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Miscellaneous Monday: Tools of Reflection

Andrew Zimmerman_rvmutq

Happy Monday and happy December, fellow Community Members! 🎄

Each December, I find myself quite reflective as I navigate through the final weeks of the year. I think about goals reached, areas where I fell short, standout moments from the past 11 months, ways I’ve changed, etc. There are so many different topics to reflect on and so many different methods by which one can reflect. 🧐🙇

So, for this Misc Monday topic, I’m keen to hear what tools and methods you all use to reflect. Professionally. Personally. Academically. Whatever you want to share!

Do you read through a journal that you’ve maintained all year round? Do you use a Confluence template, or perhaps AI-generated prompts, to help you reflect? What questions do you ask yourself? Where do you store these thoughts? 💭

Or, do you keep it less structured and more fluid, and just keep a handwritten log of reflections whenever they hit? ✏️

I’d love to know how you reflect and any new methods, tools, or techniques you’re planning to integrate into your reflection process this year.

Have a great week ahead!

P.S. - Tomorrow (Tues, Dec 3) is Giving Tuesday this year. As you reflect on the past year, I also encourage you to seek out ways to give back in the days ahead 🙏 If you need some ideas, consider attending the Global Week of Good Virtual Volunteer Fair.

Comments

Amanda Barber

I love this topic! Unfortunately, this year has felt more about surviving rather than thriving in my personal life. However, I think it's time to set some short-term, attainable goals again as I head into the new year.

One of my favorite ways to track goals is a habit-tracking app. I have reminders set throughout the day to help me stick to my goals. I currently try to drink 8 cups of water, get outside for 10+ minutes a day, walk 10k steps, stretch, and read for 10 minutes.

I also really like using something like this to track my daily workouts:

2025 - 365 Coloring Habit Tracker - Daily Fitness Workout Tracker, Workout Calendar, Planner, Year Calendar, Monthly Tracker - NON LEAP YEAR

I think these movement and wellness goals will be easy to stick with this year, but I'd definitely like to figure out what to work on professionally and how best to track those goals!

Sandra Franchetto

Thanks for ideas. Love that Atlassian products can be used.

Also thank you for the Fair link. I'm already planning 2025 and definitely want to find more ways to give back.

One tip - change wording of 'where I fell short' to 'why didn't I reach my goal in this area?' - and it isn't necessarily a failure but instead you may not want that goal anymore or maybe something else was more important. Hope this helps a little.

Have a great December.

John Funk

I tend to reflect along the way - on a weekly or monthly basis - to see what I have learned about certain topics and plan better for what's next. Doing it on a yearly basis feels too waterfallish, and I like to be more agile. haha

Tomislav Tobijas

I tend to track things in a lot of detail 😅. For almost everything, I use my personal Jira instance, organizing tasks into specific projects. Whether it’s work-related or personal—like house or family tasks—I usually focus on one big 'project' at a time. That means I don’t do 'retrospectives' often, but since I track dates on issues (and sometimes even log time), I guess it’s easy to look back and see progress on specific things 👀

Daria Kulikova_GitProtect.io

Very nice topic! Over the past few years, I’ve realized that sticking to short-term goals—on a monthly or even weekly basis—works better for me. Life is so unpredictable; you never know what might go wrong!

For these personal short-term goals, I usually use a simple mobile calendar or just jot my thoughts down on a piece of paper. For the last three years, my motto has been: if there’s an idea, there should be an action!

Andy Gladstone

While I use Confluence and Trello extensively to track work as it is getting done, I am old-school and keep notebooks and journals of everything that I set out to do and get done. I review my notebooks regularly and have specific notations for idea and item statuses. Everything starts as black ink on a lined white page. As things get done, they are highlighted in yellow. If they are no longer relevant they get a single strikethrough. At least once a month I review my notebook and move all incomplete items to a new "what's on my plat page". I then go back to all of the pages with incomplete items that have been recorded and put a large upper case circled D on the top right of each page and highlight it so I know that page no longer needs to be reviewed.

I use apps like Strava and Zwift to track my exercise goal progress throughout the year and to set goals for the coming year.

I find that constantly revisiting my goals and ideas helps them remain evolving objectives rather than singular goals set a specific place in time.

Susan Waldrip

Hi @Andrew Zimmerman , very timely topic! For work, I use JSM Task tickets with priorities that help me focus on what's needed now. I review them all at least twice a week to ensure priorities haven't changed, and then consult my end-of-day notes (pen and paper notebook) to see where I left off with a task if I didn't finish it the day before. In my personal life, I spend a little time each Sunday night thinking about the upcoming week, what's "due" on my current task list (handwritten notes of tasks) and update it as needed. I usually reference that list during lunch breaks or just after work to see what I can get done that evening (if anything) and on Fridays I identify what I need/want to do on the weekend days -- but ensure a good mix of "chores", fun, and relaxation!

Barbara Szczesniak

This year, I am reflecting with the 6 new people that joined my Christmas list: 2 new great nieces and 2 weddings that brought 2 nephews-in-law, 1 step great niece, and 1 step great nephew. 6 additions and no losses—that's a wonderful year!

Mariano Tallarico _Appricity_

GREETINGS COMMUNITY! Excellent Monday. What a great topic for these stages of the year in which we find ourselves Consultation, based on personal experience. When you make a personal plan (for those who like to plan long term). Before the end of the year, that is, in December with a view to the following year?, or already started the year?

Andrew Zimmerman_rvmutq

@Amanda Barber I’ve never seen that color in the date method. Really cool! I’ll have to try that!

Andrew Zimmerman_rvmutq

Great point, @Sandra Franchetto ! We win or we learn. We never lose.

Andrew Zimmerman_rvmutq

Love the idea of reflecting as you go more frequently. It reminds of cleaning. It’s so much easier to do a little tidying everyday than to clean the whole house once a month in a giant cleanup job.

Sandra Franchetto

Exactly. You can turn every negative into a positive. To err is human. That's why we can try something again. Sometimes on reflection things you thought were important to do turn out to be something that made didn't matter at all. Also people should limit the number of goals they do to one at a time. Trying to achieve too much can often set you up for failure and only leads to feeling disappointed in multiple areas. Changing is about incrementing small things and celebrating the wins which gives you the motivation to keep going.

Andrew Zimmerman_rvmutq

Love this adaptive approach, @Andy Gladstone! Thanks for sharing!

Stuart Capel - London

This is awesome! What a great idea. I'm going to print out multiple versions for my personal daily targets. Thanks for the fantastic idea!

Dave LIAO

I love my To Done lists!

In my personal to do app, there's a way to filter for completed tasks.

In my day-to-day work app - Jira, you might've heard of it! - I view the My Issues filter, then toggle Resolution from EMPTY to NOT EMPTY. I use this list to populate my weekly recaps and a reminder to myself during performance review time.

Thiago P _Atlassian Support_

Journaling is an amazing tool that I wish I did more consistently!

Looking back at your daily mood, completed tasks, future goals and everything else months later is certainly a trip to the past. I love to look back and see how much I grew, how difficult tasks are now easier to handle, not to mention all the goals I was able to achieve and how humble they look if compared to my current goals.

Using some quality time by Year's end on a quiet and cozy place, with a pleasant beverage is a fantastic experience.

If you haven't already, give it a try! =]

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