A 4-Fold Final Report
Businesspeople usher in each new year with a Business Yearend. We do it for taxes and for statistics. We also do it to give ourselves a clear picture of how we are doing, black or red, which products or services are succeeding, which are costing more than their benefits warrant. As a balance to all the number-crunching, I like to do a Personal Yearend, a kind of Lifestyle Inventory. Trying to use both sides of the brain at once is fun. The exercise can also be surprising, revealing, inspiring even. A Personal Yearend allows me to look objectively at a holistic picture, to make realistic resolutions based on personal values and on my short and long-term goals. For what is a resolution but an action designed to achieve a goal that is part of the larger plan? Such a personal accounting should also work equally well x 4--reporting also on the ends of the decade, the century, the millennium.
To Do a Personal Yearend: I.) Across the top of the ledger (an imaginary ledger is fine) name/label your columns. This is the fun part. To label the columns we have to identify what is important in our lives. Everyone's columns will be different. Mine are: 1. WORK: Published; Sold; Marketed; Completed; In Progress; Ideas--Writing; Ideas--Other Business; Training; Networking. 2. FAMILY & PETS 3. FRIENDS 4. TRAVEL 5. BOOKS 6. HOUSE & GARDEN (including Moves) 7. VOLUNTEER & COMMUNITY WORK 8. FOOD & EXERCISE 9. ENTERTAINMENT & RECREATION (including movies, videos, concerts, etc.) 10. SPIRITUAL PRACTICE. So, I have eighteen columns at this time. II.) Underneath each label, divide the column into three spaces. Initial the spaces E, O, and N, for End, On-going, and New. III.) Down the left side of the ledger, add one month at a time. IV.) Fill in the Yearend page month by month, referring to your Daybook as a reminder. Just put a dot in the appropriate space (E, O, or N) of the appropriate column. V.) After dotting each month, total the columns. VI.) Evaluate the totals. Compare months. Compare this year to last. The ledger is a kind of line or bar graph. You can read each individually. You can look at all the E's, or at the ratio between the things that have ended and those that are new.
We soon begin to see the cycles, the rhythms of our life. For example, it is easy for me to see, just by labelling my columns, that my life is my work. This is my choice. I keep track of my friendship contacts as a way to remind myself to work on this area of my life. It is too easy for me, working from home, to never leave the house, never see anyone face-to-face. Also, I see that too much of my entertainment happens at the initiative of others. Last year, I needed to be more imaginative about food and exercise. This year, walking the dog, doing my daily yoga stretches, and creative soup-making have paid off.
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