A Reflection Process for 2024
Plus my Highlights & Lowlights for the Year
As the year wraps up, I’ve been reflecting on 2024. I like taking the time to reflect on what happened and how I felt about it. Pausing and moving into a higher perspective provides rich insights into life’s patterns and is a lovely opportunity to reflect and adjust for the upcoming year.
I have a strong reflection practice throughout the year, which is helpful as a self-employed solopreneur because there isn’t any external process like you might have working for a company. And I use the same process to reflect on both my business and my life.
The Honest Autobiography
“Your calendar is the most honest autobiography you'll ever write.
It doesn't matter what you say your priorities are; your calendar reveals the truth. Each block is a decision about what matters, stripped of pretense and rationalization.
Your calendar isn't just recording your time—it's exposing your lies.”
The main two sources I look at are how I spend my time and how I spend my money. But that just provides the data. The reflection comes when I layer in meaning by noticing how I feel about those things and how they connect to the life I want to live.
The data tells me I spent about 495 hours and $1,351 on movement activities like walking, yoga, volleyball, softball, running, and strength workouts this year. A big chunk of that time was spent walking my dog, Devin. I spent most of the money on various recreation leagues, yoga classes, and my Peloton app membership.
Those are the facts.
I’ll invest a similar amount of time and money in 2025. Being in motion is a foundational aspect of my life and well-being. Plus Devin would object to any fewer walks 🐾.
My Reflection Process:
Gather the data
My main sources are my Google calendar where I track my time, and my money spreadsheet/bookkeeping system. I actively use and update both throughout the year, so at the end of the year it’s simple to look back at the accumulated information.
I’ll often download all my credit card transactions for the year into an Excel document. For simplicity and travel rewards, I run most of my expenses through one credit card that I pay off each month. I know the data for December is incomplete, but by this point of the month, I have a good idea of what it will look like. I’ll also check the various accounts that I don’t touch regularly like investment accounts and Venmo. The goal here is to gather all the money data from the year into one place.
Review and take notes
Gathering the data in one place is the first step, but now I need to process it a bit.
This year, I opened a blank Notion page and browsed through my calendar week by week - writing down notes about things that happened.
Reviewing the weeks and months in a semi-broad pass gives me a big picture of what happened, and reminds me of all the things I did this year. Occasionally I’ll count the details like total hours, but usually on a second pass or because of a specific curiosity - like wondering how much time I spent in motion over the year - which was much lower in the winter and higher the rest of the year.
With my money, I’ll review my transactions and rename a few categories to help me make sense of the information - like renaming my grocery store from merchandise to groceries - and then sort the list by category to group transactions.
This can be a lot of data points and may take some time. I enjoy it though.
Layer in Meaning
Throughout the data gathering and review process, I’ve naturally started noticing patterns and adding a few quick notes to my reflection document.
Layering in meaning is the part of the process that transforms the data into a reflection.
The data tells me I spent $1,351 on movement activities in 2024.
But what does that data mean to me?
And how do I feel about that information and the underlying activity?
One might say that I could save money by doing more free yoga classes on YouTube or just doing the free pick-up volleyball, but I don’t want those experiences. I like the structure of going to a studio and being led by a teacher next to other people. I like playing every Tuesday evening with the same people for several months at a time and building the relationships that come from proximity and familiarity. I like paying $30 to be a part of an organized Saturday volleyball tournament.
Even if I didn’t count the actual hours for 2024 (~495 hours), I would see all the time on my calendar. Just by the sheer volume of time blocks, repeating over the weeks and months, I could tell it was important to me.
There are multiple ways to layer in meaning.
Here are a few ideas for how you might reflect more deeply on the data. Pick one or two that resonate and just use those. I won’t try to use them all at once - I don’t.
Reflection Prompts:
Group activities and add a theme (like Movement, Life Admin, or Socializing)
Give an experience, expense, or activity a grade.
What were the highlights and accomplishments? What about lowlights or challenges?
What worked? What didn’t work?
What would you like to stop doing? Start doing? Continue doing? Do differently?
Questions to consider if you want to prune activities or costs:
How much time and energy would you put into starting this if you weren’t already doing it?
What things are you doing because you think you ‘should’ but you don’t enjoy doing or want to do any longer?
What activities have you outgrown or finished (at least for now)?
What truth does your calendar or spending reveal about what you value?
Gain Insights
The first pass of the data reveals the numbers and metrics. And that information can be helpful, but it is only a piece of the puzzle.
Reflection layers in meaning with the data. It adds depth and acts as a filter to process and distill insights.
The reflection process is full of brushstrokes, each building a full picture of your work, life, priorities, activities, and values of the last year.
Time and money are great starting points. Mapping relationships and connections add even more color and texture to the picture. Considering the context, community, and collective events that impact our lives helps frame our reflection as well.
One reason we reflect is to process the experiences, relationships, and activities that built our lives over this year. Reflecting lets us take a moment of pause to celebrate, commiserate, and witness the life we’ve lived.
Another reason we reflect is to use the insights we gained to inform our plans for what we’d like to make happen next.
That’s next time.
Rachel’s Highlights of 2024:
Daring Studios Business-Related
Building a client a massive bot-guided semester-long course for high-schoolers about how to be an adult and become a working professional.
Leaning into building IRL connections by joining a local coworking space - Cary Founded - and exploring events and communities in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Investing a lot of time and thought into building out my business foundations and strategy for the future.
Switched to ConvertKit (now Kit) and clarified my newsletter strategy.
Reworked my project management process by creating a Notion dashboard.
Updated the Daring Studios website and added offering pages.
Designing, building, and facilitating workshops for solopreneurs and visual practitioners.
Experimenting with a few new offerings (like the upcoming Embers) and learning a lot about how I need to give myself more time and invest more effort in marketing them.
Using the Calm Launch Formula as a blueprint for more successful future launches (Reminder for myself - It’s helpful to tell people about my work and market my offerings!).
Accepting my preference to do minimal social media marketing. So I need to be super clear and creative about the marketing strategies I invest time and money in (h/t to Off the Grid by
).Participating in a few supportive communities and programs including WAIM, being a co-organizer of the NovaScribes meetup, Nic Antoinette’s GSDC and her research project on How Much Money is Enough, and a few others.
Commenting and engaging more in online communities or publications on Substack and Slack.
Kicking off planning a 3-day conference called the Ampersand Gathering happening near DC next August.
Movement
Completing various strength programs on Peloton.
Training for and running a 5k this October.
Playing in volleyball and softball leagues March - October.
A smattering of yoga classes, especially during the winter months.
Learning & Growth
Spanish classes, piano lessons, and various writing workshops.
Nutrition coaching last spring.
A wood-turning class last February. I made a wooden bowl!
Adventures
Becoming an aunt for the first time. ♥️
Getting season tickets to watch the North Carolina women’s soccer team with a friend.
Various summer baseball games, float trips, and weekend retreats with friends.
Playing lots of board games from consistent Monday nights, various Saturday afternoons, and random board game nights with friends.
Creating a zine about napping for Evan’s BLZF.
Money
Paying off my 2021 Subaru Crosstrek this past June.
Using a $1,645 flight client from a canceled client project in 2023 to cover three different flights this year including a weekend in Vegas for a friend’s wedding celebration, a flight to attend a conference, and flying to Wisconsin to go camping with family this summer.
Earning enough money to support myself and my dog, including quite a lot of doggie day camps and various boarding when I’m traveling.
Random Highlights
My portable external monitor that connects to my laptop. It helps so much when I’m traveling or at my coworking space.
Low Lights of 2024:
Daring Studios Business-Related
Unexpectedly needing a new laptop last January. But I did have the money for it, so that’s good.
Paying to join three communities/programs this year that ended up not being a good fit. Two were purchases during the January/February time when I was craving more support. This year I’m experimenting with hosting my own - much lighter and more accessible - journaling and winter care club called Embers.
A few other client things.
Life
Three weeks of poison ivy. I do not recommend it.
The abrupt closing of the bar where the Monday night board game group would meet and having to find a different-not-quite-as-good new bar.
Also a few other life things.
World
I’ll just leave that there. A lot is going on in the world that…just no.
Truths
What’s your reflection process like if you have one? What truths did your reflections reveal about what you value?
I love this, Rachel! I'm going through a similar process - I'm over the cookie-cutter New Year's resolutions - I've had the same ones for years. At 65, it's time to make meaningful changes - I'm more aware that my number of opportunities to make real change are diminishing!
Really enjoyed reading this!