last pair is where the review earns its keep. The gap between where your time went and where your worry went is usually large, and it's the single most informative thing you'll find.

Look for what you stopped mentioning

If you kept a journal through the year, read it in order rather than in fragments. What you're looking for isn't the dramatic entries. It's the things that appear constantly in March and vanish by August with no resolution written down.

Sometimes that means it got better. Often it means you gave up on it quietly, or stopped letting yourself think about it. Both are worth knowing before you set a single goal for next year.

Give credit accurately

People are strangely bad at this. The year gets summarized as "nothing much happened" while the actual list includes a job change, a health scare handled, and someone supported through something hard.

Write the list of what you got through, not just what you achieved. Getting through counts and almost never makes it into a year-end summary, because it doesn't look like accomplishment from the outside.

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One page, not a system

The review that gets repeated every year is the short one. A page. Twelve rough months, four questions, a list of what you got through, and one sentence about what you want more of.

Anything more elaborate tends to be done once, impressively, and never again. And the value here is entirely in having several of them to compare.

The review prompts

• Month by month: what actually happened?
• What changed that I chose, and what changed that I didn't?
• Where did my time go, and where did my worry go?
• What was I writing about in spring that I stopped mentioning?
• What did I get through this year that I'm not giving myself credit for?

Why an honest review needs privacy

An accurate year-end review names things you don't say out loud. That a relationship got worse. That you're bored at a job people think you're lucky to have. That the achievement everyone congratulated you for didn't feel like much.

Innera keeps every story encrypted on your device, so the review can be about the year you actually had rather than the one you'd summarize at a dinner table.