Monthly review | How to do it

I document and reflect my life in many ways but one of the most insightful is definitely monthly review. I tried different versions of this and last year it finally molded in this form as it is now.

For February I just finished doing my monthly review so now it’s a great time to tell you more about it. 

The main point of the review is consistency. When you keep the structure as same as possible throughout the year, you can easily compare your feelings, achievements and really literally see your growth. Another important point is that we tend to forget especially the victories and the good parts. That happens often when you’re stressed and your mind is just rumbling through the failures so it’s really important to remind yourself of the good things too. 

My version of the monthly review is based on several conversations with different people and it’s kind of combination of a few things. And this is my own, personal review. For the businesses I run, we have completely another set of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in a more complex matrix of different things, goals, and setups. (I can tell you more about that too if you like.)

I start by carving some time at the end of the month. I’ve kept the review intentionally quite light to execute so I can’t use the time-consuming process as an excuse for not doing it. The structure is really compact, just a few important questions and parts.

After carving out time to actually do this, I also like to have some coffee, candles burning, maybe even some non-distractive music on the background. Whatever makes me feel comfortable and focused. 

The first part of the monthly review: questions

The first part contains three questions, all answered in a completely free format. I prefer doing this by pen and paper, usually in my Aura notebook but if you want, you can definitely type it with a computer too.

The questions to be answered are:

What went well?

What didn’t go so well?

Which goals did I achieve?

The last one is the one that ties all the months together after you’ve done this a few times. The idea of a monthly review is to go through the month that has ended and to set goals for the one that is beginning.

The second part of the monthly review: claims

The next part is numerally ranked, even more compact mini-review inside of a review. You just use the same claims every month and give each one a number between one and ten. My claims are these but you can variate as much as you like. Why I stick with these is that it’s a very holistic way to approach the month as it contains different parts of life.

I paid enough attention to my own needs.
I met my friends.
I’m happy with my achievements.
I trained my mindfulness skills.
I expressed gratitude.

My personal row for the February looks very sad as it is 4 4 9 8 1 2. Hope your row is a bit more positive.

Third part of the monthly review: goal setting

The third and final part of the monthly review is to set goals for the month that is beginning, so today the title in my Aura notebook was March goals. You can list whatever you want, big and small ones but be honest. This is also the point where you can (and should) prioritize what you really want to achieve in the next month. Where do you want to stand when that month ends and you’re writing the monthly review again?

In my own list of goals, there are both business and personal life related ones. What I especially wish is that March would be a bit less hectic and that is my main goal at the moment.

So that’s it. That’s how I go through my months. Would be awesome to hear about your monthly review method or if you try out mine. Hope you’re having an awesome weekend and this brings you even more clarity and peace of mind. For me it definitely did!