Coaching practices for How to Do an Annual Review
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Do an Annual Review, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I only ever take stock of my life around New Year’s, and by then the year I’m grading is already gone
- When I do this alone in my head it’s too easy to let myself off the hook and skate past the uncomfortable parts
- Every year I pile new goals on top of an already-overloaded life and wonder why none of them stick
- When I look at what went wrong this year I catch myself blaming the timing, other people, the circumstances
- When I try to look back on the whole year, all I can really summon is the last few weeks and the couple of dramatic moments
Practices that may help
- The Annual Review (Tim Ferriss Method)
Tim Ferriss’s annual review is built on two questions — "What went well this year?" and "What did not go well this year?" — applied systematically across major life domains and answered with enough specificity to produce different decisions next year. It is a practitioner tool without clinical evidence, but its mechanisms (structured reflection, explicit failure review, behavioral specificity) are consistent with goal-review and learning research. - Run a quarterly life audit, not just an annual one
Review all four quadrants of your life every 90 days while the feedback loop is still tight enough to correct.
The Eisenhower Life Audit - Share the review with someone who will ask honest questions
A review held privately is easier to fudge; one shared with an honest questioner is harder to rationalize.
The Annual Review (Tim Ferriss Method) - Generate a stop-doing list, not just a to-do list for next year
What you stop doing next year is as important as what you start.
The Annual Review (Tim Ferriss Method) - Spend more time on "what did not go well" than on what did
Failure analysis contains the most actionable information in any honest review.
The Annual Review (Tim Ferriss Method) - Gather raw material before reflecting
Pull the data — calendar, photos, notes, emails — before you begin reflecting, so memory does not do all the work.
The Annual Review (Tim Ferriss Method) - Go deep on "what went well" — extract the recipe, not just the win
A win recorded but not analyzed produces no transferable knowledge — identify what specifically caused it.
The Annual Review (Tim Ferriss Method) - Run an annual values-spending alignment review
Review your spending against your values once a year — values shift, and so should the allocation.
Values-Based Spending, Made Practical - The GTD Weekly Review
The GTD weekly review is a structured 1–2 hour practice recommended by David Allen in Getting Things Done: you clear your inboxes, review all active projects and next actions, update your lists, and regain what Allen calls "mind like water." Evidence that the full review improves outcomes is largely practitioner-reported; the underlying components — external capture systems, project-level reviews, and outcome clarification — are consistent with cognitive offloading and self-regulation research. - Hold a weekly accountability review
Spend a short, fixed weekly session reviewing scores and planning the next week.
The 12 Week Year, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Share Annual Review
Tim Ferriss’s annual review is built on two questions — "What went well this year?" and "What did not go well this year?" — applied systematically across major life domains and answered with enough specificity to produce different decisions next year. It is a practitioner tool without clinical evidence, but its mechanisms (structured reflection, explicit failure review, behavioral specificity) are consistent with goal-review and learning research.
- Calendar Year Review
Pull the data — calendar, photos, notes, emails — before you begin reflecting, so memory does not do all the work.
Gather raw material before reflecting
- Honest Year Review Partner
A review held privately is easier to fudge; one shared with an honest questioner is harder to rationalize.
Share the review with someone who will ask honest questions
- The Annual Review Tim Ferriss Method At Work
Tim Ferriss’s annual review is built on two questions — "What went well this year?" and "What did not go well this year?" — applied systematically across major life domains and answered with enough specificity to produce different decisions next year. It is a practitioner tool without clinical evidence, but its mechanisms (structured reflection, explicit failure review, behavioral specificity) are consistent with goal-review and learning research.
- The Annual Review Tim Ferriss Method During A Big Change
Tim Ferriss’s annual review is built on two questions — "What went well this year?" and "What did not go well this year?" — applied systematically across major life domains and answered with enough specificity to produce different decisions next year. It is a practitioner tool without clinical evidence, but its mechanisms (structured reflection, explicit failure review, behavioral specificity) are consistent with goal-review and learning research.
- The Annual Review Tim Ferriss Method In A New Job
Tim Ferriss’s annual review is built on two questions — "What went well this year?" and "What did not go well this year?" — applied systematically across major life domains and answered with enough specificity to produce different decisions next year. It is a practitioner tool without clinical evidence, but its mechanisms (structured reflection, explicit failure review, behavioral specificity) are consistent with goal-review and learning research.
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