Taking Stock and Planning for 2020

I started a practice a few years ago, that has proven to be very useful. Rather than making New Years resolutions, I have a “check in” with myself at year end- sort of like a year end review and planning session for the following year. Most of us have had reviews of this kind at work- some are more useful than others. But with yourself, you have all the vested interest in the world to really deeply examine how you have been spending your time, and what you want to do differently. Here are a few questions that I ask myself:

1. What do I want to stop/start/continue- this is a good frame to evaluate whether my efforts are going in the right place. It also allows me room to explore what are the new things I may want to add to my focus- and as importantly what activities I need to curtail. What is making glad that I am spending time on it, and where am I feeling “done” with something?
2. What were my “big goals” coming into 2019- did I achieve them, were they the right goals- what went well and what didn’t go so well- and why? Just really taking the time to reflect on how I did against what I said I wanted to do can inform how I think about goals for 2020. What are the big things I want to accomplish in 2020?
3. In each category of life (which for me are Family, Faith, Friends, Health, Stewardship of Resources, Intellectual Challenge)- how am I doing compared with how I want to do?
4. What am I tolerating in my life that I let linger but really should fix? It could be something tactical (like I needed a new bookshelf coming into 2019 and got that sorted!) — or it could be something more significant, like living with some health issues that really need to be addressed rather than ignored.
5. Where did I really add value this year, and where did I fall short? What would the people or organizations that I care about say about how I showed up this year? Maybe I can even ask them!

What I did last year was write out my answers and put them next to my bed. Every so often I would read through the goals for the year and reassess how things were stacking up. Although it is still a little over a week away from year end, I am beginning to look forward to taking the time to think through all this- and make some decisions and tweaks to my direction. It is a wonderful time of year to really take stock!