Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where your time is well spent even though you should probably be doing something else.

Seeing as it's the end of 2025, today's edition will take a break from the normal format, and be a small review of the year. Sort of.

3 things worth procrastilearning over

1. The year ahead

When it comes to looking back on 2025, assessing what the hell happened, and then thinking about what 2026 might be like, I think this article by Derek Thompson is pretty much all you need. I wish I'd written it.

Thompson has kindly turned the entire Internet into one long, well-researched doomscroll so you don’t have to. His summary includes TikTok brain-melt, AI data centres absolutely devouring the power grid, GLP-1 making people healthier and sexier but lonelier, and the slow death of booze.

2. This year just past

I've had a very good year. My work projects have gone well, my family life has been good, I've given my health some focus. I feel grateful. I hope you can look back and feel grateful too.

In fact, if you are so inclined, I recommend taking a few hours and doing an annual review. If you're not a journal person, look at your calendar. If you don't keep a calendar, look at the photo roll on your phone. If you don't have a phone, I guess you have to try use your own memory - I frankly envy you if you are capable of doing so.

I am part-way through doing one this year. I find the biggest issue with looking back on the year is not remembering anything, but a couple of years ago, my wonderful wife bought me a 5-Year Journal which encourages just a short entry every day. I've kept it mostly up to date and have been looking back on it this month, while thinking about the future.

You can find some different guidance on doing annual reviews here:

• Ali Abdaal

• Todoist

• Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole

• Tiago Forte

• Sahil Bloom

A single bit of advice: before you start an annual review, decide how long you’re going to spend on it - eg. two sessions of 2 hours, eight sessions of 1 hour, three days straight in a retreat doing nothing else - whatever it is, make sure you have a cut-off point because otherwise it can just be navel-gazing, especially if you are going through thousands of photos on your phone.

Hurry it up and get to the point: what's next?

3. Things that apps tell you

Lots of apps summarise how we used them that year - most famously the music app Spotify, which may have been the originator of this trend. Looking at my own 2025 Wrapped from Spotify, I found out my most listened to song from 2025 was this (it’s mostly a comedy sketch until halfway through - you can listen to just the music on repeat here, which I often do):

Also, according to the platform I use to publish this newsletter, Beehiiv, my most viewed newsletter was this one:

2 quotes to keep in mind

1 simple tip for having a better year

Sleep more than last year.

You know it’s true.

That's all for today. Many thanks for reading.

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff

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