I want to ask myself introspective questions every day to keep me accountable and on track to achieve what I plan to achieve. I do end up writing the answers down in a time-log format, as described in a previous post.

Here are the questions I ask myself:

Every day

  1. What did I do today?
  2. What do I intend to do tomorrow?
  3. Did I learn something new today? Am I grateful about something that happened?

Every week

  1. What did I do this week? Was I efficient? Was I deliberate?
    • Work and personal tasks are noted separately
    • Focus is on summarizing how time was spent, internalize trends.
  2. Are there any priorities that I couldn’t get to? Any chores? Why?
  3. What do I intend to do next week?
    • I allocate time based on monthly or yearly goals. This helps me prioritize my week.
  4. Is time spent and future plans aligned with longer term goal?

Every month

  1. What did I achieve at work this month?
    1. What did I accomplish? How valuable was it? How happy am I about it?
    2. How much time was spent on what tasks? Were they necessary? Was I efficient?
    3. What did I learn at work?
    4. What is no longer necessary or valuable? Can something be deprioritized?
  2. What did I do with my personal time?
    1. What did I finish what I intended to finish? What did I not?
    2. What is no longer necessary or valuable? Can something be deprioritized?
  3. How intentional was I with time spent?
    • It’s okay to watch TV as long as I’m intentional about it. It’s not okay to not know when 4 weekends went by and you didn’t get to what you planned to do.
  4. Did I learn anything?
    • I find it helpful to take note of things, at least mentally.
  5. Did I spend time to achieve my goals for the year?
  6. What will I do next month? (Personal time and at work)
    1. Prioritize tasks

Every 6 months

  1. Work
    1. Why you should and should not work on the project, team and company you are working in.
    2. What did you like doing?
    3. What challenging problem did you solve, what are you proud of doing?
  2. Personal
    1. What should be prioritized, deprioritized

Every year

  1. Top achievements that I’m proud of.
  2. Top mistakes I made.
  3. What did I learn?
  4. What am I grateful for?
  5. What are the top focus areas for next year?
    • These are generally skills or similar abstract concepts. “Be more social” as an example.
  6. What would I want to accomplish?
    • Some directly and simply measurable goals. “Read 15 books” as an example.

Generally

  1. What is the purpose, outcome, or the expected end state for the things you are doing?
  2. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Everyday

  • More forward looking and goal oriented than introspective: https://twitter.com/JeffBooth/status/1344712526919991296