Throwback Thursday: Atlassian December cleaning rituals? #TBT

[#1]

It's Thursday!

End of the year is fast approaching. Some use that opportunity to do some cleaning in Confluence, Jira, etc. 

Sooooo, what are some of your Atlassian December cleaning rituals?

Let’s make it a great Thursday!
KGM

[Anna Yermolenko_Grandia Solutions_]

Great question!

My Atlassian December cleaning ritual is grooming Jira backlogs - removing outdated, duplicate, or irrelevant issues and prioritizing upcoming work.

As it says - step in the New Year with the clear mind (or clear backlog in my case)

[John Funk]

Personally, I do no cleaning of Atlassian products in December. That's what the Spring is for.  :-)   There's too much going on in the holiday season to do cleaning. Just enjoying that it works!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!

[Stephen_Lugton]

The closest I come to Atlassian December cleaning rituals is cancelling stand ups on Christmas Day! 

[Daria Kulikova_GitProtect_io]

I prefer not to let that cleaning happen... I usually try to constantly track and update all the tasks. It helps me always stay up-to-date :) 

[Dan Breyen]

As it's a slower time in the office, it's a good time to go through open issues and see if they are still relevant, or no longer appropriate.  

We're still relatively new to JSM and a Knowledge Base, but going through all your Knowledge Base articles is also an appropriate activity to go through.  Delete articles that aren't appropriate anymore, and update those that need to be updated to match the current environment.

If the articles that no longer apply are removed, that means your customers will have less articles to peruse when it comes to finding a solution to issues on their own. 

[Barbara Szczesniak]

I have been going through my Confluence documentation of our app to put in updates for the latest features we've pushed out. My boss asked me yesterday to produce an update of our Scroll Viewport site before the holidays, so I'll need to wrap that up today (since my vacation starts tomorrow).

Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄❄️ Happy Holidays to those who celebrate otherwise! 

[Andrea Mura]

Every end of the year I try to encourage and sensitize the teams (over 40) to clear the product backlog by reviewing priorities and closing obsolete or duplicate tickets, but every time it's a big challenge 🥲

Happy holidays to all!!🎄

[vikram]

Hi @Kristján Geir Mathiesen 

Good Question as we have reached the Holidays mood.

The first and most urgent is cleaning Jira backlogs. 

closing all the old issues, tickets and tasks. 

follow up with all the team leads, team members, project team to close all the issues for all the sprints. 

Make new sprint for 2025 to quick start.

Vikram P

[Abigail Newton]

I'm reviewing old Confluence pages, month by month since 2018 and archiving and deleting a lot of old dross because the team keep telling me they can't find anything in Confluence so I'm getting rod of the noise whilst ensuring neater and tidier and clearer documentation is put in as we roll out new features

[Natalie Beiler]

Hmmm...good question for today! I don't have any ritual just yet but from reading the comments I do believe I need to nurture and develop at least one or two.

Thank you to everyone who planted a seed.

[Stephen_Lugton]

I think the main reason for not having any Atlassian December cleaning rituals is that everything everyone else mentioned is just standard refinement activities that we do week in, week out, but I suppose we do double check to make sure that we have cover for any issues that may arise.

[Denys Kontorskyy_Railsware_]

Hate to be a bragger 😛 but our team keeps things so tidy year-round that there’s nothing left to clean at the end! @Yuliia Tkachenko_TitanApps_ maybe we should start offering 'Jira-organizing lessons' 🤔

[Summer Hogan]

My cleaning ritual is different this year since I am not yet working, but did find a new job that I start in January. My cleaning lady is on her way to clean my house right now. That's my ritual this year! HAHA!

[Amanda Barber]

Love this question and all the ideas! I'm actually taking a new position at a new company next month, so I've been doing lots of cleanup of my own space in Confluence, updating billing contacts and admins for different projects, and just overall tidying. 

[Dan Breyen]

Usually at the end of the year, I launch Jira and Confluence on my computer, then I take off the cover, and then with a can of 'Canned Air', I blow out my computer and make sure all of the dust bunnies are cleaned out.

I used to open the coffee cup holder on the front of the PC, and make sure that's all cleaned off, but due to cost cutting measures, they stopped putting them on newer computers and my laptop doesn't have one of them anymore.

The other, more messy one to keep clean, that I usually have to do more regularly is to clean off the cheese grater. That gets real messy fast.

[Susan Waldrip]

No huge cleanups since I try to do those things periodically, but I do go through my own issues and cancel or "wishlist" any that I now know I'm not going to do or have a low priority.

I want to thank all of you for your help and support this past year, not just to me but to a lot of other people. You've provided great answers to questions, insightful articles, and useful suggestions for solutions and it's made my Jira Life so much easier, interesting, and fun. I wish you and yours a🎄Happy Holiday!🎄, see you in 2025! 💙

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

I prefer cleaning my house rather than Atlassian tools & configurations 😆

Jokes aside, we just had one client today who said "Please advise us how we can reuse CIs as much as possible so we don't have that many Jira configuration customizations". 🤯 Still can't believe it...

[Liz Tanner]

My two main workspaces are Microsoft and Atlassian. I didn't have much work come in this FY, so I have a lot of testing environments. For FYs like this one, I review Pages, Boards, and Projects to backup assets, testing results, etc. into Sharepoint. I do the same with Accepted Answers and resolutions from the Community.

For more fruitful FYs, asset mgmt and backups are part of my workflows. Instead, I am the Documentation Machine. I have a page for dumping all miscellany instructions/guiding info for those times when I don't have time to complete documentation. This is when I insert that info, compllete updates according to my comments, and polish + archive anything I need to.

It's the most wonderul task of the year.

[Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_]

I would probably set a cronjob when it strikes 00:00 on New Year, and delete all the 20-something jira instances I have on my personal Linux box and start anew in January. :-)

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Thanks for all the ideas! I appreciate you sharing them.

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I've always loved spending the days between Christmas and New Year reordering my Confluence spaces and making the relevant folders and page trees for 2025. As I use it for many different activities, including periodic and recurring ones like events and marketing, content is always separated based on the year. 
Everything that's not the current year is either archived (if no longer relevant) or transformed into a more compact view.

[Vronik]

Hi

Honestly, I hadn't even thought about it. When closing the year, if possible, I only close the projects that end in December of the year and little else, maybe eliminate tasks that I already know are not going to be addressed, but little else

Regards

[Viktoriia Golovtseva _TitanApps_]

Hey Atlassian friends,

Clean up is my regular ritual for several last days before Christmas 🎄✨

I do not do this every year to be frank, and not always at the end. Sometimes it also happens at the beginnng :)

Here’s what I usually do:
✅ I archive my old Jira issues -  If it’s not relevant anymore, it’s time to let it go.
✅ The same is done in Confluence - A little editing or archiving works wonders to keep things useful and up-to-date.

Some additional things :) not always done 
✅ Simplify workflows: I like to review our processes and remove any unnecessary steps.
✅ Clean up tags and labels: You’d be surprised how satisfying it is to see a streamlined tagging system.
✅ Audit user permissions: It’s always a good idea to check who has access to what before jumping into the new year.

Happy holidays :)

[Fabio_Cabral]

Never thought about a cleaning ritual, but I like to show the teams all the issues that are older than 6 months and ask if we will continue to work with them next year.