8 Ways I Use Technology to Reflect on My Year

As the year comes to a close, I like to take some time to reflect on my growth, achievements, and lessons learned. Technology has become an essential part of this process—it helps me organize my thoughts, track progress, and find patterns in my habits.

1

Journaling My Successes and Losses

Each year, regardless of how successful or unsuccessful it was, is often laden with wins and losses. Acknowledging these is vital to quantify my progress.

When conducting my yearly review, I quickly write about my biggest successes and losses. Normally, I’ll do this in Notion with bullet points. I also try to reframe my “losses” as lessons and understand what I can do to make the following year better.

2

Reviewing My Apps

I rely on a variety of apps to stay organized and track my progress. For instance, I use Things 3 to organize my day, and Strong to track my gym progress. Reviewing these apps is a great way to determine how productive you were throughout the year as you can see everything you completed.

When looking through my historical data, I like to think about how my daily routines contributed to my goals. I like to live by the “hunt antelopes and note field mice” mentality; if I see that I’ve spent too much time on tasks that don’t move the needle forward, I know that something needs to change in the following year.

If I’ve had a particularly good year, I can also look through my historical data and determine what the biggest success contributors were.

3

Assessing Last Year’s Goals

In the last couple of years, I’ve set 3-4 goals that I want to achieve over the following year. However, these will often change. Sometimes, I’ll gather new information and consider a different approach; on other occasions, I realize that the goals I set were simply not meaningful enough for me.

External factors can also sometimes impact my goals. 2020 was a prime example of this, though admittedly, I still set out much of what I wanted to at the start of the year.

Regardless of whether my goals change, I like to assess intentions vs. results. I’ll typically think about whether I’m happy that I achieved or didn’t achieve a goal; if I’m not for either reason, I will then write about why.

4

Creating To-Do Lists for Reviews

My end-of-year reviews are very comprehensive and sometimes take several weeks. To avoid feeling overwhelmed, I normally create to-do list items to focus on specific areas. While Things 3 is great for short-term tasks, I’ll often use Todoist for long-term items.

Since I usually start my reviews in late October or early November, I typically set a deadline to have everything completed by the middle of December latest.

5

Organizing Reviews With Templates

When I was new to yearly reviews, I always used templates to keep my reviews more organized. Doing so is a great idea if you don’t know where to start; by simply filling out each area, you’ll be well on your way to a comprehensive yearly review.

Notion is by far the best app for yearly review templates in my opinion, and I particularly like the Year in Review template by Chichi. You can rate your year in multiple categories with a star rating, and it’s also possible to mention your highlights.

When using templates, I also like to add miscellaneous aspects—such as my favorite songs. If your favorite site or service doesn’t do a Spotify Wrapped-style roundup, this is the closest you’ll get to it.

6

Using AI for Yearly Insights

You can do plenty of cool things with ChatGPT. It’s definitely not a substitute for human interaction, but I like how I can get a balanced perspective. Going to social media platforms like Reddit for advice on my yearly review can work, but it tends to do more bad than good.

Once I’ve conducted my annual review, I ask ChatGPT to review them based on my original objectives. If my goals changed during the year, I’ll explain my reasoning.

I use this information to guide me as I set my goals for the next 12 months.

7

Exploring My Archives and Backlogs

Besides ticking various tasks off my to-do list, I also sometimes archive information or save it in a backlog. So, as part of my yearly reviews, I often look through my archives and backlogs for ideas.

I do this for two reasons:

• To get possible ideas that I may have forgotten about.
• To identify possible things that I would have done differently in hindsight.

Several software tools will let you look through your archives, and I also recommend creating a backlog page in Google Docs or Notion if you don’t have access to this feature. This simple habit has helped me rediscover forgotten ideas and turn them into something meaningful.

8

Answering Thought-Provoking Questions

While many yearly reviews just focus on objective statements, I like to go deeper and ask myself serious questions. Doing so tends to be quite thought-provoking for me, and since I now have a good level of self-awareness, I can be rational with my responses.

Sometimes, I’ll ask ChatGPT to ask me these questions. For example, I used this prompt as part of my 2024 review:

Some of the most useful questions it asked were:

• Where did I fall short of my expectations, and what underlying patterns or beliefs contributed to that?
• When did I feel the most fulfilled, and what does that reveal about my values and priorities?
• If 2024 were the last year of my life, what would I feel proud of, and what would I wish I had done differently?
• What fears, insecurities, or doubts held me back, and how can I face or resolve them in 2025?

Besides AI tools, you can also use templates with preset questions to achieve a similar result.

Yearly reviews are, in my opinion, very important in helping you achieve your biggest goals. Taking the time to plan them out is essential, and I use technology to assist with this in numerous ways.