Joe's
Digital Garden

Quarterly Retrospective

There are 4 Quarterly Retrospectives in the year, each covering roughly 12-14 weeks. These reviews are my chance to reflect on the last quarter, any progress towards annual goals, and conduct any goal setting for any larger projects or events in the next three months.

QuarterMonthsPythefnos
Q1January - MarchA0 - FG
Q2April - JuneG0 - MG
Q3July - SeptemberN0 - SG
Q4October - DecemberT0 - ZG

The quarterly retrospective occurs on the first sprint of each quarter and covers the previous six or seven fortnights. The review and goal setting typically takes four to eight hours.

Arvelie1 is a calendar system used by Devine Lu Linvega. [[Pythefnos]] is a modified version of Arvelie that maps the syntax to Monday-starting weeks in the Gregorian calendar.

Evaluation

As you progress through each step of the review keep The Hamming Question2 in mind:

What single thing, if successfully performed, would have the biggest impact?

Also consider the following questions from [[8670 Hours]]:

  1. What are the positive peaks and negatives troughs through the quarter?
  2. Are my major goals still my most important goals?
  3. What is the status of my goals and projects?
  4. What is going well or poorly?
  5. Am I on track?

The Retrospective

Before working on goals for the next quarter, we must first evaluate how the previous quarter progressed.

  1. Fill in the Media section listing any games, literature, or films from the last quarter.
  2. Fill in the [[Monthly Habits]] section, calculate the fortnight average for each habit. Evaluate the progress on each habit in 60 words or less.
  3. Fill in the Time Tracking section for work and sleep logs. Evaluate each in 60 words or less.
  4. Review and [[mind map]] the last six or seven [[pythefnos retrospective]]
  5. Bullet point each [[area]] identifying any major projects, progress, or events from the quarter.
  6. Compose a 500 (or less) word narrative of the last quarter.

The Goal Setting

Once the review of the previous quarter is finished, we can begin setting goals for the next quarter.

  1. Start with a mind map with each of our [[area]]s.
  2. Review everything! Notes, journals, retrospectives, plans. Gather everything.
  3. Review the calendar. Note any known upcoming events (holidays, PTO, conferences)
  4. Review finances, note any known upcoming large expenses.
  5. Evaluate the [[Monthly Habits]] tracking from the previous quarter.
  6. Compose a vision document that outlines projects and goal in each [[area]] for the quarter.
  7. Revise the Todo.txt file, add any projects or upcoming events for the quarter. Remove any tasks for abandoned projects.

External References

  1. Linega, Devine Lu. Arvelie Calendar<https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/arvelie.html>, XXIIVV, Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  2. Raemon. The Hamming Question<https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P5k3PGzebd5yYrYqd/the-hamming-question>, LessWrong. Retrieved 2020-10-18.
  3. Hallenbeck, Joseph. Timekeeper<https://github.com/kynda/timekeeper>, Kynda. Retrieved 2020-10-14.

Linked References