Don't set unrealistic new year's resolutions. First, conduct a personal annual review to reflect on the year gone by, so you understand yourself and can set achievable, practical, and fulfilling goals.

Productivity guru James Clear says there are three things an annual review should answer: what went well, what didn't go well, and what are you working towards. While this simplicity is great, when you actually start, you might be stumped as to how to conduct a personal review. Don't worry, these apps are here to take you step by step through the self-review process at the end of the year.

1. Todoist Annual Review (Template, GDoc): 6 Areas of Personal Review and Reflection

Todoist's free guide to conduct an annual personal review breaks your life into six key areas to reflect upon and set reflection-based goals

Todoist, one of the best to-do apps, also hosts an excellent blog on improving productivity. Their guide on how to complete your own annual review strikes upon some great insights. Plus, you don't need to be a Todoist user either, as they've made the exercise available as a Google Docs template for anyone.

Todoist recommends breaking down your review into six main areas: work, productivity, health, finances, relationships, and learning. For each area, it also recommends a set of data points to gather before you start. Since each area is independent of the other, you can look at doing this annual review over a week, dedicating one day to each, and keeping one or two more days for reflection and planning.

For each section, Todoist tasks you with a few contemplation exercises, and then answer a few questions. The idea is to reflect upon these and come up with new goals based on what you learn about yourself. Todoist says these reflection-based goals are a much more realistic way to accomplish your new year's resolutions.

Follow this link to get the annual review exercise as a Todoist template or a GDoc template.

2. Reflection (Web, Android, iOS, macOS): Guided Journal App for Personal Annual Review

Reflection is a free digital journal that includes a guided annual review to reflect and assess on the year gone by

Reflection is one of the best journaling apps for macOS and phones, and also runs on any computer through the browser. It's completely free and offers a few guides to handhold you through the journaling process, including an excellent personal annual review guide.

The annual review works best if you are already using a journal (ideally in Reflection itself), but you can still use it as a complete beginner, or take thoughts from any other diary. The guide takes you through three parts to review the year gone by. First, you'll record meaningful moments as prompted by the app. For every entry, you need to mark it as a highlight, lowlight, or free-write, and add tags for sections.

Then you'll mark highlights and low points to figure out how you react and what matters to you. Finally, you'll review your holistic wellness for the year in phases such as mind, body, love, soul, work, and play. These last questions are where you dig deep and truly reflect on the year gone by, in order to find what you need to set as goals for the next year.

Download: Reflection for Android | iOS | macOS (Free)

3. New Year Notebook (Android, iOS): Step-by-Step Year-End Review and New Year Planning

Leadership coaches Dare Be designed an app exclusively for annual personal reviews for anyone, and it's completely free. New Year Notebook takes any individual step-by-step through the process of a year-end review to reflect, and then set a concrete plan for the upcoming year.

The app makes it a point to tell the user to dedicate some time to this activity and get into the right space before starting. After setting up in a good place, it will take you through a four-minute mindfulness meditation exercise to set a zone of reflection.

Then you begin on the year gone by, still titled 2020 in the app. While it hasn't been updated, it works exactly the same if you just mentally substitute the currently changing years. You'll find zones to reflect on one by one, like impressions, calendar cues, COVID, big moments, challenges, accomplishments, farewells, forgiveness, and more. Each of these has further questions you need to answer, like big moments asking the wisest decision you made, and the biggest risk you took.

Be honest with yourself, this is a private journal meant only for your eyes. Once you finish reflecting on the year gone by, take a small break, and then jump to the upcoming year. Again, you'll go through sections like shifting perspective, resolutions, opportunities, secret wish, and more. Each has its own questions to answer, building a plan for the new year step by step.

Download: New Year Notebook for Android | iOS (Free)

4. YearCompass (PDF, Printable): Free Booklet to Reflect on Year and Plan Resolutions

YearCompass is a printable booklet to conduct a year-end personal review and set goals for the coming year

Several journal writers have talked about how the act of writing on paper with a pen feels much more intimate and allows you to be more open. An annual review is about being honest with yourself. YearCompass is a free printable booklet to reflect on the year gone by, and plan the new year's resolutions.

YearCompass first asks you to set up in a good space where you can feel like you can be open and honest. Then it takes you through a series of exercises designed for reflecting on the year. For example, you'll review your entire calendar week-by-week to find moments that mattered. And similarly, you'll look at upcoming elements.

The exercises are extremely similar to what you'll find in New Year Notebook. So between the two, choose New Year Notebook if you want a digital app, and YearCompass if you want a pen-and-paper experience.

You can download YearCompass to print as a booklet with A4 or A5 sized papers. You can also grab a digital PDF if you want to fill it with a free online PDF editor. YourCompass also notes that you can do the whole exercise with friends and family, but only if you can respect boundaries and show compassion.

5. Ultimate Annual Review (Notion, PDF): Free Blueprint for Self-Paced Review

The Ultimate Annual Review is a free Notion template and a downloadable PDF for a step-by-step, self-paced annual personal review

Leadership coach Steve Schlafman created the Ultimate Annual Review as a blueprint for anyone to process and conduct a self-paced year-end review. It's available as a template for the productivity app Notion or as a PDF. Ultimate Annual Review is a pay-what-you-want resource, and you can even get it for free.

Schlafman has turned the review into six major steps: plot your moments and milestones, capture reflections and lessons, assess current life, identify your intentions, set goals and action steps, and write to your future self. For each step, the guide includes an estimated time, a feel-good quote, and the step's purpose in the review.

Pay attention to the start of the guide, where Schlafman gives several important tips on how to conduct the review. For example, he recommends giving yourself around two weeks to finish the full process, and even recruiting friends and family for accountability. It's all geared towards making the annual review into a relaxing and refreshing process for you, not a must-do item that you tick off.

Use Your Apps to Help You Remember

Despite all the prompts and nudges these annual personal review apps give, it's difficult to look back on an entire year objectively. Human memory is flawed, after all.

But the apps that you use every day have a much better memory. Dive into your calendar to see appointments and meetings, your maps to see location history, your messaging apps to see what you were talking about. Your life is on your phone and your computer, ready to be reflected upon.