If you want to know how to get everything you want this year, the answer isn't working harder — it's getting brutally clear on fewer things. Most people fail at their goals not because of laziness, but because they're spreading their time, attention, and energy across too many targets at once. The fix is a simple 6-question planning exercise that produces three distinct action lists and a sharper focus on what actually matters. Here's exactly how to do it.
How to Get Everything You Want This Year
At the end of last year, a realization hit hard: working on multiple software projects, running a company, producing videos for two YouTube channels, and handling product design all at once wasn't ambition — it was chaos. Things weren't getting finished. Work was bleeding into evenings. Something had to change.
01:15
The CO2 canister analogy: why high pressure on fewer goals beats thin effort across many
Watch at 01:15 →
So over the holiday break, a single morning at a coffee shop with a blank Notion page turned into a planning exercise so useful it had to be shared. No fancy templates, no complicated worksheets — just six honest questions. Work through them in order and you'll walk away with three powerful lists that replace scattered effort with focused momentum.
How Do You Figure Out What You Really Want?
The first question sounds almost too obvious: What do you want? But most people have never actually sat down and written this out across every domain of their life — and that gap is exactly where goals go to die.
To guide the thinking, try organizing your wants into six categories:
- Personal growth
- Business, career, and finance
- Leadership and community
- Health
- Relationships
- Fun and daily experience
Start writing freely under each category. Don't edit yourself yet — just get it out. Examples from this exercise included doing 20 pull-ups, getting back to a 1,000-pound powerlifting total, spending more time with family, and building a product that people genuinely love without being asked.
04:30
The skiing example — distinguishing goals you actually want from goals you think sound good
Watch at 04:30 →
As you write, run each goal through a critical sub-question: If I achieve this, what does my average daily experience look like — and do I actually want that life? This filter is ruthless and useful. For years, "go skiing more" appeared on the annual goals list. But looking back honestly, the time that opened up never went to skiing — it went to lifting, walking, playing guitar, and gaming with friends. The skiing goal wasn't a real desire; it was an idea of an identity. Cutting it wasn't a loss. It was clarity.
How Do You Set Goals You'll Actually Achieve?
Once you have your trimmed list of genuine wants, move to question two: How do I get each one? Under each goal, indent and list out every action you already know you need to take.
Take the goal of hitting 20 pull-ups. Two immediate actions come to mind: during casual breaks from the desk, drop off the bar after hitting max reps, rest 10–20 seconds, then grind out a few more. In formal workout sessions, start adding weight to pull-ups to build strength beyond the current plateau. Are those two actions enough to reach 20? Maybe not. But they're enough to start moving in the right direction — and that's all you need at this stage.
Next comes question three: Are there common actions across multiple goals? This is where the exercise gets surprisingly powerful. When the same action keeps appearing under different goals, that's a signal. In this case, considering a move to Minneapolis showed up underneath goals about spending more time with family, helping a parent financially, and getting more outdoor space for a dog. One action, three goals served. Those overlapping actions deserve to be bolded and treated as the highest priorities on your list.
How to Prioritize When You're Doing Too Much
Think of all your goals and concerns as a sphere. The bigger that sphere — the more you're trying to do — the more your limited resources get spread thin. Less pressure, less power. The entire point of this exercise is to shrink that sphere, concentrate your energy, and point it at fewer, more meaningful targets.
This is why asking "what do I actually want?" and "what daily experience does achieving this goal produce?" matters so much before moving into action planning. You can only create real pressure when you're honest about what's really on the list versus what just sounds good in theory.
09:45
The three final lists laid out: Next Actions, Systems-Building Actions, and Cutting Actions
Watch at 09:45 →
What Is a Next Actions List and Why Do You Need One?
Question four asks: Which items on your list are actually projects versus actions? This distinction comes from David Allen's Getting Things Done methodology and it's one of the most practical ideas in productivity.
An action has an obvious next step. "Cash this check at the bank" is an action — you know exactly what to do. A project is anything big or ambiguous enough that it needs to be broken into a series of steps first. "Move to Minneapolis" isn't an action. It's a project.
For every project on your list, do two things:
- Break it into smaller actions and identify the single very next step you should take immediately.
- Create an ignorance list — a list of everything you don't know how to do yet. This isn't a weakness; it's a roadmap. Turn each unknown into a question, then find the people or resources that can answer it. Those become additional actions.
When you finish this question, you have your first list: your Next Actions List. This is a collection of concrete, specific steps — either one-time actions for smaller goals or immediate next moves for your larger projects.
How to Build Habits and Systems That Lock In Progress
Question five shifts from planning to execution: What systems and habits will ensure regular effort toward these goals? Two sub-categories matter here.
Environmental Design
The easiest behavior change is making the desired behavior frictionless. A squat rack placed right next to the desk means pull-ups happen naturally during work breaks. Guitars left out in the living room, the studio, and next to the desk mean they get picked up several times a day. Small environmental tweaks produce huge behavioral shifts without requiring willpower.
Systems of Accountability
Environment alone isn't always enough. That's where accountability systems come in — and the most powerful version isn't an app or a habit tracker. It's a real person depending on you. A lifting coach who expects workout footage. A content team that needs scripts delivered on time before they can do their jobs. When other people's work depends on your follow-through, the stakes feel real in a way that a Beeminder charge never quite does. Ask yourself: who can I align my goals with? Who can I recruit as a partner, coach, or collaborator whose success is tied to mine?
Answering this question produces your second list: your Systems-Building Actions — specific steps to redesign your environment and set up accountability structures.
What Should You Cut to Actually Move the Needle?
The final question is the least comfortable but arguably the most important: What do you need to cut or pause to make room for the things that actually matter?
Bad habits are easy to cut. But the harder call is pausing things that are genuinely enjoyable or even beneficial — things that just weren't on your list. For example: programming. Last year was spent learning to code and building cool things. But when sitting down and honestly listing out what mattered most — family, content, building the team, shipping a product — personal programming sessions weren't moving the needle on any of it. Acting as CEO, developing team members, making videos: those actions create impact. Sitting alone and coding? Not so much.
That's a painful admission when you enjoy something. But if it's not on your priority list and it's consuming meaningful time and energy, it's creating low pressure across the board.
The good news: this isn't forever. You're not cutting things you love permanently — you're putting them on pause while you focus. Once you've made real progress on your core goals, you can reevaluate and decide whether to bring something back. But for at least the next few months, your job is to commit clearly and protect that commitment.
This question produces your third list: your Cutting Actions — the bad habits to eliminate and the non-priority activities to pause so your focus stays sharp.
Your Three Lists: The Full Picture
Work through all six questions and you end up with three distinct, actionable lists:
- Next Actions List — concrete steps to take immediately toward your goals
- Systems-Building Actions — environmental changes and accountability structures to keep you consistent
- Cutting Actions — the habits and activities to eliminate or pause to protect your focus
Three lists beats one giant to-do list because each serves a different function. One drives progress, one sustains it, and one protects it. Used together, they compress your energy into a smaller, more powerful form — and that's exactly when things start getting done.
