“We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.” ― John Dewey

There's a concept in aviation called the 1-in-60 Rule. It says that a 1-degree error in heading will cause a plane to miss its target by 1 mile for every 60 miles flown.

The concept applies directly to your progress and growth: Tiny deviations from the optimal course are amplified by distance and time. A small miss now creates a very large miss later. This highlights the importance of real-time course corrections and adjustments.

The end of each calendar quarter presents us with a valuable opportunity to reflect on the quarter that was in order to make any necessary adjustments to our goals and systems that will ensure the next quarter is better than the last.

I started conducting a Personal Quarterly Review in 2020. It typically takes less than an hour and has been an immensely helpful exercise to which I would credit many of my greatest areas of progress.

It's also a rather enjoyable exercise when paired with a favorite coffee or glass of wine!

This piece shares the template for my Personal Quarterly Review. I hope that it will spark you to conduct your own this week or weekend, as I'm highly confident you will gain the same value that I have from the exercise.

You can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template here.

Here's how I structure my Personal Quarterly Review:

1. Reflect
2. Assess
3. Adjust

Let’s walk through each step (with my responses in italics)...

Step 1: Reflect

The Personal Quarterly Review kicks off with two simple questions to reflect on the prior quarter.

Question 1: What created energy this quarter?

A few months ago, I wrote about a framework I call the Energy Calendar.

The idea is that you reflect on your calendar from a day or week and color code the events according to whether they created energy (green), drained energy (red), or were neutral (yellow).

The Energy Calendar is a great way to course correct on a weekly/monthly basis if there are specific activities that are highly positive or negative for your energy.

Review your calendars from the quarter (and color code them if it helps visually).

What activities, people, or projects consistently CREATED energy in your life? Write them down.

Did you spend ample time on the energy creators or did they get neglected? Goal: Spend more time on these in the quarter ahead.

Sahil Response: Looking at my calendars from the quarter, I continued to find that I was getting energy from my creative work, physical pursuits, and time with my son/wife.

Question 2: What drained energy this quarter?

Review your calendars from the quarter.

What activities, people, or projects consistently DRAINED energy from your life? Write them down.

Did you allow energy drainers to persist or did you cut them in real-time? Goal: Less time on these in the quarter ahead.

Sahil Response: Zooms and calls are far and away the greatest energy drainer in my life. I already batched them into a single day (Thursday), but am now going to be trying to cut back the volume that I take on. A few changes I plan to make: (1) Anything that can be done in person will be done in person (I love in person energy), (2) Calls will be done instead of Zooms where possible, and I'll do them while outside walking, and (3) I'll say no to most "get to know you" type stuff. Email is less energy draining now that I'm batch processing it in a single window, but I'll be hiring an EA to help improve that further (more to come on this in an upcoming piece on delegation tips/tools/resources).

Step 2: Assess

The Personal Quarterly Review continues with three core questions to assess your current heading.

Question 1: What is my “most important thing” right now?

The “most important thing” is the big, long-term goal you're focused on.

When you’re in the trenches, it’s easy to lose sight of the important (and focus on the urgent)—this question forces you to cut through the noise.

You may have one “most important thing” for each category of your life (personal, professional, health, relationships, etc.). For example, your "most important thing" in your professional life may be a single project you are leading at work, while your "most important thing" in your health may be building a consistent daily activity habit. You want to avoid having more than one in a single area, but it's perfectly reasonable to have one in each major area.

Sahil Response: My "most important thing" in my professional life is my book. I have to complete the manuscript by end of September 2023.

Question 2: Are my current systems and habits aligned with my most important thing?

Are you dedicating the necessary energy to your most important thing?

Review the quality of your daily systems and whether they are creating the appropriate momentum toward your medium and long-term goals.

If you didn’t change anything, where would you end up? If you don’t like the answer, your systems need a revamp.

Sahil Response: In reflecting, I realize I'm probably not dedicating the necessary energy to my book at the moment, largely because it's such a long-term project and I find it difficult to commit when something lacks the near-term dopamine incentives. I don't think I'd finish on time or at the quality bar I expect of myself without some course corrections. Honest assessment—time to adjust accordingly!

Question 3: What is creating a drag on my progress right now?

There are things in your life that hold you back—I call them Boat Anchors.

Boat anchors are people, attitudes, environments, or behaviors that hold you back from your potential. You're trying to push, full speed ahead, but they literally create a "drag" on your progress.

Review the quality of your attitude, environment, behaviors, and relationships.

Are there elements that are creating unnecessary drag in your life?

Sahil Response: I've been good about removing the people from my life who I felt were belittling or diminishing my accomplishments, so there is very little of that remaining. My greatest remaining boat anchor is my own inability to quickly move on from things that aren't working. I still beat myself up over "failures", so tend to hang on to things for too long. I need to get better about this, because it's slowing me down.

Step 3: Adjust

Based on your responses to the REFLECT and ASSESS questions, you can determine the specific adjustments that need to be made.

This is where the review transitions from reflection to action.

Five summarizing questions to define actions on the necessary adjustments for the quarter ahead:

Question 1: What are the energy-creating activities I need to spend more time on?

How can you carve out more time for these? Make a plan to carve out a bit more time for these activities in the quarter ahead.

Question 2: What are the energy-draining activities I need to delegate, delete, or minimize?

How can you minimize the role that these energy-draining activities play in your day-to-day schedule? Are there ways to leverage Parkinson's Law (tasks expand or contract to fill the time allotted to them) to minimize the impact these activities have?

Make a plan to slowly manage, delegate, or delete.

Note: I'm planning to write a piece on how I methodically manage down the time on draining activities. This will vary based on your role or career stage, but the set of principles I've developed can help anyone.

Question 3: Am I dedicating the necessary energy to my most important thing?

If not, what needs to change and how will you change it? Make a plan to dedicate more energy to your most important thing.

Question 4: What changes need to be made to my current systems or habits to more appropriately align with my medium and long-term goals?

If you closed your eyes and woke up in a quarter, would your current systems land you in your desired destination? If not, what tweaks can you make to ensure they do?

Make those changes now.

Question 5: What do I need to eliminate from my life in order to reduce drag and accelerate my progress?

What is holding you back? Make a plan to slowly, methodically cut the line and remove the negative influence from your life.

Your Personal Quarterly Review

The Personal Quarterly Review is a powerful tool that will enable you to reflect on your personal progress and growth.

Write down the responses to these questions in your notebook or post them somewhere visible so you'll see them each day. Make a plan, then start taking action to execute against it.

Through this simple process, you’ll begin to make real-time course corrections that will compound over time, leading to accelerated success and achievement in all areas of your life.

To get even more out of it, try conducting the Personal Quarterly Review in a small group format. Go through it individually, but then get together with a small group of your intellectual sparring partners and walk through it.

Pressure test. Question assumptions. Provide feedback.

Remember, small changes today can make a significant difference in the long run!

As a reminder, you can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template here. Please share the link with anyone who you think will benefit from it.

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