Best Results Organizing

The unexamined life is not worth living. 
~ Socrates

WRAPPING UP PAPER DOLL’S 2025

There’s no getting away from your annual review. 

It all started with an email from Spotify Wrapped. Spotify was one of the first online platforms to sum up a user’s habits and achievements for the past year, and people seem to love sharing this bit of self-knowledge. Mine tells me that my top artist was The Floating Men, a group I first saw in concert in 1993, in what we used to quaintly call record stores. I need no app rewind to know this music is the soundtrack to my life, but as a whole, it’s left to me to interpret that I haven’t listened to much new music lately (unless it’s in the background of a TikTok).

Spotify tells me my top artists and songs, how many minutes I listened, and even my listening age, which they peg at 47, not because I’m almost a dozen years more youthful than my actual age, but because I listened most to songs from the 1990s. (While Spotify didn’t bother to mention it, I’m able to see that I’m geographically diverse, with my most listened to music from the Southeastern United States, Canada, the UK, Sweden, and the Pacific Northwest.)

A few days ago, Goodreads sent me my 2025 Year in Review statistics. Breathlessly, it reported that I’d finished 37 books and 9620 pages this year (though it’s already out of date after a holiday week spending reading) and that I’m a top 10% reviewer. (I doubt that’s a qualitative description. Given the length of my blog posts, I think we can just assume it means I write really long book reviews.)

It also lets me know I’m just a handful of pages short of hitting my 2025 Goodreads Challenge goal, so I’d better finish this blog post and get back to reading!

Duolingo started emailing around Thanksgiving, and I don’t love that my year in review is only actually 11 months of data. It’s true that I faithfully studied Italian and Spanish every day of 2025. Thankfully, Duolingo’s year in review kindly avoids mentioning that I quit learning chess after two weeks because — and this is embarrassing for a professional organizer to admit — my sense of spatial orientation and ability to recall which way some pieces move was woeful.

It also ignores the fact that although I tried to learn Portuguese as well as Spanish in advance of my September travels, I somehow failed to learn that when you say thank you (obrigado or obrigada), the gendered form of the word depends on your gender, not the recipient of your gratitude. No wonder I got some funny looks at the airport when I was just trying to be polite!

Even Jimmy John’s is telling me how many (and which) sandwiches I consumed in 2025!

Entertaining and accurate as they may be, how helpful are these backward glances?

Sure, they let me easily click to brag a bit about my accomplishments, but what goes unmentioned (and without fancy graphics) is at least as important; we need to know where we fall down if we hope to get back up!

After five years of averaging close to 11,000 steps by day, I fell significantly short in 2025. Fitbit tells me when I hit my goals, but stares off into the distance and politely ignores that I’ve been slacking off a bit this year.

WordPress, my blogging platform, doesn’t make an annual review easy, and I am avoiding (and wouldn’t believe) ChatGPT in this regard. So, I had to manually count and scroll. Counting this post, I only wrote 30 completely new (non-refreshed) posts this year, versus 40+ in most years of the past half decade. Some of that was intentional, as I’d decided not to publish on holiday Mondays or while traveling, but it ignores that I also took off the entire month of October after I returned from Europe, polishing older posts but not writing new ones. It’s up to me to figure out what that means in terms of motivation and productivity.

And that’s what an annual review is all about.

THE EXAMINED LIFE: BEYOND THE STATS

What if we look beyond the numbers? Professionally, I can (and do) count how many new clients I worked with this past year, and how many “graduated.” But numbers don’t paint the full picture. When we look at the qualitative vs. the quantitative, we see trends.

When I began blogging in 2017, I was focused almost entirely on paper. Since then, I have expanded my reach each year, covering topics from financial organizing to productivity, motivation to time management. Although I work with residential as well as business clients, I tend to leave blogging about residential organizing to my excellent colleagues.

Each month, Janet Barclay curates the Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival. I’ve been delighted to reach Megastar Blogger status, having had 50+ of my posts in monthly carnivals, and I’m working my way toward Ultimate Star status, but with only 12 months in the year, it’ll take a while to hit 100 posts. 

In December, Janet curates the Best of 2025, where each participant explains why, among the posts they’ve written, they consider that one to be their best, and the definitions vary widely. 

“Best” posts in the December 2025 Productivity & Organizing Blog Carnival covered a wide spectrum of topics: useful concepts about ADHD and kitchen gadget clutter, joyfully embracing change and organizing with spreadsheets, intuition vs. pro/con lists and knowing when to slow down. 

Most years, I consider my “best” post based on the quality of writing or how much humor I could pack into one post. However, pressed to describe my best of 2025, I picked a post from late summer, Organize and Lower Your Medical Bills: Spot Errors, Negotiate Costs, and Save Money. Why? Because the impact current events are having on people’s finances and health means this kind of advice is useful and important. While I can count the number of views or comments on a post, I can’t quantify the value of that post vs. others.

Beyond my official “best” post, however, I tried to come up with a Paper Doll 2025 Top 10 List but only got as far as these eight: 

1. Paper Doll on the Power of a DONE List 
2. Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Memento Mori and Appreciating Your Time
3. Global Day of Unplugging 2025: Phones and Apps to Reduce Phone Use and Improve Your Life
4. Digital Disaster Prep: How to Organize Your Tech Info Before You Need It
5. How to Track, Lower, or Cancel Your Recurring Subscription-Based Bills
6. Paper Doll Celebrates National Clean Off Your Desk Day
7. Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Organizing Yourself to Get a REAL ID
8. How to Use Time Tracking to Improve Your Productivity

Why only eight? Not because I didn’t love any of the other posts, but because some were silly, some were time-specific, and mostly, because just as every mother loves her children, my posts are my babies, and when you have twins or triplets or quintuplets, you can’t easily pick among them. Thus, my Paper Doll 2025 Year in Review “best” list is eight posts — plus two series. So sue me!

• How to Use Timers for Improved Productivity and Focus — Part 1
• How to Use Timers for Improved Productivity and Focus — Part 2: Picking a Good Timer 
• How to Use Timers for Improved Productivity and Focus — Part 3: Tangible Timers
• How to Use Timers for Improved Productivity and Focus — Part 4: Digital Timers
• How to Use Timers for Improved Productivity — Part 5: Hybrid Timers and Bonus Material

and

• Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking (Part 1)
• Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking in Lectures & Presentations (Part 2)
• Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking for Learning and Creative Projects (Part 3)

EXAMINING YOUR OWN LIFE

When Socrates spoke of the lack of value of an unexamined life, he wasn’t thinking about Spotify Wrapped or “Best of” lists, of course. He knew that looking at where you’ve been is merely the first step in deciding how you will live going forward.

Find the Treasure

Over the past several years, blogging about reviewing the past year and planning for the next one, I’ve come up with a list of questions I think offer a path to living the examined life. However, once you hit December, it’s hard to recall powerful happenings closer to the beginning of the year, so you may need some assistance in your re-examination.

Start by looking at your calendar. That’s where you put the things you intended to do, so it’s a great starting framework. Most of the events on your calendar actually happened, or you would probably have crossed them off or moved them.

Many of the successes and achievements in life are unplanned, however, so try to find the mini-recaps you did all through the year, even without realizing that’s what they were.

Scroll through emails and texts you sent, and flip through the pages of your diary or journal, if you have one. Rereading messages you shared may offer insight into what mattered (and how you dealt with it) during the year.

Pull up the photo library on your phone and navigate to January 2025. Scroll forward and I bet you’ll be surprised by achievements and delights that seasoned your year.

The key is to remember more of the past year than just cold, hard statistics. 

For example, after a quiet December, my initial instinct was to think that my personal year was fairly flat. However, reviewing my personal calendar and photos immediately reminded me that in addition to my big trip to Portugal and Spain, I also:

• saw Hamilton with my friend Chris,
• flew to visit Paper Mommy,
• attended my 40th high school reunion,
• road-tripped to Massachusetts for my friend Phil’s vow renewal,
• and after 15+ years of not having seen The Floating Men perform, I went to three shows! 

(Perhaps we’ll need to examine how developing a gratitude practice may be the key to remembering more of the highlights of each year.)

See the Whole Picture

When I looked back at my professional year, I’d only focused on clients and blogging, but my calendar showed me the podcasts I’d appeared on and the speaking engagements I’d done. And when I went back through the emails in my “Success Folder,” I was able to read testimonials for the real change that organizing and productivity coaching made in my clients’ lives. (Don’t have a “Success Folder” of your own? Don’t worry, I’ll have an upcoming blog post on that!)

It’s too easy to erase the good stuff from our brains and focus on the negative. When I started my annual review, my first thoughts were about how two different people hit-and-ran my car 48 hours apart and my disappointment with myself for not doing more and varied marketing this year. But those are just snapshots, not the whole picture.

In a discussion about public reputation, a beloved boss once told me that, “One ‘Aw, <bleep>’ wipes out ten ‘Atta boys’  — but your reputation in your own mind is just as likely to bury the gold under that <bleep>ing manure.

So, answer these in your head, aloud by yourself, or with a yearly review buddy, or try journaling your responses. Give yourself the opportunity to find the truth of your past year.

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The Good

• What challenges made me feel smart, empowered, or proud of myself this year?
• What did I create?
• What positive relationships did I begin or nurture?
• Who brought delight to my life?
• Who stepped up or stepped forward for me?
• What was my biggest personal highlight or moment I’d like to relive? 
• What was my biggest professional moment I’d want to appear in my bio?
• What’s a good habit I developed this year?

The Neutral

• What did I learn about myself and/or my work this year? 
• What did I learn how to do this year?
• What did neglect or avoid doing out of fear or self-doubt?
• What did I take on that didn’t suit my goals or my abilities?
• What was I wrong about? 

The Ugly

• What challenges made me feel weaker or less-than?
• Whom did I dread having to see or speak with this year?
• Who let me down?
• Whom did I let down?
• What did I do this year that embarrassed me (professionally or personally) or made me cringe? 
• When did I hide my light under a bushel? 
• What am I faking knowing how how do? — Instead of pretending you know how to do something but are choosing a different path, ask for help. Make decision about what to do from a position of strength rather than weakness.
• What’s a bad habit I regret taking up or continuing?
• Where did I spend my time wastefully or unproductively? (It’s social media. For all of us.)
• Where did I spend my money wastefully or unwisely? 

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WHAT SHOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR ANNUAL REVIEW?

Use What You Learn

If all you did was answer these questions as if they were a series of college essays, it might be instructive, but it wouldn’t be powerful. Instead, use your answers as guideposts for what’s to come (or what you wish will come).

For example, when there are people or activities that make you feel smart, bold, and fierce, look for ways to add more of that in the year to come. Did human connection make you realize you know more than you thought you did? How can you find opportunities to spend more time with people who challenge you (in all the right ways)?

When you see an obstacle, look for a phrase or quote to help stiffen your backbone. For example, in the years when I had too many answers to the question, “When did I hide my light under a bushel,” I stuck a sticky-note on my mirror quoting Nelson Mandela:

“Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?

It’s OK if you were wrong about things, ideas, or people, but how will you secure your chances at figuring out the truth and making better decisions going forward? 

Let your answers about last year guide how you approach next year.

Try Year Compass

Obviously, you don’t have to go with my questions. One of the best platforms to review your year is Year Compass. It’s free, available in 63 languages, and you can download it as a printable booklet and fill in by hand on paper or type in a fillable, printable PDF.

The first half of Year Compass involves paging through your calendar, as I’ve suggested, and answering just six essay-style questions:

• What are you most proud of?
• Who are the three people who influenced you the most?
• Who are the three people you influenced the most?
• What were you not able to accomplish?
• What is the best thing you have discovered about yourself?
• What are you most grateful for?

But that’s merely the beginning.

Year Compass nudges you through a discovery of the best moments of your past year so you can analyze your biggest accomplishments and challenges. It also creates space for forgiveness and compassion (towards yourself and others) and for recapping your year in ways that I’ve never seen on any other annual review platform. Year Compass also takes the insights from the first half part of the process to help you design your dreams and actions for the coming year. 

“My Secret Plan to Rule the World” Photo by Ann H on Pexels

Value Your Values

Socrates was obviously wise; in addition to his recognition of the importance of examining one’s life, he said, “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.” Only you can decide what defines a “good” life for you, your family, and your inner circle, but centering your future behavior on activities that reflect those values is a pretty good way to organize how your approach. 

I encourage clients to take time to spell out exactly what their values are. However, it’s not always easy to define — and prioritize — our values. If you could use a little support in identifying the values that matter most to you, consider these resources:

• Core Values List (50) — Put together by James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits 
• The Ultimate List of Core Values (Over 230) — Created by CEOSage coach Scott Jeffrey.
• Dare To Lead List of Values (118) — Shared by Brené Brown, the author of Daring Greatly, as well as Daring to Lead, Rising Strong, and The Gifts of Imperfection
• Ultimate Core Values List: 50 Common Values and Why They Are Important in Our Lives — Collated by Nir Eyal, the author of Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

No matter how many quizzes I take or versions of these lists I peruse, my values always come out the same. Can you guess? Paper Doll‘s top three values are knowledge, usefulness, and humor.

Please feel free to share your own key values in the comments, below.

HOW TO WRAP UP LAST YEAR FOR THE BEST SHOT AT THE NEW YEAR

This time of year is about endings and beginnings. If you like to start a year with a clean slate, you may want to read Use the Zeigarnik Effect to Finish Off Your Unfinished Tasks, the final post I wrote in 2025 to help you close those last open loops.

Longtime readers may have noticed that I did not talk in-depth about resolutions, goals, and annual themes. In 2025, I started the year with those concepts, so I will just direct you to How to Use Cathedral Thinking and Intentional Words to Organize Your Year for inspiration to create an intentional life in 2026.

But I will tell you that I’ve very excited about my theme word for the coming year: WHIMSY. Most of us found 2025 to be a pretty “heavy” year, and a little lightness and charm is exactly what I want, and what I hope to continue bringing to you wonderful readers next year.

Until we meet again, I hope you all have a very happy, healthy, organized, and productive New Year!