Laying Bricks Quarterly Review
Document today’s decisions so future results reveal what actually worked
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 95%
The Laying Bricks Quarterly Review is a decision-journaling method for making the hidden causes of business growth visible. During each quarterly review, the founder records important decisions, preparations, failures, relationships, and opportunities while the reasoning is still fresh. Each item is treated as a brick intended to support a future outcome, such as a launch, speaking pipeline, stronger team, or scalable offer. Later reviews compare those intentions with actual results, allowing the founder to identify which choices generated momentum and which assumptions failed. The mechanism replaces hindsight mythology with contemporaneous evidence: document the action and rationale now, observe the delayed outcome, and use the resulting feedback to improve the next quarter’s decisions.
Origin
Jasmine Star began calling her quarterly episodes “Laying Bricks” after using one episode to describe the actions she was taking toward future success. She continued the format so she could later trace results, mistakes, and failures back to documented decisions.
Core principles
- 01Visible results emerge from earlier decisions and preparation
- 02Document decisions before their outcomes are known
- 03Connect current activity to future strategic goals
- 04Treat failures as evidence rather than wasted effort
- 05Review progress quarter by quarter
How to run it
- 1
Define the review window
Choose the quarter and establish the goals, projects, and strategic priorities that were active during it.
Pro tip Review the calendar chronologically so quiet but consequential work is not forgotten.
- 2
Inventory the bricks
List the quarter’s important decisions, preparations, launches, relationships, experiments, setbacks, and periods of recovery.
Pro tip Include work whose payoff is still uncertain rather than recording only obvious wins.
Watch out A highlight reel will conceal the real causes of future outcomes.
- 3
Capture the original rationale
Record why each brick was laid and what future result it was expected to support.
Pro tip Preserve uncertainty and trade-offs instead of rewriting the decision with hindsight.
- 4
Trace dependencies and delays
Identify the capacity, systems, relationships, or earlier preparation required for each initiative. Record where timelines expanded or demand exceeded supply.
Pro tip Distinguish strategic slowing from avoidance or loss of focus.
- 5
Compare intentions with outcomes
During future reviews, revisit earlier bricks and determine which produced results, exposed mistakes, or opened unexpected pathways.
Watch out Do not classify a long-horizon brick as a failure simply because its harvest has not arrived yet.
- 6
Select the next bricks
Use the evidence to choose the small number of actions that deserve focused investment in the coming quarter.
Pro tip Prioritize bricks that strengthen the foundation for several future opportunities.
In the wild
Jasmine accepted an opportunity to keynote at a speaker-bureau conference because returning to speaking was a 2026 goal. She documented the 2025 preparation as a brick whose value could be assessed after bureaus had time to recommend her for later events.
→ The opportunity becomes a trackable pathway rather than an isolated speaking engagement.
After adding roughly six hours of weekly sales-training work to an already full schedule, Jasmine’s team began mastermind preparation four or five weeks early. The review connects that forecasting decision to the event’s later execution.
→ Advance preparation absorbs the added workload without treating the successful event as luck.
Common mistakes
Recording only visible wins
If the review excludes preparation, failed assumptions, and delayed bets, it cannot reveal how results were actually produced.
Rewriting the rationale afterward
Hindsight can make a risky decision appear obvious. Capture what was known and unknown when the decision was made.
Laying too many bricks at once
A long activity list is not a strategy. Use the review to identify which few actions deserve continued focus.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for entrepreneurs making numerous long-horizon decisions whose effects may not become visible for months.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for teams seeking a detailed financial audit or a substitute for operational metrics.
From the transcript
“These laying bricks episodes are just to outline, quite literally, every brick that I'm laying So that I can, in the future, come back and…”
“So we talk about laying bricks and showing you the forecasting we had to do to say, if I have six extra hours of work…”
“I create these episodes to bring you on the journey of what it looks like to build quarter by quarter.”
From the episode
Quarter 3 Review: Laying Bricks for BIG Lead Acquisitions