Every time someone asks me "What is the single most impactful thing I can do to achieve my goals?" my answer is always the same: do an annual review.

It’s literally a once-a-year opportunity to review your accomplishments and lessons learned over the past year and use those insights to define goals and priorities for the coming year.

I've been doing annual reviews for more than 10 years.

From that first list of 5 goals on a Post-It note when I was 20 years old, to the more sophisticated process I follow today, I've learned a lot about how to do it right.

I've learned that I can do all my goal-setting just once per year, in the first week of January. And by doing so, I have the confidence and the clarity to completely focus on making progress toward those goals for the rest of the year.

I can't overstate how important this annual process has been for me, which is why we’re bringing back The Annual Review Workshop, where we’ll lead you through completing an annual review of your own.

Our BASB Facilitator Maria Aldrey will lead a live two-day workshop on Jan. 13-14 to give you everything you need to succeed in your own customized review, including the most crucial elements: community, accountability, and feedback.

You’ll receive an invitation to join in the beginning of the New Year! Stay tuned.

New Year, New Digital You: A Step-by-Step Guide to a Digital Reset

As we approach the end of the year, it's the perfect time to perform a digital reset and start the new year with a clean, organized digital space.

These simple steps will help you declutter and streamline your digital life, making room for new opportunities and a more focused mindset.

Empty your desktop and download folders: If you don't feel comfortable deleting, archive all files in one folder with today's date.
Clear your inboxes: Treat yourself to a fresh start in the new year with an empty email inbox, notes app inbox, and task manager inbox.
Unsubscribe from newsletters and promotions: Prune your emails by ruthlessly opting out of anything that's not adding value to your life.
Organize your cloud storage: Reset your Google Drive or Dropbox according to the PARA structure (Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive) so you can easily find the most important files.
Turn off notifications: Take back control of your digital devices so you can focus on what's most important in the moment instead of reacting to every little thing.
Evaluate your subscriptions and apps: Unsubscribe from services that you no longer require and delete unused apps to free up space.
Update your operating system: Check if you have the latest version of your operating system and perform an update.

Embrace this digital reset as an opportunity to redefine your relationship with technology, ensuring it serves you well in the year ahead.

Making Productivity Into a Game With Ali Abdaal

Does work need to be all grind and pain? What if joy not self-discipline was the secret to productivity?

Join me for a conversation with the world's most-followed productivity YouTuber Ali Abdaal about his new book Feel-Good Productivity and learn how to do more of what matters to you.

We covered:

Why are self-discipline and grit so popular
Why feeling good makes you more productive
My five favorite strategies from the book (incl. the Shoshin approach, owning the process, choosing your character, and the magical Post-it note)
How his YouTube experience influenced Ali's book writing process
And more

Watch on YouTube.

Free Bonuses: Once you've ordered the book, submit your receipt here to get a ticket to Ali's Annual Planning Workshop, my notes and highlights from Feel-Good Productivity as well as Ali's notes from BASB.

The Counter-Intuitive Principle of Productivity

Pillars of Productivity student Sarah boiled down the main idea of what I'm teaching beautifully in our Circle community:

"Make a reasonable effort to capture and sort the important messages, requests, obligations, and ideas that are constantly coming at you in the modern age. Then, be honest about the fact that it’s literally impossible to actually do or respond to all of those things...Coming to terms with our human limitations is a lifelong process."

Creating a system of productivity will not eliminate all discomfort and negative emotions, but they'll shift...

"You move from the discomfort of “I feel overwhelmed trying to keep track of everything” to the discomfort of “I’m not overwhelmed, I just have to face the uncomfortable fact of my own limited time and capacity.”

Beautifully said!

Read the short post.

Celebrating Your Wins 🌟

Whenever we receive thank-you emails or come across praise for Building a Second Brain on the web, we save it in a folder in our team's Second Brain.

I had a look in said folder this week as I was reflecting on the past year. And I was floored by the beautiful stories and wins you shared with us.

Here are a few that I want to celebrate:

"I was in a snowboarding accident in 2015 where I honestly should have died, and at minimum, been braindead and paralyzed. Rather, I graduated college in 2 years, and have been pushing ever since. I’m now 27, I have been married for 6 years, I have two beautiful kids plus one on the way, and I am able to solely provide more for my family than I ever thought possible because I have learned what you have taught directly or through second hand people who attribute their success in part to you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I have a lot to learn, But there is only light ahead, even through struggles, I know that I have tools to overcome." – Collin

"Call me Jess, a high school student who, thanks to your book, is having some direction on what to do with their life. I've always wanted to make artwork and tell my own stories since I was a kid. However, I tended to procrastinate because I would be already overwhelmed by schoolwork. When I stumbled upon Building a Second Brain, I found that I wasn't alone with this issue. I relate to your story about struggling to keep track of stuff in your head.... For me, the projects that I'm working on now are writing this letter (lol), my own cheatsheet for tricky concepts in HTML and CSS, and a book study on Resilient by Rick Hanson! In addition, I am regularly adding lessons that I learned from my mistakes to my folders Art Studies, Programming and Web Development. Lastly, I am also keeping up with coursework by saving reference materials, examples and drafts in my projects folder! I would usually be afraid of completing work-school or extracurricular related-since I can lose track and I'm afraid of rough drafts. But through your insights of capturing all of your thoughts, saving those thoughts and building a Hemingway Bridge, I became less afraid of painting on a blank canvas." – Jess