Designing your best year ahead with intention and reflection

Executive overview

Most year-planning stalls because people ask vague questions about the future instead of treating the year as something to actively design. Lisa Leong and Samantha Imber share concrete tools — from energy audits to vision boards — for translating values into a structured, lived plan.

The key shift: write the coming year as if it has already happened, then work backwards to identify what made it great.

Intentional design, not wishful thinking, is what turns a good year into a great one.

Framing the year ahead

• Start with two questions: what would an amazing 2026 feel like for me, and for us?
• Write from December of the coming year — past tense — to make future-projection easier
• A "reverse obituary" framing: describe the most amazing year you've ever had as if it's done
• Follow retrospective work (part one) with forward design — don't skip the looking-back step
• If planning with a partner, reflect individually first, then share

Energy audit and more/less lists

• Review the past year's energy: what drained you, what fuelled you?
• Translate that into a more/less list — concrete activities, not abstract themes
• Consider energy, happiness, and meaning as three distinct dimensions
• Apply the audit to work hours, holidays, exercise, parenting, couple time, and rest

Designing an ideal week and perfect average day

• Map an ideal week: hours, days off, exercise, rest, creative time
• Use the framing "perfect average day" rather than "ideal day" — it removes pressure and makes the standard replicable
• A perfect average day is not sunbathing; it's doing necessary things in a way that feels right
• Design at the quarter level too: what does an ideal quarter look like in each life area?

Vision boards and the reticular activating system

• A vision board works through the reticular activating system (RAS) — the brain's attention filter
• RAS determines what data you notice; priming it with visual cues makes relevant opportunities more visible (the "yellow car effect")
• Useful for people who are visually oriented; print images that represent experiences or goals, not just objects
• Anchor images to values, not desires — be clear on what matters before choosing what to put up
• Example: a picture of Stanford on a vision board led to an actual fellowship there a year later

Three big rocks daily practice

• Each morning, identify three big rocks — the most important things to move forward that day
• For each big rock, name the one small action you will do today
• Complete those actions before anything else (email, admin, reactive tasks)
• Over a quarter, consistent daily progress on big rocks compounds into significant outcomes

Year Compass: eight life categories

Use the Year Compass framework to avoid myopic planning (work-only or family-only focus). Its eight categories:

1. Personal life and family
2. Friends and community
3. Physical health and fitness
4. Habits that define you
5. Career or studies
6. Relaxation, hobbies and creativity
7. Mental health and self-knowledge
8. A better tomorrow — what will you do to leave the world in better shape?

Habits: help or hinder audit

• Run a simple audit on current habits: does each one help or hinder?
• Don't ask "what defines me" — just look at behaviours and apply the help/hinder test
• Identity framing accelerates habit change: Lisa uses "I am a triathlete" to shift food choices before a beginner-level Pink Triathlon
• Treat social media like a deliberate experiment: measure outcomes, then cut if the result doesn't justify the attention cost
• Delete apps rather than relying on willpower; desktop-only access removes addictive functionality

Email and phone habits

• Batch reading and sending reduces the whack-a-mole loop of immediate replies
• Schedule send to slow down email chains and reduce reply pressure
• "Inbox 10" — not inbox zero — is a sustainable target; zero is a game you always lose
• A burner (dumb) phone — flip phone with a separate SIM — enables genuine digital detox days without losing emergency contact
• Choose the right level of dumb: enough to stay in contact with people, not so dumb texting becomes painful

Secret wish

• The Year Compass closes with: what is your secret wish for the next year?
• The question surfaces deep, subconscious desires that more structured prompts miss
• Sit with it; let it percolate rather than forcing an answer
• Optional: represent it cryptically on a vision board — visible to you, opaque to others