I subscribe to “Brain Food’ from fs.blog. It is a “weekly newsletter packed with timeless insights and actionable ideas from a wide range of disciplines”. I’m also a fan of their podcast called the Knowledge Project. The strength of both lie in extracting actionable insights from individuals with expertise in specific areas.
In their newsletter today, was a link to their 2022 Personal Annual Report (attached below). It is essentially a set of reflection questions to guide one’s consideration of the year that has just been and the implications for the year ahead of us. Many such reflective processes exist. For example, I just recently wrote about my Learning Journal which involves a similar ‘year in review’ process.
Along with some fairly predictable questions (what are my goals for 2023?) are a few nice thought experiments that I think provide a nice foundation for this type of reflection. One involves imagining yourself dropping into your life at present as a ruthless new boss and thinking about the immediate changes you would make. Another involves imagining a film crew following you around documenting how you live life. What would you want them to see? What would you not want them to see?
With 14 questions in total it isn’t an insignificant allocation of time, but when you think about how much time you might spend planning a 2-week holiday, taking some time to plan your approach to the whole year seems sensible (at least to me it does).
Dr Gareth Furber 