Looking Back

As the new year approaches, it’s good to look forward and make resolutions and all that, but it’s also fun to look back at the year we just spent. Your blog is an ideal forum for this, and you’ve got several options for how to consider the past year. Here are a few:

A Year In Review
Write short paragraphs on the most important items in several categories of your choice. You can write on a pop culture theme and review the year’s best film, book, album and news scandal. Or you can look from a current events perspective, writing about the year’s most important news story, disaster, world leader, etc. And you can always take the traditional blogging route and consider the best and worst moments in your personal life over the year.

Top Ten Lists
Letterman made the top ten list a pop culture staple, and now it’s an easy, pithy way to consider your year without losing a reader’s interest. Think about the year’s top ten public celebrity blunders, worst American foriegn policy decisions, cutest things your kid sister said, best books, or worst bachelor recipes you concocted. Ten witty one-liners is all you need for a great top ten post.

Yearbook Style
Pick a category – books, politics, your university’s draconian policy changes – and apply a few yearbook labels to create an instant year in review. Traditional yearbook awards are things like Cutest Couple and Most Likely To Succeed, but you can get creative with this. How about Presidential Candidate Most Likely to Contradict Him/Herself Within A Ten Minute Speech? Or Mixed Drink Most Likely To Make You Be Sick All Over The Hot Girl At The Bar? This style also works great with photos, so add some images and go to town.

Best/Worst
Who can argue with the elegant simplicity of a best/worst post? And, of course, you can apply it to anything: best/worst dressed, best/worst restaurants you ate at that year, best/worst ways to spend your vacation days, etc.

Best Of
Run back over the posts you wrote this year and pull out your favorites. Not only is this a great way to examine your year, it also introduces newer readers to your blog. Plus it’s encouraging to re-read old posts that you’re still proud of.