Year in review: 24 questions to look back and plan ahead

The short answer

A personal year in review is an hour spent looking back before you plan ahead. Scroll your calendar and photos month by month, answer questions about your highlights, lessons, habits, health, work, people and money, then choose no more than three things for next year and turn each one into a small, specific habit.

How to do a year in review

1. Block an hour. A quiet hour in late December or early January is enough. The quick review takes about 20 minutes.
2. Gather the evidence first. Spend 10 minutes scrolling your calendar, photos and messages month by month. Memory favors the last few weeks.
3. Answer in full sentences. Go through the eight areas in order. Skip any question that does not fit your year.
4. Look for patterns. Read your answers once. What shows up in more than one area, like sleep, a person or a place?
5. Pick three things. Choose at most three changes for next year and write each as something you will do.
6. Turn one into a habit. Give the most important one a time and a place, then track it for 30 days.

24 year in review questions

Use them here, print them blank, or answer them in a notebook. Questions marked quick make up the 8-question version.

Highlights

1. What were the three best moments of the year? quick
2. What are you most proud of, even if nobody else noticed?
3. If this year had a one-word title, what would it be?

Lessons

4. What was the hardest part of the year, and what got you through it? quick
5. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
6. What would you do differently if you could live the year again?

Habits

7. Which habit stuck this year, and what helped it stick? quick
8. Which habit did you drop or never start, and why?
9. Where did your time go that you did not choose?

Health and energy

10. When did you have the most energy, and what was different then? quick
11. What drained your energy most often?
12. What is one thing your body or mind has been asking for?

Work and learning

13. What was your biggest win at work or school? quick
14. What new skill did you build or start to build?
15. What do you want to do less of next year?

People

16. Who made your year better, and have you told them? quick
17. Which relationship do you want to give more time to?
18. How did you help someone else this year?

Money and home

19. What was your best spend of the year, and what felt like a waste? quick
20. Which money habit do you want to keep or change?
21. What would make your home work better for you?

Next year

22. How do you want next year to feel? quick
23. What will you stop doing, or say no to?
24. What would you like to say to yourself a year from now?

How long does a year in review take?

From review to next year's goals

A review is only useful if it changes something. Keep it to three picks: in a study of 1,066 people making New Year's resolutions, goals phrased as something to do were kept more often than goals to stop something (Oscarsson et al., 2020). Give each pick a when and a where, since specific if-then plans improve follow-through (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006), and record progress somewhere you will see it (Harkin et al., 2016).

Why write it down at all? A working paper from Harvard researchers found that once people had some experience with a task, time spent writing down what they had learned helped their later performance more than extra practice did (Di Stefano et al., 2016). That was about work tasks, not whole years, so treat it as a reason to reflect, not a promise.

Keep going after the review

Shape each pick with the SMART goals generator, see which area of life needs the most attention with the wheel of life, or check your picks against the core values finder. For ideas, browse 65 New Year's resolution ideas or make a vision board for the year. Want to reflect more often than once a year? A 20-minute weekly review keeps your three picks moving every week, the journal prompts have evening and self-discovery sets, and the journaling hub explains how to keep a short daily habit.

Frequently asked questions

What questions should I ask in a year in review?

Cover the good and the hard: the best moments, what you are proud of, the hardest part and what got you through, which habits stuck, where your energy came from, who made your year better, your best and worst spending, and how you want next year to feel. The 24 questions above follow that order.

How long does a year in review take?

About an hour for all 24 questions, plus 10 to 15 minutes to scroll your calendar and photos first. The quick review asks one question per area, 8 in total, and takes about 20 minutes. You can stop at any time: answers are saved as you type.

When should I do my annual review?

Any quiet hour in the last two weeks of December or the first week of January works. Some people do it on their birthday instead. Pick a time you can repeat next year, so you can compare.

How many goals should I set for next year?

Three at most. Fewer goals leave room to actually do them, and each one can be turned into a daily habit. Phrase them as something to do, like walk after lunch, rather than something to stop: in a study of 1,066 people, approach goals were kept more often.

Can I print the year in review questions?

Yes. Print blank questions gives all 24 questions with space to write on one page, for a notebook or to do together with a partner. Print my answers prints what you wrote and your three picks on one or two clean pages.

Is this a work performance review?

No. This is a personal year in review for your own life. For a work review, some of the questions still help, especially the ones about wins, skills and what you want to do less of.

Are my answers private?

Yes. Your answers stay in this browser on this device and are never sent to our server. There is no account. Print them or save the summary image if you want a copy elsewhere.

Sources and evidence

1. Di Stefano, Gino, Pisano and Staats (2016): Making experience count, the role of reflection in individual learning — A working paper with a field experiment and two laboratory experiments: once people had some experience with a task, deliberately writing down what they had learned helped later performance more than extra practice did.
2. Oscarsson et al. (2020): A large-scale experiment on New Year's resolutions — Among 1,066 people, approach goals (something to do) were kept more often than avoidance goals (something to stop), 58.9% against 47.1% at one year.
3. Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006): Implementation intentions and goal achievement — Specific if-then plans, such as when and where you will act, improved goal follow-through across 94 tests.
4. Harkin et al. (2016): Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? — Across 138 studies, monitoring progress improved goal attainment, more so when progress was physically recorded or reported.