quarterly review
Quarterly Review Template: Questions for Your Next 90 Days
Ninety days is long enough to see change and short enough to adjust. This template gives you the questions, the order and a schedule for a quarterly review you can finish in about 90 minutes.
What a Quarterly Review Is For
A weekly review answers "what does next week need?" A quarterly review answers a bigger question: is this still the right plan? Ninety days is long enough to see whether something is changing and short enough to adjust before a year has gone by. It is the middle layer of a personal review system.
Look back over the last 90 days with five questions, rate each of the eight life dimensions from 1 to 10, choose one to three focus areas for the next quarter, make each one specific, pause something to make room, and schedule the next review. It takes about 60 to 90 minutes.
Before You Start
Gather three things: your weekly notes from the last 12 weeks, your calendar for the quarter, and your most recent ratings for the eight dimensions. If you do not have ratings yet, the free Wheel of Life tool gives you a starting snapshot in a couple of minutes. A quiet hour and a fixed place help; so does deciding the date in advance, since a plan that names when and where is more likely to be carried out (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).
The Template
Gather what you need
Collect your weekly notes from the last 12 weeks, your calendar, and your last set of life dimension ratings. If you have no ratings yet, take a quick snapshot now.
Look back with five questions
Answer five questions in a few lines each: what am I glad I did, what did I plan that did not happen, what took more energy than expected, who did I spend time with, and what surprised me.
Rate the eight dimensions
Rate each dimension from 1 to 10 for now and for 90 days ago, and write one line about the biggest change. Look at direction, not the numbers.
Choose one to three focus areas
Pick the areas that matter most for the next 90 days. Everything else stays on maintenance: you keep it going without setting new goals for it.
Make each focus specific
For each focus, write the outcome you want, the first step, and when and where you will do it, in the form: when this happens, I will do that.
Decide what to pause, then schedule
Choose one or two commitments to pause or drop to make room. Put your weekly reviews and the date of the next quarterly review in your calendar.
Step 2 in detail: five look-back questions
- What am I glad I did this quarter?
- What did I plan that did not happen, and what does that tell me about the plan?
- What took more energy than I expected?
- Who did I spend time with, and who did I not get to?
- What surprised me?
Keep each answer to a few lines. The point is to notice patterns, not to write a report.
Step 3 in detail: rate the eight dimensions
Copy this table into your notes and fill it in.
| Dimension | 90 days ago | Now | One line on what changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | |||
| Mind | |||
| Relationships | |||
| Work | |||
| Finances | |||
| Learning | |||
| Rest | |||
| Purpose |
These ratings are a quick personal read, not a measurement. A drop of a point or two is a reason to ask a question, not a reason to worry. For how to read the shape, see the wheel of life explained.
Choosing Focus Areas
The most common quarterly mistake is choosing too many. Eight dimensions can feel like eight goals, but attention is limited. Pick one to three focus areas, and let the rest run on maintenance: you do what keeps them steady and set no new targets.
Be specific about what each focus means. Goal-setting research (Locke and Latham, 2002) finds that specific, challenging goals tend to lead to better performance than vague "do your best" goals, although most of that work was done in workplaces. In practice it means "walk after lunch on weekdays" tells you more than "get healthier", and "talk to one friend each week" tells you more than "improve my relationships". Health and money targets here are examples of structure, not advice; set ones that suit your situation, and talk to a professional about anything medical or financial.
If you like objectives with measurable results, personal OKRs by life dimension shows how to write focus areas that way.
Pausing Something
Adding a focus area without removing anything else is how a quarter fills up. Choose one or two commitments to pause, shrink or hand off, and write down when you will look at them again. If nothing can go, that is worth knowing too: it tells you the plan needs to be smaller.
Doing It in Xenith
Xenith does not run the review for you. It keeps what you enter so you can look back.
- Life Dimensions holds your weekly 1 to 10 rating for each dimension with a four-week trend, which is handy for the "now" column. See Life Dimensions.
- Insights shows a balance radar of those ratings. See Insights.
- Reflection keeps daily entries you can search when you do the look-back. See Reflection Journal.
- Intentions can be tagged to a dimension, so your weekly priorities can follow the quarter's focus.
The in-app dimension view covers recent weeks, so save your quarterly table in your own notes to compare quarter against quarter.
After the Review
Do two things before you close the document: put the next quarterly review and your weekly reviews in your calendar, and write the one or two things you will do in the first week. A review that ends with a scheduled first step is much more likely to change anything. At the end of the year, your four quarterly notes are most of the annual review.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a quarterly review?
A quarterly review is a longer check-in once every three months where you look back at the last 90 days, rate how each area of life is going, and choose what to focus on and what to pause for the next 90. It sits between the weekly review, which steers the next week, and the yearly review.
How long does a quarterly review take?
Plan for about 60 to 90 minutes. That is a suggestion, not a research finding. If you keep a one-line note from each weekly review, the look-back goes much faster.
When should I do it?
In the last week of the quarter or the first days of the next one, such as the end of March, June, September and December. If a calendar quarter does not fit your life, any 13-week cycle works.
What if the quarter did not go to plan?
That is useful information about the plan. Ask what got in the way, whether the goal was the right size, and what would make the next 90 days more realistic. The review is for adjusting the plan, not for judging you.
Sources
- Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: a 35-year odyssey (Locke and Latham, 2002), American Psychologist, via the American Psychological Association
Summarizes decades of research finding that specific, challenging goals tend to lead to better performance than vague 'do your best' goals, mostly studied in work settings.
- Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, via ScienceDirect
Meta-analysis of if-then plans (implementation intentions) and goal attainment; reports a medium-to-large effect.
Put it into practice in Xenith
Keep reading
Personal Review System: Weekly, Quarterly and Yearly Reviews That Fit Together
One big yearly reset is easy to skip and hard to act on. Three short layers, each with its own question, work better together. Here is what each layer is for and how to set them up.
The Weekly Review System: A 30-Minute Template for Clarity and Balance
Stop losing weeks to drift. This weekly review system takes 30 minutes and gives you a clear signal on where your life is and where it's going, every seven days.
Personal OKRs: How to Set Objectives and Key Results Across Your Life
OKRs were built for companies, but the structure works for a person if you keep it small. Here is how to write personal objectives and key results, with examples across the eight life dimensions.
How to Rate Your Life Balance: The Wheel of Life Explained
The Wheel of Life gives you an instant picture of where your life is thriving and where it's neglected. This guide covers how to do it right and what to do with the results.
Annual Review Template: How to Review Your Year and Plan the Next
Instead of a list of resolutions, an annual review looks at what the year actually held. Here is a process, questions for each area of life, and a way to turn it into a plan for the first quarter.