Evening Reflection as Code Review
Debugging Your Day
So you roll out of bed, grab some coffee, and just... wing it? No plan, no intention, just hoping today goes better than yesterday?
I get it. Most of us are basically deploying our days to production without any testing. We're just hoping nothing breaks and wondering why we keep hitting the same bugs over and over again. That's where evening reflection comes in, think of it as your daily code review, but for life.
The Ancient Framework That Still Ships
Marcus Aurelius was basically doing daily standups with himself 2,000 years ago. In his Meditations, he wrote about this practice of nightly reflection, looking at both wins and failures without being harsh on himself about it. The guy was running an empire and still found time to debug his day. If he can do it while dealing with plagues and barbarian invasions, we can probably manage it between Netflix episodes.
Here's the thing though: Aurelius wasn't just navel-gazing. He was focused on process improvement, not outcomes. Because just like in development, we don't control if the servers go down at 3 AM or if the client changes requirements last minute. We only control our code, or in this case, our responses and actions.
Your Personal Development Workflow
Think about it like this: if your day was a pull request, would you merge it?
Morning Sprint Planning: Set three clear intentions for the day.
Not fifteen. Just Three.
These could be actual Jira tickets you want to knock out, skills you want to level up, or just "don't lose my shit when the deployment fails." Keep it simple.
Evening Code Review: This is where the magic happens. You're reviewing your day like you'd review a teammate's code, constructively but not judgemental. Ask yourself:
What shipped successfully today?
What got blocked and why?
How did I handle unexpected issues?
What did I learn that I can apply tomorrow?
Weekly Retrospective: Look for patterns over time. Are you consistently getting stuck on the same type of problems? Maybe it's time to refactor your approach.
Debugging Your Daily Code Smells
Just like in code reviews, you're looking for those things that make you go, "Hmm, this doesn't feel right." Some common personal code smells:
The Multitasking Monster: Trying to work on five different features at once and shipping none of them properly.
Poor Error Handling: When something goes wrong, do you gracefully handle it or do you throw a tantrum that crashes your entire day?
Technical Debt: Avoiding difficult conversations, putting off that skill you know you need to learn, or letting stress build up without addressing it.
Lack of Documentation: Not keeping track of what actually works for you, so you keep reinventing the wheel every time you face a similar challenge.
Version Control for Personal Growth
The real power comes from tracking changes over time. After a few weeks, you start seeing patterns you missed before. Maybe you always get stressed on Tuesdays because of that recurring meeting. Maybe you're more productive in the afternoon than you thought. Maybe that thing you've been worried about never actually happens.
It's like having git history for your personal development. You can see how you've evolved, what changes worked, and what got reverted because they made things worse.
When the Production Environment Gets Messy
Look, shit happens. Servers crash, deadlines move up, team dynamics get weird. The goal isn't to never have bad days, it's to handle them better and learn from them faster.
When something goes sideways, ask yourself: "Did I follow good practices with what I could control?" If yes, then external factors are just external factors. You did your job. The rest is just noise.
And just like code reviews with your team help catch things you missed, talking through your daily reviews with trusted people can give you perspective you wouldn't get alone. Sometimes you're too close to your own code to see the obvious solutions.
The Diff That Matters
After doing this for a while, you'll notice something interesting: you stop taking setbacks personally. They become just data points to learn from. That project that got killed? That's not a reflection of your worth, it's just information about what worked and what didn't.
You start building resilience against the inevitable curveballs because you've developed a systematic way of handling them. And when you do hit those big wins, they feel even better because you can trace exactly how you got there.
Shipping Your Better Self
At the end of the day, evening reflection is just continuous integration for your personal life. Small, frequent improvements that compound over time. It's not about being perfect – it's about being intentional about getting better.
So what do you think? Ready to start doing code reviews on your own life? Or does this whole thing sound like another productivity hack that'll end up in your graveyard of abandoned habits?
Either way, I'm curious: what's the biggest "bug" you keep shipping in your daily routine? Drop a comment and let's debug this together.
Quote of the Day:
"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." - Marcus Aurelius
👉 If you enjoy reading this post, feel free to share it with friends!
Or feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
You can find me on X and LinkedIn.