Stop Adding. Start Subtracting. Here's How to Do an Annual Review That Actually Works.
Every January, I see the same pattern.
People write down big goals. New habits. New commitments. A whole list of things to add to their already-full life. By February, most of it is gone.
I did the same thing for years.
What finally broke the cycle for me wasn't a better goal-setting template. It was flipping the question I started with.
Instead of “what should I add?” I started asking: “what should I stop?”
That one shift made my annual reviews actually useful.
Why most reviews don't work
Here's the problem. When we sit down to plan a new year, we mostly rely on memory. And memory is bad at this.
Recency bias kicks in hard. You remember the last 30 days. Maybe a big win from the fall. But February? March? August? Good luck pulling that up without help.
So you end up “reflecting” on a sliver of the year, writing goals based on incomplete data, and then wondering why January 1st doesn't feel like a real fresh start.
Reflection turns experience into insight. Without it, you spin your wheels in the same place. I think about that a lot.
Five actual data sources for your review
Before I ask any planning questions, I go through five things. This takes maybe 20-30 minutes and it paints a much more honest picture of the year than memory alone.
Your calendar. Go month by month in monthly view. What was actually on there? Trips, workshops, hard weeks, easy ones. Your calendar is a reflection of how you valued your time. And if you look at it honestly, you'll see things that surprise you.
Your photos. Open your phone and scroll. Highlights folder especially. Things pop up you totally forgot. A dinner, a trip, a day that mattered. Photos are the emotional layer that the calendar misses.
Your journal. If you keep one, reread some entries. The gap between where you were six months ago and where you are now is often bigger than you realize. And it's humbling in a good way.
Your credit card statements. This one surprises people. Your subscriptions and recurring expenses are a direct signal of what you valued enough to keep paying for. What's still there that you forgot about? What are you paying for that you love? What are you paying for out of inertia?
Your social feed. We tend to post the highlights. Scrolling back through the past year gives you a quick emotional summary.
Run all five of these and you get a pretty complete picture of your actual year. Not the one you planned. The one you lived.
The question that changes everything
Once you have all that data in front of you, most people jump to planning. What goals do I set? What habits do I build?
But there's a step in between that I think is the most important one.
What do I stop?
I ask this in my weekly review every week — it's part of how the elimination question works in our review process. But the annual version hits differently. Because when you look at a whole year, the patterns are obvious in a way they never are week-to-week.
What's recurring that drains you? What are you saying yes to out of habit, not because it's actually good? What's taking up mental space that you'd be relieved to let go of?
Subtraction first. Then you plan.
The year theme
One thing I've been doing for about 15 years now is picking a word or short phrase for the year instead of a goal list.
Not goals. A lens.
Some of mine over the years: simplify. Systems over willpower. Create more than consume. Automate the boring stuff.
Each one shaped how I made decisions that year without me having to think about it. When something came up, I'd run it through that lens. Does this fit? Or does it pull me in a different direction?
The theme comes naturally once you've done the subtraction step. You remove what's draining you, and whatever's left tells you where your energy wants to go.
This year mine came from a specific realization I had looking back at 2025. I ran about four or five AI workshops in person in Austin, mostly for local people I know. I've been teaching online since 2011, so this wasn't new territory. But teaching in person… something was different. When someone in the room has a question, I can just type a few things and show them immediately. We solve it together, right there. That kind of learning stuck with me.
So my theme for 2026 has a lot to do with creation and being present with people. Less async, more in-room.
That theme came from subtraction. I cut some things. And what was left pointed me somewhere.
How to actually do this
- Block 90 minutes. Put it on the calendar now.
- Pull up your five data sources (calendar, photos, journal, credit cards, social).
- Free-write whatever comes up. No structure, no judgment. Just write.
- Ask: what are three patterns I notice about this year?
- Ask: what's one thing I want to stop? Just one.
- Then sleep on it. Don't try to plan the new year the same day.
- Come back with 30 minutes, pick your word or theme, and block time in Q1 for your actual goals.
The 90-minute reflection and the 30-minute planning session are two different things. Don't try to do them back to back.
And if you want a structured process for the weekly version of this, the weekly review is a good place to start. The elimination question is built right in.
The goal isn't to have the most ambitious year. It's to have the most intentional one.
Start with what to stop. Everything else gets clearer from there.
