Start here - Personal Annual Review 2023

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<aside> 👋🏻 Welcome to your Personal Annual Review Template!

This Notion Template contains everything you need to take stock of 2023, identify your key learnings and set your future self up for success by turning them into actions for 2024.

Before you dive in, I recommend that you watch this quick video that will give you an overview of how to use this template.

Watch the video </aside>

Meet the Annual Review Matrix

Yearly Review Matrix.png

<aside> ⬅️ This right here is one of my favourite ways to visualise a concept - a 2x2 grid.

You might recognise it from the famous Eisenhower Matrix for decision making, but here, we'll use it to guide our Yearly Review. Let me quickly explain:

Past & Future: For a Yearly Review, we obviously need to look at the past year. But if we stop there, then it's mainly revisiting memories. Nothing wrong with that per se, but if we have already the opportunity, why not take the lessons from the past and apply them to the New Year?

Introspection & Action: Again, the first step in a review is to look inwards and take stock of how things went. We want to pause to process our experiences. And after that, we can use what we learned about ourselves and turn those insights into actions. After all, it's "nice to know" that you did not spent enough time with the people who are important to you. But unless it's followed by an actionable goal on how to change that next year, this insight will simply vanish into the void.

And don't worry - each step will become very clear once we dive into the Review itself 💪🏻

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Why you should do a Yearly Review

The unexamined life is not worth living - Sokrates

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate - Jung

Pausing to reflect on your life will help you to uncover patterns, identify areas for improvements and accelerate your personal growth.
It might make you happier. Gratitude has been the subject of countless studies and simply becoming aware of things you're grateful for can boost how happy you feel.
Boost your sense of self-agency. See what you achieved and how your choices have influenced where you are now. Take this momentum to tackle your next goals.
It combats the end-of-history illusion - our assumption, that who we are right now is who we will remain for the rest of our life. But once you look back at the past year and realise how much you've changed, you realise that you’ll also change going forward.
It provides the opportunity to look at your habits, routines and systems. What works - and what doesn't? Where do you need to adjust?
If you don't pause to look at your map and where you are right now, all your other improvements might just lead you to the wrong place, faster.

Your am-I-ready-for-my-Yearly-Review-Checklist

[ ] Undisturbed Time. This is a slightly longer template, so I recommend setting aside 2 - 3 hours. It's probably a good idea to take a break halfway through to give your brain some breathing room.
[ ] Turn on airplane mode / do not disturb on all your devices
[ ] Open your calendar
[ ] Open your notebook
[ ] Open your task manager
[ ] Open your journal
[ ] Take three deep breaths or do a quick meditation
[ ] Click "Start Yearly Review" below

Start Your Yearly Review →

Databases & Pages

Step 1: Reflect on the past Year

Step 2: Learning from the Past

Step 3: Future Casting

Step 4: Plan your next Year

My Yearly Review (Overview)

<aside> <img src="notion://custom_emoji/0f4f35c5-6e94-43ef-8213-4de54e6868a5/12fde27c-4979-8083-a816-007a085c96f4" alt="notion://custom_emoji/0f4f35c5-6e94-43ef-8213-4de54e6868a5/12fde27c-4979-8083-a816-007a085c96f4" width="40px" /> This template was created by **Matthias Frank.**

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