December 11, 2024 • 13 mins
In this episode, we share 10 actionable tips to wrap up the year in business analysis and projects, ensuring you feel great and ready for the new year.
From conducting a thorough year-end review to setting clear goals and celebrating achievements, we cover it all.
Tune in to discover how you can end the year on a high note and start the new year with renewed energy and focus.
Don't miss out! 🌟
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, The Better
Business Analysis Podcast with Kingsman Walsh.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Better Business Analysis
podcast with your host, BenjaminWalsh.
And in this Be a Bites episode, we're going to focus on ten ways
(00:24):
to wrap things up for the year before the Christmas break so
you can feel great and get readyfor the new year.
Let's get started #1 conduct an end year review.
Do this for yourself. Look back at your achievements,
your challenges, and lessons learned.
You can do this on an A4 piece of paper with those columns.
(00:48):
This helps you understand what worked well, what needs to
improve in your career path in terms of your journey, in terms
of what you want to achieve or just generally on the on the
pieces of work that you are on. There are examples where retail
companies do this for their all their stuff and then they focus
(01:10):
on those as key performance areas for for next year.
And I've seen it done in that space hospital as well, but not
really done well apart from kindof the the forced HR reviews.
I think you should do a personalinterview review and see where
you're at and what do you want to do next year.
This is the perfect time to reflect.
(01:31):
And as part of that, tip 2 is set goals for the new year.
So set clear and achievable goals for the next year ahead.
And we'll talk about this more in another episode in the future
when we, you know, 2025 starts. But you should start thinking
about short term and long term objectives that will help guide
(01:52):
your efforts and keep you motivated next year.
Do not overstretch here, OK? A lot of people overstretch
goals. So have a bit of a think about
those as part of your interview review.
What could you do to make a difference?
What are those pain points? What are the opportunities that
you can focus on now #3 is you need to update your personal
(02:12):
development plan, right? So it's time.
If you haven't got one, start one.
It's time to update your personal development plan,
identify the new skills that youwant to learn or areas that you
want to improve on and actually create a plan to achieve those
goals. So when you hit 2025, not only
are you doing it in your personal life, maybe you're
heading the germ, Maybe you're going to eat better, maybe
(02:34):
you're going to do more exercise, maybe you're going to
spend more time with your kids or whatever it is.
As part of that, make sure your professional development is is
right up there, right? So it's about learning a new
skill, doing a certification andjust, you know, aim for those
ones that are, you know, sub 500bucks.
Go there, smash those out. You'll feel really good about
that. If you get that started, start
(02:56):
thinking about that and line that up for early next year.
Of course, if you're in a physical workspace or even, you
know, in the office or at home, organise your space.
OK, Start throwing things out. It can improve your
productivity. Just have a focused work area to
take some time to declutter and organise your desk, your files,
(03:19):
your digital workspace. Clean up your files, maybe
delete things off your desktop, move them into folders, clean up
your emails. It's a good like you would if
you were leaving an organization.
Maybe take the time to do that and at the end of the year, take
half a day. Do that and you'll feel better
when you get back to it. I usually find that I print
(03:41):
things out. I like paper and I like the, you
know, the idea of writing on pieces of paper.
And then I find that as I'm going in and out of clients
offices, I, I stuff them into my, to my briefcase, my bag, and
then I take them all out and putthem into a, a confidential, you
know, destruction bin at the endof the year because I'm never
going to use them again. So it's good to do that.
Clear out the clutter. You'll feel better.
(04:02):
There's a lot of psychology around that.
Now, if you can and you might bemid project stream, especially
if you're not in the southern hemisphere where we have a
longer break over over the break.
So therefore, you know, usually projects wind up, wind up or at
least stages. A aim for the end of Christmas
(04:23):
is to focus on completing an ongoing project if you can, or a
stage in the project. So draw a line in the sand that
you know is achievable before going off on Christmas.
This will give you a sense of accomplishment and allow you to
actually start fresh. So you're you're putting an end
of something and you're startingagain.
So you very much want to do thatfrom a mental health point of
(04:47):
view. Draw a line in the sand, make it
achievable. If you're working up until you
know the last minute on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve,
no matter what what country you live in, you're not going to
feel as refreshed going to Christmas.
You're not going to give that the energy that it deserves the
time to. Even if you don't celebrate
Christmas, you're not going to have you know, you, this is an
opportunity for you to just spend time with family or just
(05:08):
take a breather, which isn't work.
So if you're, if you're working over the break and you're
working all those days, I'd suggest to just in the spirit of
this time of year, just try and take some time out, even if it's
an hour for you to just reflect on your end of year.
Even if you're you know your endof year from your culture is at
(05:29):
a different time of year, it's still good to do it because
generally your surroundings are slowing down so it's almost a
force break. So utilize it that way #6 is
around actually acknowledging and celebrating achievement.
So take the time to acknowledge and celebrate your achievements,
(05:51):
both big and small. OK, if other people haven't
recognized it, you can recognizeit.
People do are really bad at recognizing achievement in
others unless there's a great culture of that.
So you've done some great thingsthis year.
What was the one thing that you think that you achieved or you
improved this year? OK, that's my challenge to you.
(06:13):
And hopefully that, you know, thinking about that and focusing
on that fact that you did one thing well this year.
And, you know, this has been quite a hard year for a lot of
people. Generally economies are down.
You know, the poorer, even poorer, the middle class is
struggling. So unless you're extremely
wealthy, you know, it's, it's been a bit of a struggle
(06:34):
financially this year. And, and, and I think everyone's
feeling that with a lot going onin the geopolitical landscape.
So focus on what you can controlright now and just focus on your
achievement and say, look, I, I wrote maybe a requirement or I
did a report that I was proud ofor was better than what I've
done previously. That's a really good way to stay
(06:57):
motivated and lift your morale. OK.
And you can say and, and, and ifyou're doing it for yourself,
take time to just talk to if you're working on a team, send
them a message if you're workingoffline or remotely, or go and
see them and just say, look, Frank, say, or Bob or whoever it
(07:17):
is. Sarah, do you know, you really
did this really well this year? I just wanted to tell you that
that I really appreciated working with you this year.
And I hope to, you know, for us to pick up the great work.
The number 7 tip is to plan for a smooth transition.
And what I mean by that is that,like I said, it's like almost
(07:40):
finishing a job and starting a job.
You should think, think about that in that way is use this
time to schedule the meetings that are happening in the union
now. So broadly pencil of the month
and set some dead deadlines and just prepare any necessary
materials for the first week back.
(08:02):
And then we're going to have another episode.
We'll we'll pick up when we start the year together and you
can pick that up. So I'm not talking about over
planning next year. I was just talking to my sister
actually, who works in account management and she was saying
that, you know, she's getting really pushed to to lock in
dates for meetings next year. And I said, I think what would
be better is actually because people don't want to think about
(08:24):
2020 fives. They really they don't want to
think about next year is to justpencil in a time to discuss a
meeting to schedule a meeting for next year.
So you're just saying, how aboutI give you a phone call in the
second week back of Jan, OK. And that's, that's enough.
So don't go mental here. Number 8 is to also it's, it's
(08:45):
kind of linked to achievements, but it is different.
What about yourself? Not just what you've done, but
do you feel like you've grown asa person?
Reflect on your personal growth over the last year.
Do you think you have and your goals outside of work as a
person, as a human on this planet?
(09:07):
Do you feel like you've gained value from the situation you're
in this year? Do you feel like that your life
has meaning in your heading towards the goals that you want?
If not, I would suggest, and this is, you know, I don't want
to be triggering for some people, change something if
you're not happy. So that might be change your
job. Tough market to change jobs in
(09:29):
New Zealand at the moment. But if you're not doing what you
love, this is the opportunity todo it.
And that links to your professional development, doing
a course, you know, having gratitude for what you've got,
looking at the skills you've gotand setting up a plan for next
year. If you are really struggling
with the environment you're in, then make a change.
(09:51):
OK, this is, this is me telling you to make a change.
Use the opportunity that we don't get often to just take a
breath and make a change #9 is making sure that you also spread
the love to other people. So we call it express gratitude.
Express gratitude to your colleagues, your clients, your
(10:14):
partners, and it will just add to a positive work environment.
Or just say, hey, look, if you've had a rough year or
you've been shitty to some people, I know I haven't
necessarily been in my best mindset this year.
I'm going to take the opportunity before I close up
with some of my client work today actually, and just message
some of those people and just say, hey, look, I know it's been
(10:35):
tough, but I've really appreciated your work.
We've, you know, we've really achieved some great things this
year. Focus on the positive and, and
this can actually strengthen your relationship with partners
and clients. And so it's good for you as
well. OK, so it is a karma kind of
thing. You don't just do it because
you're going to get something back, but really take an
opportunity to good time of yearto just express gratitude and of
(10:59):
course #10 one of the most important during this time of
year, especially if you've got time off work.
But if you don't, then I'd suggest, like I said, take an
hour off or plan a trip. Take this this hour off over to
plan your next trip and do it then.
And then it's taking time to recharge.
OK, You need to recharge your batteries.
(11:22):
OK. We are, we require energy to
live and we and we and energy can be drained in different ways
through projects, through people.
And it's a you need to just try and disconnect from work.
It's OK to do that. We're not on this planet to just
work all the time, spend time with people that you love and
(11:45):
hopefully engage in activities that help you relax and, you
know, and just recharge your batteries.
I was at a an event yesterday, just just a, a lunch with a few
colleagues and we were talking about what we were doing over
the break and a lot of people had really jam packed holiday
(12:08):
plans. So that that's same for myself.
It's going to be jam packed. You're saying family sometimes
conflict in family and all the rest of it.
But I'm going to make sure. And I was I was giving this
advice to a colleague. You need to take a couple of
hours out to do one thing that you want to do is that go for a
walk. Is that listen to a mindfulness,
(12:30):
you know, meditation? Is it to listen to an album, an
album of music, trying to correct, connect back to who you
are as a person and, and recharge that?
So there are 10 top tips for closing down the kind of end of
year and making sure that you'vedone it in a way where it's not
abrupt and you've actually got some closure.
(12:53):
I hope you took something away from the episode.
I know it was a bit more holistic, but I think it's
important for us to also talk about holistic things as well as
practical things. And I will see you next week.
The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, The Better
Business Analysis Podcast with Kingsman Walsh.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Better Business Analysis
podcast with your host, BenjaminWalsh.
And in this Be a Bites episode, we're going to focus on ten ways
(00:24):
to wrap things up for the year before the Christmas break so
you can feel great and get readyfor the new year.
Let's get started #1 conduct an end year review.
Do this for yourself. Look back at your achievements,
your challenges, and lessons learned.
You can do this on an A4 piece of paper with those columns.
(00:48):
This helps you understand what worked well, what needs to
improve in your career path in terms of your journey, in terms
of what you want to achieve or just generally on the on the
pieces of work that you are on. There are examples where retail
companies do this for their all their stuff and then they focus
(01:10):
on those as key performance areas for for next year.
And I've seen it done in that space hospital as well, but not
really done well apart from kindof the the forced HR reviews.
I think you should do a personalinterview review and see where
you're at and what do you want to do next year.
This is the perfect time to reflect.
(01:31):
And as part of that, tip 2 is set goals for the new year.
So set clear and achievable goals for the next year ahead.
And we'll talk about this more in another episode in the future
when we, you know, 2025 starts. But you should start thinking
about short term and long term objectives that will help guide
(01:52):
your efforts and keep you motivated next year.
Do not overstretch here, OK? A lot of people overstretch
goals. So have a bit of a think about
those as part of your interview review.
What could you do to make a difference?
What are those pain points? What are the opportunities that
you can focus on now #3 is you need to update your personal
(02:12):
development plan, right? So it's time.
If you haven't got one, start one.
It's time to update your personal development plan,
identify the new skills that youwant to learn or areas that you
want to improve on and actually create a plan to achieve those
goals. So when you hit 2025, not only
are you doing it in your personal life, maybe you're
heading the germ, Maybe you're going to eat better, maybe
(02:34):
you're going to do more exercise, maybe you're going to
spend more time with your kids or whatever it is.
As part of that, make sure your professional development is is
right up there, right? So it's about learning a new
skill, doing a certification andjust, you know, aim for those
ones that are, you know, sub 500bucks.
Go there, smash those out. You'll feel really good about
that. If you get that started, start
(02:56):
thinking about that and line that up for early next year.
Of course, if you're in a physical workspace or even, you
know, in the office or at home, organise your space.
OK, Start throwing things out. It can improve your
productivity. Just have a focused work area to
take some time to declutter and organise your desk, your files,
(03:19):
your digital workspace. Clean up your files, maybe
delete things off your desktop, move them into folders, clean up
your emails. It's a good like you would if
you were leaving an organization.
Maybe take the time to do that and at the end of the year, take
half a day. Do that and you'll feel better
when you get back to it. I usually find that I print
(03:41):
things out. I like paper and I like the, you
know, the idea of writing on pieces of paper.
And then I find that as I'm going in and out of clients
offices, I, I stuff them into my, to my briefcase, my bag, and
then I take them all out and putthem into a, a confidential, you
know, destruction bin at the endof the year because I'm never
going to use them again. So it's good to do that.
Clear out the clutter. You'll feel better.
(04:02):
There's a lot of psychology around that.
Now, if you can and you might bemid project stream, especially
if you're not in the southern hemisphere where we have a
longer break over over the break.
So therefore, you know, usually projects wind up, wind up or at
least stages. A aim for the end of Christmas
(04:23):
is to focus on completing an ongoing project if you can, or a
stage in the project. So draw a line in the sand that
you know is achievable before going off on Christmas.
This will give you a sense of accomplishment and allow you to
actually start fresh. So you're you're putting an end
of something and you're startingagain.
So you very much want to do thatfrom a mental health point of
(04:47):
view. Draw a line in the sand, make it
achievable. If you're working up until you
know the last minute on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve,
no matter what what country you live in, you're not going to
feel as refreshed going to Christmas.
You're not going to give that the energy that it deserves the
time to. Even if you don't celebrate
Christmas, you're not going to have you know, you, this is an
opportunity for you to just spend time with family or just
(05:08):
take a breather, which isn't work.
So if you're, if you're working over the break and you're
working all those days, I'd suggest to just in the spirit of
this time of year, just try and take some time out, even if it's
an hour for you to just reflect on your end of year.
Even if you're you know your endof year from your culture is at
(05:29):
a different time of year, it's still good to do it because
generally your surroundings are slowing down so it's almost a
force break. So utilize it that way #6 is
around actually acknowledging and celebrating achievement.
So take the time to acknowledge and celebrate your achievements,
(05:51):
both big and small. OK, if other people haven't
recognized it, you can recognizeit.
People do are really bad at recognizing achievement in
others unless there's a great culture of that.
So you've done some great thingsthis year.
What was the one thing that you think that you achieved or you
improved this year? OK, that's my challenge to you.
(06:13):
And hopefully that, you know, thinking about that and focusing
on that fact that you did one thing well this year.
And, you know, this has been quite a hard year for a lot of
people. Generally economies are down.
You know, the poorer, even poorer, the middle class is
struggling. So unless you're extremely
wealthy, you know, it's, it's been a bit of a struggle
(06:34):
financially this year. And, and, and I think everyone's
feeling that with a lot going onin the geopolitical landscape.
So focus on what you can controlright now and just focus on your
achievement and say, look, I, I wrote maybe a requirement or I
did a report that I was proud ofor was better than what I've
done previously. That's a really good way to stay
(06:57):
motivated and lift your morale. OK.
And you can say and, and, and ifyou're doing it for yourself,
take time to just talk to if you're working on a team, send
them a message if you're workingoffline or remotely, or go and
see them and just say, look, Frank, say, or Bob or whoever it
(07:17):
is. Sarah, do you know, you really
did this really well this year? I just wanted to tell you that
that I really appreciated working with you this year.
And I hope to, you know, for us to pick up the great work.
The number 7 tip is to plan for a smooth transition.
And what I mean by that is that,like I said, it's like almost
(07:40):
finishing a job and starting a job.
You should think, think about that in that way is use this
time to schedule the meetings that are happening in the union
now. So broadly pencil of the month
and set some dead deadlines and just prepare any necessary
materials for the first week back.
(08:02):
And then we're going to have another episode.
We'll we'll pick up when we start the year together and you
can pick that up. So I'm not talking about over
planning next year. I was just talking to my sister
actually, who works in account management and she was saying
that, you know, she's getting really pushed to to lock in
dates for meetings next year. And I said, I think what would
be better is actually because people don't want to think about
(08:24):
2020 fives. They really they don't want to
think about next year is to justpencil in a time to discuss a
meeting to schedule a meeting for next year.
So you're just saying, how aboutI give you a phone call in the
second week back of Jan, OK. And that's, that's enough.
So don't go mental here. Number 8 is to also it's, it's
(08:45):
kind of linked to achievements, but it is different.
What about yourself? Not just what you've done, but
do you feel like you've grown asa person?
Reflect on your personal growth over the last year.
Do you think you have and your goals outside of work as a
person, as a human on this planet?
(09:07):
Do you feel like you've gained value from the situation you're
in this year? Do you feel like that your life
has meaning in your heading towards the goals that you want?
If not, I would suggest, and this is, you know, I don't want
to be triggering for some people, change something if
you're not happy. So that might be change your
job. Tough market to change jobs in
(09:29):
New Zealand at the moment. But if you're not doing what you
love, this is the opportunity todo it.
And that links to your professional development, doing
a course, you know, having gratitude for what you've got,
looking at the skills you've gotand setting up a plan for next
year. If you are really struggling
with the environment you're in, then make a change.
(09:51):
OK, this is, this is me telling you to make a change.
Use the opportunity that we don't get often to just take a
breath and make a change #9 is making sure that you also spread
the love to other people. So we call it express gratitude.
Express gratitude to your colleagues, your clients, your
(10:14):
partners, and it will just add to a positive work environment.
Or just say, hey, look, if you've had a rough year or
you've been shitty to some people, I know I haven't
necessarily been in my best mindset this year.
I'm going to take the opportunity before I close up
with some of my client work today actually, and just message
some of those people and just say, hey, look, I know it's been
(10:35):
tough, but I've really appreciated your work.
We've, you know, we've really achieved some great things this
year. Focus on the positive and, and
this can actually strengthen your relationship with partners
and clients. And so it's good for you as
well. OK, so it is a karma kind of
thing. You don't just do it because
you're going to get something back, but really take an
opportunity to good time of yearto just express gratitude and of
(10:59):
course #10 one of the most important during this time of
year, especially if you've got time off work.
But if you don't, then I'd suggest, like I said, take an
hour off or plan a trip. Take this this hour off over to
plan your next trip and do it then.
And then it's taking time to recharge.
OK, You need to recharge your batteries.
(11:22):
OK. We are, we require energy to
live and we and we and energy can be drained in different ways
through projects, through people.
And it's a you need to just try and disconnect from work.
It's OK to do that. We're not on this planet to just
work all the time, spend time with people that you love and
(11:45):
hopefully engage in activities that help you relax and, you
know, and just recharge your batteries.
I was at a an event yesterday, just just a, a lunch with a few
colleagues and we were talking about what we were doing over
the break and a lot of people had really jam packed holiday
(12:08):
plans. So that that's same for myself.
It's going to be jam packed. You're saying family sometimes
conflict in family and all the rest of it.
But I'm going to make sure. And I was I was giving this
advice to a colleague. You need to take a couple of
hours out to do one thing that you want to do is that go for a
walk. Is that listen to a mindfulness,
(12:30):
you know, meditation? Is it to listen to an album, an
album of music, trying to correct, connect back to who you
are as a person and, and recharge that?
So there are 10 top tips for closing down the kind of end of
year and making sure that you'vedone it in a way where it's not
abrupt and you've actually got some closure.
(12:53):
I hope you took something away from the episode.
I know it was a bit more holistic, but I think it's
important for us to also talk about holistic things as well as
practical things. And I will see you next week.
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