Quarterly Brick Review
Identify small actions that are building your long-term future
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
The Quarterly Brick Review treats each potentially consequential action as one brick in a structure whose final shape is not yet visible. After each quarter, review the previous three months and identify meetings, experiments, setbacks, decisions, and relationships that could influence future outcomes. Record why each event may matter without pretending to know exactly how it will unfold. At the end of the year—and again over longer periods—revisit those entries and connect later opportunities to the actions that made them possible. The mechanism replaces hindsight-based storytelling with contemporaneous documentation, creating evidence that progress came from accumulated choices rather than luck. It also encourages continued action during ambiguous periods because a canceled opportunity, uncomfortable event, or tentative connection may still become part of the foundation.
Origin
Jasmine Star introduced the experiment while reviewing eight potentially consequential events from the first quarter of 2024 for The Jasmine Star Show.
Core principles
- 01Major outcomes are built through small actions
- 02A brick may matter before its value is visible
- 03Disappointments can still create useful foundations
- 04Documentation reveals connections that memory misses
- 05Review actions over both annual and decade-long horizons
How to run it
- 1
Choose the review window
Use a completed quarter as a bounded period for reflection. Allow enough time after it ends to see the period more clearly.
Pro tip Schedule the review about a month after quarter-end.
Watch out Do not wait until the end of the year, when details and motivations may be forgotten.
- 2
Inventory meaningful events
List the actions, conversations, experiments, disappointments, and decisions that could influence your future. Include uncertain events rather than limiting the list to obvious wins.
Pro tip Review your calendar, journal, messages, and project history for prompts.
Watch out Do not confuse routine activity with a potentially foundational brick.
- 3
Name each possible brick
Describe what was laid by each event, such as a new relationship, expanded ambition, tested idea, or future option. State why it might matter without claiming certainty.
Pro tip Use language such as “This may create…” to preserve honest uncertainty.
Watch out Avoid rewriting every event as an inevitable success.
- 4
Document the evidence
Record what happened, when it happened, and what you did. Capture enough detail for your future self to understand the original action.
Pro tip Keep the entries in an annual journal or searchable review document.
Watch out Reflection without documentation makes long-term attribution unreliable.
- 5
Trace later outcomes
At year-end and in future years, revisit the quarterly entries. Connect opportunities, changes, and results to the earlier bricks that helped produce them.
Pro tip Note delayed effects and unexpected chains of causation.
Watch out Do not force a causal connection where the evidence does not support one.
In the wild
After attending a pitch event, Jasmine sent the organizers her own video footage and suggested how it could become valuable LinkedIn content. She recorded that contribution as a brick without knowing whether it would lead anywhere. Two months later, the organizers invited her to attend another recording in California.
→ A small act of unsolicited value contributed to a later invitation.
Jasmine arranged a walking podcast with Leila Hormozi, but torrential rain forced the team to cancel. Instead of treating the effort as wasted, she recorded it as a possible foundation for a better future interview and continued pursuing the relationship without demanding an immediate result.
→ The setback was reframed as unfinished groundwork rather than definitive failure.
Common mistakes
Recording only visible wins
A review that excludes setbacks and unresolved opportunities becomes a highlight reel rather than an honest map of how progress develops.
Demanding immediate proof
Some bricks create value months or years later, so judging each action solely by its immediate return defeats the method.
Inventing certainty in hindsight
Document what you believed at the time and distinguish a plausible contribution from a proven cause.
Is it for you?
Best for
Entrepreneurs and creators pursuing long-term opportunities through experiments, relationships, and consistent action.
Not ideal for
People seeking a precise forecasting system or immediate proof that every action will produce a return.
From the transcript
“Once we pass a quarter, maybe like a month later, I'll look back on the previous quarter and see what had happened.”
“But the crazy thing is, you don't actually know in the moment what you're doing and how it will play out.”
“And so if you're watching this, it's okay and highly encouraged for you to take a second and look back at the last three months…”
From the episode
Quarter One Review: How I’m “Laying Bricks” to Build Relationships and Open Up New Opportunities