I will focus on my experience in doing solo quarterly reviews – as in, I will travel on my own and will focus on personal projects and or projects I have key involvement in in a corporate setting. However, the concept applies to relationships, teams and even departments as well.

- Large wall or mirror for post-its. I tend to use the large mirror in my room to (1) write down my key goals/achievements for the week and (2) how I will be distributing the activities over the days. So I will create a list of todos and a week plan.
- Post-its and pen.
- Even before my quarterly, I will keep a list of bigger todos and projects (in Notion). This will help me get an idea of what I want and need to do each quarterly. Often, I will allocate a ‘theme’ to the quarterly. E.g. ‘finance’ or ‘personal development’ or ‘grow my team’. This will help focus my activities and set clear goals.
- When traveling towards my remote quarterly review location and on the first night or first morning of my stay, I will do a full brain dump of all the things I will want and need to do that week. I sometimes use exercises like the ecocycle planning and hot air balloon for the first brain dumps.
- I will write down the activities on post-its and will prioritise the activities on a large mirror or wall.
- After that, I will create a simple week planning with my morning routine, what I will do in the morning (usually two activity blocks), lunch, what I will do in the afternoon, dinner and my evening routine. I will make sure to add time to eat good food and plenty of exercise. E.g. in Bali, I decided on evening runs and dinner after as part of my routine and yoga as part of my morning routine. Also, I will add new habits to my routines, e.g. write my daily appreciation journal in the evening. I have found these quarterly reviews a great moment to add new habits.
- After having the rough day plannings, I will add the concrete appointments I will have that week. From time to time, I will have some calls I will have to take, I might have a meeting on location and I might want to go explore the surroundings (e.g. in Dubrovnik, I planned a morning in the old town as a well-deserved break). I will try and make sure to have as many uninterrupted blocks of deep work time as possible.
- Finally, I will plan in all my activities for the week, making sure to prioritise the key activities first.
- And then, it is just do 🙂 Every evening, I tend to quickly review what I have done that day and the next morning at breakfast I will run through that day.
When you are doing this in a group or team, use tools from the toolbox to create engagement throughout the different phases.
- Quarterly. The fact that the reviews are quarterly often ties in perfectly with year plans. A review every 3 months helps adjust course towards your year goals and also makes it easy to translate into month and week plans.
- Open communication towards colleagues and clients. Explaining the concept behind your quarterly reviews in all openness and transparency towards your clients and colleagues will help to reduce the interruptions during the week. Many people will recognise the need for deep work and focus time and will understand and our appreciate your reviews.