Monthly and Quarterly Reviews

While daily shutdowns and weekly reviews focus on execution, monthly and quarterly reviews are where the real strategic work happens. These sessions serve as checkpoints to ensure you’re moving in the right direction while maintaining balance across all areas of life. By the way, I do a similar version of these reviews for teams I lead.

Why two different horizons?

Monthly and quarterly reviews follow the same basic framework but serve different purposes. Monthly reviews help spot immediate trends and make tactical adjustments. Quarterly reviews reveal longer patterns and prompt bigger strategic shifts.

Think of monthly reviews as regular maintenance checks and quarterly reviews as more thorough inspections. Both are necessary, but they answer different questions:

Monthly review questions:

Quarterly review questions:

The review framework

I find that a systematic approach to these reviews is helpful and prevents me from getting overwhelmed. Here’s how I do it.

Calendar and commitments

I start with the calendar, looking at the past month’s calendar and planning the next month’s key dates. I also note upcoming deadlines and events, and any upcoming appointments I need to schedule.

Monthly focus:

Quarterly addition:

The calendar review is a reality check on what has happened in the past or what is already planned for the future. It helps me understand my capacity and my team’s capacity as I head into planning the next period.

Life areas review

Once I have a clear picture of what happened and what is coming up, I move on to the life areas review. For each life area (Health & Wellbeing, Life, Work, Creative Input & Output, Systems & Workflows), I examine:

Monthly focus:

Quarterly addition:

For example, here’s how I review the “Health and wellbeing” life area:

Monthly focus:

Quarterly addition:

Or, here’s how I review the “Systems and tools” life area:

Monthly focus:

Quarterly addition:

The planning process

Once I have a clear picture of how each life area is doing, I move on to the planning process.

Part of being strategic is intentionally shifting from reactive to proactive. It’s really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, putting out fires and getting tossed about by emails and Slack messages. Gradually, you can lose sight of what direction you’re going and if you’re making progress on your real goals (I think few of us really have “inbox zero” as a life goal!). My monthly and quarterly planning and retro sessions are anchors for me, pit stops to pause and make sure I’m still going the right direction.

Journal setup

My monthly and quarterly planning both start in my journal. For both of these, I follow the Bullet Journal method pretty closely. Each quarter, I set up a fresh new journal, which is called migration in Bullet Journal parlance (it kind of pleases me how close of a resemblance the process has to database migrations).

The monthly setup is pretty simple:

The quarterly setup is more extensive:

Along with the Future Log and Monthly Log, I add something to my journal not in the “official” guidelines. On the first page of the new journal for the quarter and on the opposite page of the monthly log, I list out each life area and add bullets with major projects, themes, or things I need to be aware of with family members.

This is where I start shifting from the reactive mindset of “what is already happening” to the proactive mindset of what needs to happen that’s not already on the calendar and what I want to happen - where I want to move the needle in each area. This might prompt me to include boring-but-necessary stuff like taxes, creative work like newsletters or articles, or personal stuff like friends or family I want to be sure to talk to. One of the best uses for this is being proactive to schedule fun with my family; it’s so easy for days to snowball, especially with remote work. I want to be sure we’re proactively getting out and having fun!

Creating action plans

Once I’ve brain dumped everything into the logs and life areas, it’s time to put on my strategic thinking hat (check out my article on how to think strategically).

I look at everything on the pages holistically to decide what to prioritize, what to cut, and how to strategically combine tasks or arrange my schedule. I also try to think through the ramifications of what is already happening, whether it’s my wife being gone for a long weekend, a work trip coming up, or my boss or a direct report being on vacation.

Finally, I look for competing priorities or huge time sinks. I try to spot possible conflicts or squeezes on my or my team’s time and then think through how I might need to adapt. If two major projects are due at work, but 3 people on my team are out this month, we may need to rethink how we execute.

To sum it up:

Monthly focus

Quarterly addition

Making it work

If this feels like a lot, I get it. Here are a few principles to help make these reviews effective:

  1. Consistency over perfection: Not every review needs to cover everything. A lighter review is better than skipping it entirely.

  2. Focus on patterns: Individual data points matter less than trends. Look for patterns that suggest needed changes.

  3. Keep it practical: Every observation should lead to actionable insights. Avoid collecting data you won’t use.

  4. Build in flexibility: Leave room in your plans for unexpected opportunities and challenges.

Adapting the process

This system works for me because I’ve adapted it to my needs over time. Your review process might look quite different based on:

Start with the areas most important to you and gradually build up the practice. The goal isn’t to create perfect plans, but to maintain awareness and momentum across all areas of your life.

I hope you’ve found this series helpful. Let me know how you use and adapt it in your own life!

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