How I Conduct My Annual Productivity Audit
Every December, I start conducting my “productivity audit” to prepare for the next year. It might sound austere to call it that, and there’s a current wave of commentary about how we should be optimizing our lives less, but to be honest I just don’t think that way! I find that it brings me a lot of peace and clarity to regularly review my habits and find areas to improve. My creativity flows more easily when my life is organized to the best of my ability.
2019 was one of the wildest years of my life. I’ve been comparing it to 2013, another year that will always stick out in my life, since that was the year I completed my thesis project and graduated from graduate school amidst a lot of personal chaos. Getting to that finish line took every ounce of willpower and discipline I had, and I feel like that now. In the interest of transparency, I’ll admit that I had a hard time in November. I was in the middle of several big projects and feeling this overwhelming DOUBT. On paper, this is easily my most successful year creatively, professionally, and financially — so why was I not feeling triumphant and proud? Why was I just feeling tired and sad and weird? I decided in mid-November that I should get a head start on my audit to put things in perspective, and so far it’s working. After a few weeks, I feel a bit better and wanted to share my process with you!
What is a productivity audit?
This is just what I call it, but essentially, this audit is both a reflection and decluttering process. I look at my habits, tools, and projects from the year and to identify where I excelled and where I can do better. I’ve been doing this for YEARS now so I have pretty solid work processes, but I always find a place to iterate.
Something I struggle with is being kind to myself when I do this. I hold myself to very high expectations (thanks a n x i e t y) so I try to go into this process with an open mind/heart. I always feel pride when I look back on what I’ve accomplished, even if the accomplishments were small.
How I conduct the audit
I used to do this process all at once but I prefer now doing a little bit every day for a few weeks. (This is something I changed after the audit I conducted last year!) I make an outline in my favorite app (currently, that’s Notion, which I’ll share later! Omg… I love Notion) and then chip away at it a little at a time. I add a new column to my kanban board so I can tackle the actionable items involved in this audit.
A Year at a Glance
I plan on working through the Year Compass workbook soon with my friends, but I still start my audit with a bird’s eye view of the year. Usually the categories for this are:
Career
Finances (I separate this from career because it refers to how I’ve spent or saved money)
Travel
Health
Relationships
Then, I go through each section and make objective, simple notes. This is just to organize my thoughts and not to reflect yet. I try to remain non-judgmental (like under Health, I noted my schedule of going to the gym three times a week and NOT how I need to go to the gym more).
Purging my digital clutter
I always start with going through my devices. I hoard a lot of digital clutter thanks to the multitude of projects I manage, so over the year I accumulate tons of files and folders. You know that feeling of getting a brand new piece of technology and how good it feels to start fresh? I try to replicate that without actually buying anything new.
I actually dread this task because there is so much to it: cleaning out email inboxes, deleting unplayed playlists in Spotify, curating my social media presence, deleting unused apps from my phone, canceling subscription services, etc. etc. Where does it end? If you work in tech like I do, it doesn’t. This is definitely an ongoing process for me because I get discouraged and bored with this stuff REAL quickly. I try to tackle one thing a day for a month, whether that’s clearing out X amount of emails or going through an app to clear out old documents. How I feel about this is how I think some people feel about cleaning their house (which I do as part of my audit, as I’ll share next).
Deep-cleaning my house
Who needs spring cleaning when you can have new year cleaning? Every year in late December, I wake up with this overwhelming need to CLEAN EVERYTHING. My husband and I literally deep clean every corner of our house. I work 100% remotely, which means that most days I work out of my house (or a coworking space, which is a topic for another blog post). Although I’m fortunate to have a home office, I still spend a lot of time at home and look at my house every day. When it’s messy or disorganized, it has a tangible effect on my mental health because I feel more stressed and less able to get work done efficiently, which means I’m working MORE and disrupting my work-life balance.
I do one room at a time and narrow that down even further to do one drawer or cabinet at a time. I usually purge a lot and donate clothes or household items locally. This process can be fun! I always make sure to enjoy doing it by lighting candles and listening to my favorite podcasts. To me, cleaning is an act of love and care. I work hard to make my home a beautiful, comfortable space and keeping it clean and well-kept is the manifestation of that.
Going through photos
I take a ton of photos throughout the year and often forget ones I’ve taken and haven’t shared on social media. I make time to go through my Google Photos account. It’s fun to see the kinds of things I’ve documented in the quieter moments; for example: a good French braid, my new mechanical keyboard, my first summer tomato, a great cup of coffee my husband made for me, views from the front of my house at different seasons. Just little memories that remind me of some of the nice days I’ve enjoyed this year.
Going through my finances
To prep for taxes in the early spring, I start going through my finances now to wrap up any lingering projects or invoices. I work as a full-time, salaried employee and manage side hustles that are almost full-time in their own rights, so I usually have a ton of documentation and paperwork to manage. While I’m decently organized at present via spreadsheets, I know I could be managing my business finances a LOT better, so I’m making that the focus of this part of my audit. (I have another blog post planned about the tools I use to manage my finances and how my perspective on earning money as a creative person has changed in the past few years, but I enjoy using tools like Catch and Undebt.it to plan for taxes and budget for remaining debt.) Essentially, I go through my bank statements to reflect on spending and make sure that I have all of my write-offs well-documented for tax season.
Fun Stuff
I’m actually opting out of this particular one this year, but every year I put everything I’ve written into a Scrivener doc and analyze my word count, most used words, etc. The reason I’m not doing it this year is because I know that I’ve written more this year than I ever have in my entire life! (Including when I was a journalist and writing articles for work every week.) Instead I looked at other fun “metrics,” including my year- and decade-end Spotify wrap-ups, the books I read, where I traveled, new recipes I tried, and the plants I grew in my garden. I noted all of my favorites so that I remember what I learned and enjoyed this year.
Final Thoughts
Like I mentioned above, I plan to do the Year Compass workbook with my friends this year. Historically, I do a similar thing on my own where I write down the highs and lows from the year, lessons learned, favorite moments, and goals for the new year. I don’t spend days or weeks thinking about this, truthfully; I dedicate a few hours to this for closure and reflection. I’m much more excited about looking toward the future. <3 Here’s to a great 2020!