Most year-end reviews are a slideshow of wins and a quiet silence around everything else. An hour spent honestly is worth more than a deck — if you ask the questions that actually teach you something.
Look at decisions, not just results
A good year can hide bad decisions that happened to work out; a hard year can contain good ones that simply didn't. Reviewing outcomes alone teaches you to gamble. Reviewing the decisions — what you knew, what you chose, and why — teaches you to choose better next time, which is the only thing a review can actually improve.
Four questions worth an honest hour:
- What did we get right that we can't take credit for — luck we should plan to live without?
- What did we decide well that didn't pan out — and would we decide it the same way again?
- What did we keep doing well past the point we should have stopped?
- What did we learn that should change how we plan next year?
The point of looking back is not to grade the year. It's to improve the decisions you'll make in the next one.
Write the answers down somewhere you'll actually see them in January. A review that doesn't change next year's plan was just a ceremony. The hour is only worth it if something you learned survives into the work.