When I began writing my next book more than a year ago, on the topic of “annual life reviews,” I assumed that the practice was a fairly recent invention.

Maybe it came from the self-help movement of the 1970s. Or from corporate performance reviews. At most, I figured it might trace back to Ben Franklin or some other Enlightenment-era optimizer.

Yet, as I dove deeper and deeper into its history, I realized that I couldn’t have been further off the mark. What we think of as a modern productivity practice draws from three completely different traditions that have been evolving for thousands of years.

The English word “review” comes from the Middle French revoir, literally “to see again.” Every time we conduct an annual review, we’re participating in an ancient human ritual: the act of turning around to look at where we’ve been before continuing forward.

Fittingly, learning about the history behind the annual review caused me to see it in a whole new light. It fulfills a need so fundamental that nearly every culture in human history has developed some version of it.

Once you see these patterns, you can’t unsee them. Let me take you on a journey through time to show you what I mean.

The 4,000-Year-Old Productivity Hack

It’s 2000 BCE in ancient Babylon. 

Spring has arrived, farmers are planting their crops, and the entire civilization is engaged in a 12-day festival called Akitu. The Babylonian new year begins in mid-March, when they mark the milestone by planting their crops, crowning a new king, and most importantly for our purposes, making promises to their gods to pay back debts and return borrowed objects.

These are the first recorded “annual resolutions” in human history.

What strikes me about this ancient practice is how sophisticated it was. The Babylonians understood something that behavioral scientists are just now proving: combining practical actions (paying debts) with sacred meaning (promises to gods) creates powerful behavior change. They weren’t just organizing their finances—they were aligning their human affairs with cosmic order.

And they were doing this 4,000 years before anyone had heard of GTD or bullet journaling.

The Two-Faced God Who Saw Everything

Fast forward 2,000 years to ancient Rome, where things get even more interesting and recognizable.

By 153 BCE, the Romans had made January 1st the official start of the year, using that milestone to inaugurate their leaders, known as consuls. Over the next century or two, they developed a series of elaborate New Year rituals around that we continue in many ways to this day.

Those rituals weren’t just for commemorating another passing year. They constituted what I can only describe as ancient behavioral design. They believed that everything you did on New Year’s Day would set the pattern for your entire year. So they wore their best clothes, avoided quarreling, exchanged gifts, and performed symbolic acts of what they intended to do throughout the year.

As one classical text describes: “People took care that all they thought, said, and did, was pure and favorable, since everything was ominous for the occurrences of the whole year.”

Sound familiar? It’s a 2,000-year-old version of “fake it till you make it.” Millennia before modern psychology, the Romans had already discovered that acting “as if” could create one’s reality. They also incorporated “supernatural spring cleaning” and vows of renewal—combining physical clearing with psychological fresh starts.

The Romans dedicated January 1st to Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings, doors, and transitions. His two faces weren’t a sign of deception—they represented his ability to simultaneously see the past and future (If you’ve ever done an annual review, you know exactly what this feels like).

As I began to follow the thread of religious attitudes to temporal milestones, I discovered that spiritual traditions had developed some of the most sophisticated annual review systems, each one adding unique insights to the practice.

The Sacred Architecture of ChangeThe Jewish Innovation: Preparation Before Declaration

The Jewish High Holy Days offer a particularly refined approach. The ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur create a structured period for reflection and renewal. But my key takeaway came from what happens before: Jewish tradition includes a full month of preparation (Elul) before the new year even begins.

This addresses one of the fundamental challenges with modern resolutions—the unrealistic expectation that change happens instantly on January 1st. The Jewish calendar builds in time for gradual implementation, so new patterns are already taking root when the new year arrives.

The ritual of Tashlich—symbolically casting away sins by throwing breadcrumbs into flowing water—provides a physical action to represent internal transformation. The Machzor (High Holy Day prayer book) offers specific liturgies for self-examination. It’s a complete system for transformation, refined over millennia.

The Christian Watch Night: Collective Transformation

In 1740, Methodist founder John Wesley introduced Covenant Renewal Services on New Year’s Eve. These “watch night” services combined prayer, singing, and public resolutions for better Christian living.

The tradition gained historical significance on December 31, 1862—”Freedom’s Eve”—when enslaved people gathered in watch night services waiting for the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect and grant them freedom. This moment linked personal transformation with collective liberation, demonstrating how annual reviews can operate on both individual and societal levels.

The Christian tradition also offers an important linguistic insight. The Greek word metanoia, often translated as “repentance” in the Bible, actually means “a change of mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of outlook.” Renowned Biblical scholar A.T. Robertson called the translation of metanoia as mere repentance “a linguistic and theological tragedy” and “the worst translation in the New Testament.”

As Robertson explains: “John’s call was not to be sorry, but to change mental attitudes and conduct.” This distinction was a revelation for me, having been raised in a Christian household. Year-end rituals aren’t about feeling guilty or admitting your faults—they’re about reorientation.

The Eastern Path: Physical Clearing, Mental Renewal

Asian religions and cultures developed many practices that use physical actions to create psychological change.

China: During Lunar New Year, families thoroughly clean houses to sweep away bad luck, settle all debts, and perform rituals for prosperity. The Book of Rites (Liji) contains detailed renewal ceremonies. The emphasis is on removing negativity from the past year so the new year begins with positive energy.

Japan: Japanese culture offers multiple practices. Kakizome—the “first writing” of the year on January 2nd—involves writing auspicious characters in calligraphy that encapsulate annual themes. These are displayed publicly, creating accountability through visibility.

The practice of misogi goes deeper. Practitioners make pilgrimages to sacred waterfalls, performing preparatory fasting and prayers. They enter freezing water while chanting “harai tamae kiyome tamae rokkon shōjō“—asking the kami (spirits) to wash away impurity from the six elements that make up human existence. On New Year’s Eve (ōmisoka), temple bells ring 108 times to dispel earthly desires.

Iran: Persian Nowruz marks spring’s first day with khaneh tekani—thorough house cleaning that serves as both practical preparation and spiritual renewal. It’s amazing to see how many cultures thought it was important to connect annual rituals to natural cycles.

When Business Reinvented the Wheel

In modern times, the reflective practices born in a religious context migrated to the arena of business.

From Shareholders to Self-Development

The corporate world’s contribution began with the Dutch East India Company in 1602—the first corporation to issue shares and provide annual reports to shareholders. They created the very first model for public corporate accountability.

By 1837, the New York and New Haven Railroad produced one of the first modern annual reports with detailed financial statements and performance commentary, introducing the idea of an accompanying narrative to explain and frame business results. 

U.S. Steel’s more transparent 1903 report established the template still used by businesses today.

The Performance Review Evolution

In 1842, the U.S. Congress passed a law requiring businesses to conduct annual performance reviews of workers. By the 1940s, 60% of companies used them; by the 1960s, this rose to 90%, becoming a fixture of global business culture.

A performance review might include an employee’s key deliverables, competencies like teamwork and communication, training needs, and career aspirations.

The evolution of these reviews reflects changing philosophies about human nature and motivation. Early reviews were straightforward, top-down assessments mostly used for pay decisions. By the 1980s, Jack Welch at GE popularized “forced rankings”—stack-ranking employees against each other, often accompanied by dismissal of the lowest performers.

Recent research has revealed significant problems with the traditional approach to performance reviews:

One survey found that only 14% of employees strongly agreed that their performance review inspired them to improveThe same study found that reviews made performance worse about one-third of the timePsychologists Meyer, Kay, and French have found that critical feedback in an annual appraisal often harmed subsequent performance, mainly because it put employees on the defensive

That last study identified one reason performance reviews may not work: combining multiple goals in one conversation—evaluating for pay while coaching for development—can create conflicting purposes.

Influenced by new management thinking like Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y (emphasizing employee empowerment), reviews have evolved to include goal setting, career development, and coaching. Many companies have now moved away from annual reviews toward continuous feedback models, focusing on two-way dialogue and future-oriented development.

The Agile Revolution

A significant innovation came from software development in the 1990s and 2000s. Agile methodologies formalized “retrospectives”—regular team meetings following each work sprint. The Agile Manifesto (published in 2001) popularized retrospectives as an integral part of its iterative approach to building software.

These retrospectives, drawing from influences like After Action Reviews in the military and Japanese Kaizen principles, ask straightforward questions:

What worked well?What didn’t work?How can we improve?

The military’s “After Action Review” was another influence. It offered a structured approach to review the results of key missions, emphasizing transparency and learning from both successes and mistakes even in high-stakes scenarios.

This shift from individual judgment to collective learning transformed thinking about reviews. This idea of regular, systematic review and refinement was later adopted in a wide variety of other industries, emphasizing that ongoing reflection can drive productivity and innovation.

The Modern Media Transformation

Most recently, the reflective practices that were once private or at least internal to a company became pieces of media that were openly shared, published, and celebrated.

When Reviews Became Public

The phrase “year in review” appeared in print as far back as 1888, and by 1897, it was used in business reports to describe a recap of the year’s accomplishments. But it was only in the 21st century that they became a widespread cultural phenomenon.

Facebook’s automated “Year in Review” videos (which compile a user’s most popular photos and posts) and Spotify’s “Wrapped” playlists (summarizing a user’s music listening habits for the year) brought the year-in-review to the individual level, turning personal reflection into shareable content. Annual reviews shifted from private exercises to public performances.

Annual reviews combined with life coaching and positive psychology became a popular fixture online, with content creators, entrepreneurs, and other public figures commonly sharing narrative-style “year in review” blog posts, sometimes as letters to their future or past selves. 

They perform personal SWOT analyses and apply KPIs to personal goals (“I aimed to read 20 books and read 15; that’s 75% of target”). Habit tracking apps provide year-end summaries of one’s progress, and photo books can be printed on demand. AI tools can now digitize your handwriting from a journal or diary and make it available for further analysis using Large Language Models.

Academia contributed its own tradition—”annual reviews” are scholarly articles that summarize a scientific field’s progress over the past year, helping experts catch up with cumulative knowledge. This tradition contributed the idea that annual reviews could be used as a teaching tool, to share insights with an interested community of peers or colleagues.

The Eternal Human PatternA Century of Familiar Themes

Historical records reveal that the resolutions people were making 100 years ago were remarkably similar to the ones we commit to today. Early 20th-century postcards include examples of people resolving to:

“Cultivate cheerfulness”“Repel promptly every thought of anxiety”“Use the most up-to-date selling methods”Swear lessHave a more cheerful dispositionRecommit to GodLive a “sincere and serene life”“Repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking”“Smile when you fall down and out”“Keep a diary”

A 1911 cigarette ad suggested men “Stop kissing other people’s girls.” Journalist Ida Wells ended the year 1887 with a relatable feeling: “I am so overwhelmed with the little I have done for the one who has done so much for me & I resolve to … work for the master [i.e. God].” (She apparently stuck with it, too, teaching Sunday school in her hometown of Memphis for much of her life.)

Anne Halkett, a writer and Scottish aristocrat, titled a page in her 1671 diary “Resolutions,” coining the term for the first time, and pledging to “I will not offend any more.” By 1813, when a Boston newspaper coined the full phrase “New Year resolutions,” it observed skeptically that people “will sin all the month of December, with a serious determination of beginning the new year with new resolutions… with the full belief that they shall thus expiate and wipe away all their former faults.”

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette concluded in 1913: “The mischief is that this fascination doesn’t as a rule last longer than the first twenty-four hours! … Frail is human nature!” 

Apparently, the phenomenon of setting ambitious resolutions only to forget about them 24 hours later was already well-known a century ago!

The Seven Universal Patterns

After studying these traditions across cultures and millennia, seven consistent patterns emerge:

1. Temporal Landmarks Create Fresh Starts

Every culture ties reviews to natural cycles—spring planting, winter solstice, lunar calendars. These markers create psychological breaks with the past, making it easier to change one’s thinking or behavior and make it stick.

2. Physical Clearing Enables Mental Renewal

From Roman “supernatural spring cleaning” to Chinese debt-settling to Japanese waterfall purification—lasting traditions include physical actions representing internal transformation. External order facilitates internal clarity.

3. Preparation Beats Declaration

Effective traditions include preparation periods: Jewish Elul, Chinese pre-New Year cleaning, corporate planning cycles. Real change begins before the official “start date.”

4. Public Commitment Drives Private Change

Whether Babylonian promises to gods, Japanese calligraphy displays, or Instagram posts—visible commitments increase follow-through. There are fewer forces more powerful than social accountability.

5. Individual Transformation Requires Collective Support

Strong traditions—African American watch nights, agile retrospectives, Japanese group purifications—recognize that personal change amplifies in community. Isolation undermines resolutions; connection sustains them.

6. The Practical and Spiritual Must Integrate

Successful year-end rituals combine concrete actions (paying debts, setting goals) with deeper meaning (values alignment, spiritual renewal). Neither element alone suffices. The Babylonians understood this 4,000 years ago, yet we’ve largely forgotten it today.

7. Honesty and Hope Must Balance

Every tradition combines a clear assessment of the past with an optimistic vision for the future. It requires neither harsh judgment nor wishful thinking, but clear-eyed hope.

What History Teaches Us About Change

This 4,000-year history shows how each era adds sophistication while maintaining the essential core. We’ve evolved from:

Babylonian debt-settling to financial goal-settingRoman festivities to Facebook celebrationsReligious confession to data-driven assessmentAgricultural cycles to fiscal quartersCommunity rituals to online accountability groups

Yet the fundamental human need remains constant: to periodically stop, see where we’ve been, and consciously choose where we’re going.

Annual reviews aren’t a modern productivity hack—they’re a fundamental human practice refined over millennia. Every culture discovered the same truth: we need structured moments to “see again,” to close one chapter and open another.

The question isn’t whether annual reviews work—4,000 years of human behavior suggest they serve an essential function. The question is: How can we design them to actually create the change we seek?

That’s what I’ll be exploring in my upcoming book. For now, consider this:

When you sit down for your next annual review—whether using my template, a journal, or quiet reflection—you’re not just doing a productivity exercise. You’re participating in an unbroken chain of human practice stretching back to ancient Babylon. You’re honoring the deep human need to periodically see again, to witness where you’ve been, and to choose where you’re going.

In that lies both the courage to acknowledge what was and the hope to imagine what might be.

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