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Discussion on: Year-End Review of An Anonymous Developer

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elmuerte profile image
Michiel Hendriks

I think year-end reviews are bad. It is an arbitrary time-box, generally shifted too. The year is not even over yet, there are still a few more days left. Next time you do a year-end review you won't start at the point where you ended last time, basically throwing away part of the things you did.

Or what about something you started 2 weeks ago, but only after the 4 weeks you can reap its fruits. Does that count to the current or next time-box.

What instead of boxing the time in where the year digit changes we box it to every 128 days since UNIX Epoch (or any other arbitrary starting point.). Or half of that, every 0100 days. It is just as arbitrary, but it's a much shorter time span. So things you did 432000 minutes ago (300 days) is not partially forgotten and given much less attention/praise as the things you did 432000 seconds ago (5 days).

I also don't think the synchronization of reviews helps, especially for longer periods. I haven't created big waves in the recent months, but I'm building up something big. You can't reap the fruit yet. So am I worse than somebody who has delivered some nuts and berries last week?

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thecodetrane profile image
Michael Cain

I agree that the time box is arbitrary. I’d be happy to consider the “11/12ths year review” a matter of custom.

However arbitrary the chronology, I thinks it’s (ultimately) a good thing to review what you have done over “x” period of time to see where you have come from and where you’re going; it’s a valuable part of personal kaizen.