Taken from AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p.89-90

“Although all inventories are alike in principle, the time factor does distinguish one from another.  There’s the spot-check inventory, taken at any time of the day, whenever we find ourselves getting tangled up.  There’s the one we take at day’s end, when we review the happenings of the hours just past.  Here we cast up a balance sheet, crediting ourselves with things well done, and chalking up debits where due.  Then there are those occasions when alone, or in the company of our sponsor or spiritual adviser, we make a careful review of our progress since the last time.  Many A.A’s go in for annual or semiannual housecleanings.  Many of us also like the experience of an occasional retreat from the outside world where we can quiet down for an undisturbed day or so of self-overhaul and meditation.

Aren’t these practices joy-killers as well as time-consumers?….Well, hardly….Once this healthy practice has become grooved, it will be so interesting and profitable that the time it takes won’t be missed.  For these minutes and sometimes hours spent in self-examination are bound to make all the other hours of our day better and happier.”