My Quarterly Review Template
Three questions, fifteen minutes, the same date every quarter. It is the only process I have that has never been skipped.
The first working day of each quarter. Calendar entry with a reminder. Fifteen minutes.
Question one: has any invalidation condition occurred?
For each position, the written conditions, with the actual figures next to each one.
Not from memory. This is the failure that cost me on the one position I exited: two quarters of answering from impression while the data said otherwise.
For my largest position the conditions are a successful consensus attack, a change to the issuance schedule, and a legal change making the asset unholdable where I live. All three are checkable in an afternoon and none is a price.
For positions with usage-based theses, the conditions include measurable declines in activity sustained across two quarters. Those require pulling numbers.
Question two: is each position within its band?
Current value as a share of investable assets, against the written target and band.
If above the band, trim back to target. If below, add back from designated cash. If inside, do nothing.
This is arithmetic and it produces the only trades I make outside the monthly schedule.
Question three: what do I believe now that I did not believe last quarter, and why?
The one that produces the useful record.
It forces a stated view that can later be checked, which is uncomfortable by design. Reading these back across twenty quarters is how I established that my confident claims are wrong more often than my tentative ones.
The additional items, annually
Once a year the review also covers:
Recovery phrase test. Wipe the device, restore, confirm the address matches.
Backup legibility. Ink fades. Mine did after two years.
Inheritance document. Still accurate, named person still willing, amounts roughly current.
Fee schedule check. Whether the venue’s charges have changed. Platforms publishing a full schedule without requiring login, such as the exchange I have used since 2021, make this a five-minute item.
What the format prevents
Reacting to the market. The review happens on a date, not after a move.
Amending rules under pressure. Changes to the policy take effect the following quarter and may only be made in a month when nothing dramatic is happening.
Selective memory. Scoring last quarter’s stated views is part of the process, which prevents remembering myself as more accurate than I was.
What it does not do
Produce insight. It is a checklist, and checklists are not where insight comes from.
What it produces is a record, and the record is the only thing that lets me distinguish between decisions that worked and decisions that were correct. Those are different, and without writing things down at the time there is no way to tell them apart afterwards.
This is a personal account of holding through market cycles. It describes what one person did and why. It is not a recommendation, and past cycles do not predict future ones.