I used to think annual reviews were for corporate drones and tax accountants. Then my life imploded spectacularly during what should have been my most productive quarter.
Fall 2019. I was running three projects simultaneously while ignoring the warning signs: declining sleep quality, relationship tension, and the strange eye twitch that appeared whenever I opened my calendar. By December, I was a hollowed-out version of myself staring at the wreckage of missed deadlines and forgotten commitments.
That’s when I discovered the power of seasonal transitions. Not just as moments to delete emails or clear desktop files, but as deliberate pauses to realign everything that matters.
The Quarterly Illusion
Most productivity systems push quarterly reviews because they align with business cycles. That’s fine for corporations, terrible for humans.
Nature doesn’t operate on fiscal quarters. Neither should you.
The seasonal approach works better because:
- It aligns with natural energy fluctuations
- Provides more meaningful transition points
- Connects your productivity to something deeper than arbitrary dates
- Creates four distinctly different review contexts throughout the year
When you follow seasons rather than quarters, you’re acknowledging that you’re a biological creature living in a physical world, not just a productivity machine trying to maximize output.
Season-Specific Reviews
Each season invites a different type of reset, with its own focus and energy. Here’s how to harness each one:
Spring (Renewal)
Focus area: Projects and creative endeavors
Spring is when you plant seeds. This makes it ideal for:
- Launching new creative projects
- Evaluating which current projects deserve continued attention
- Clearing creative blocks that accumulated during winter’s introspection
My spring reset always begins with a “project audit” where I evaluate everything currently active against three criteria:
- Does it still energize me?
- Is it creating value (monetary or otherwise)?
- Does it align with this year’s theme?
Anything that gets three “no” answers gets composted. Last spring, this process helped me abandon two projects that were draining my energy but that I’d been reluctant to release because of sunk costs.
Summer (Expansion)
Focus area: Relationships and network
Summer energy naturally pulls us outward. Use this season to:
- Strengthen key relationships that may have been neglected
- Evaluate your social circles for energy vampires
- Reset boundaries that have become too rigid or too porous
A tool I use every summer is the “relationship energy map” – a simple spreadsheet with three columns:
- Names of people I interact with regularly
- Energy score (-5 to +5, with negative numbers for draining interactions)
- Action (Deepen, Maintain, Restructure, or Release)
Last summer, I was shocked to discover that 40% of my regular interactions were net-negative energy exchanges. That revelation alone transformed my productivity for the rest of the year.
Fall (Harvest)
Focus area: Systems and workflows
Fall is when farmers harvest what they’ve grown. For knowledge workers, it’s time to:
- Evaluate which systems are working and which aren’t
- Upgrade tools that are creating friction
- Document processes that you’ve evolved but haven’t formalized
Every fall, I run what I call a “friction audit.” For one week, I keep a small notebook handy and write down every instance where my tools, systems, or workflows create resistance. The following week becomes “friction removal week” where I systematically address each point of resistance.
Winter (Reflection)
Focus area: Values and direction
Winter naturally draws us inward. It’s the perfect season to:
- Reassess core values and whether your actions align with them
- Review the year’s achievements against your definition of success
- Set themes (not just goals) for the coming year
The most powerful winter reset technique I’ve found is the “alternative lives exercise.” I spend an afternoon writing detailed descriptions of three completely different lives I could be living instead of my current one. This never fails to clarify what I truly value versus what I’ve been mindlessly pursuing.
Technology that Supports Seasonal Thinking
For those deep in the Apple ecosystem, seasonal resets benefit from several platform-specific advantages:
- Focus modes can be created for each season’s primary focus area
- Shortcuts can automate season-specific review workflows
- Tagged notes in Apple Notes can be filtered by season for easier retrieval
- Time Machine makes it safe to do radical system clean-outs
I’ve created a shortcut that runs my entire seasonal reset process, from gathering data to creating the new season’s dashboard. The key is that it eliminates the activation energy required to start the reset process.
However, the tools matter far less than the intentionality behind them. A paper journal and a quiet afternoon can be just as effective as the most sophisticated digital system.
The Reset Ritual
A proper seasonal reset isn’t just a checklist—it’s a ritual. The difference matters.
Checklists get things done. Rituals transform who you are.
My reset ritual includes:
- Physical space clearing — I rearrange my workspace to signal the shift
- Digital decluttering — Beyond just deleting files, I reassess which apps deserve prime real estate
- Calendar purge — I question every recurring meeting and standing commitment
- Theme selection — I choose one word to guide the coming season
- Boundary reset — I redefine what constitutes an emergency worthy of interruption
For creative professionals, these rituals become particularly powerful when they’re aligned with your creative cycles. A photographer friend times her seasonal resets with portfolio updates. A novelist I know aligns his with the completion of major manuscript sections.
When Life Disrupts the Seasons
Sometimes life doesn’t respect seasonal boundaries. Major events—a new job, relationship change, health crisis—warrant their own resets.
I call these “forced resets,” and they follow a compressed version of the seasonal protocol. The key difference is acknowledging the emotional component. Forced resets require grief work for what’s been lost before you can properly design what comes next.
Two years ago, a major client unexpectedly closed their business, taking 40% of my income with them. My forced reset began with three days of allowing pure disappointment before moving into rebuilding mode. Skipping the emotional acknowledgment would have left that energy lingering, contaminating whatever came next.
Avoiding the Reset Trap
There’s a dark side to resets that productivity gurus rarely mention: they can become a form of procrastination.
I’ve known people (myself included) who spend more time resetting and refining their systems than actually using them to create value.
The warning signs are clear:
- You get more excited about new organizational tools than your actual work
- You’ve had more than two major system overhauls in the past year
- You can explain your productivity system in greater detail than your current projects
If that sounds familiar, you need a different kind of reset—one that focuses on shipping work rather than organizing it.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The hardest lesson I’ve learned about seasonal resets is that they sometimes reveal truths you’ve been avoiding.
When you clear away the digital clutter, calendar chaos, and system complexity, you’re left facing what really matters. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable.
Your seasonal review might reveal that:
- You’ve been pursuing goals that no longer align with your values
- Certain relationships are beyond repair
- The career path you’ve been on isn’t taking you where you want to go
This isn’t a bug in the system. It’s the whole point. The seasonal reset creates a container safe enough to hold these difficult truths.
Starting Your Seasonal Practice
You don’t need fancy tools or complex systems to begin. Start with these simple steps:
- Block half a day at the start of the next seasonal change
- Find a space different from your normal work environment
- Bring something to write with (analog often works better for this)
- Ask yourself: What needs to end? What needs to begin? What needs to continue?
- Create concrete actions for each answer
That’s it. The sophistication can come later.
The power isn’t in the complexity of your system but in the consistency of your practice. As the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman once said, “Discipline is a beautiful word. It has nothing to do with harshness, nothing to do with severity. It’s about bringing order into your life.”
Your season is changing, whether you acknowledge it or not. The only question is whether you’ll drift into it or steer deliberately through the transition.
Choose to steer.