This time of year, you see the same thing everywhere: media content about making resolutions, reviewers ranking the “best” planners for the new year.
They’re not wrong about needing a system. But I don’t think you should make resolutions. Resolutions are more like intentions, not commitments, which are more action-oriented to me. And I think you should commit to what you really care about.
Here’s what I think you should do instead:
Decide what your values are. Set goals based on those values. Break those goals into bite-sized daily tasks. If you consistently accomplish those daily tasks, the big goal happens on your schedule. And then you can have a credible claim to inner peace.
That’s not something I came up with. It’s the main idea behind a book I first read in 1999: “The Ten Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management” by Hyrum Smith, founder of the Franklin Planner company. It’s out of print now, but you can find used copies for about five bucks. I highly encourage you to read it.
Here’s the thing: You can fill any planner with stuff to accomplish every day. But as Smith wrote, we all have the same 24 hours, and you get to decide how you spend them. If you spend more time doing what you care about based on your values, you can experience what he called “inner peace.” Seems to me the world could use more inner peace.
I submit that whatever you’re spending your 24 hours on is a statement of what you value.
This is why I banished the phrase “I don’t have time to…” a long time ago. It’s never true. You DO have time – the same 24 hours as everyone else. You just prefer to spend that time doing one thing over another.
You can say, “I don’t have time to work out.” Except you do. You just spend your time doing something else. And that’s OK! Just own it. If you spend your time lying on a couch watching TV, then you value that. Great! Own it! But don’t spend your time on the couch and then complain you don’t have time to run.
Not everyone has to be a runner. That’s fine. Just own what you actually choose.
It’s not necessarily easy to do this work, but it is straightforward. And that’s where the Franklin Planner approach diverges from most other planners – most are just glorified to-do lists.
Whether you use a Franklin or just an empty notebook, here’s the work:
First, write down everything you value. This takes serious reflection. A lot of people avoid this. But it’s powerful because it creates the foundation for how you spend your time and gives you clarity about what you really care about.
Then write clarifying statements about what those values mean to you.
Create goals based on those values. Turn those goals into intermediate steps and daily tasks. Put those daily tasks into your planner.
But you’re not done yet. Prioritize those daily tasks by three categories: A, B, and C.
- A: Must be accomplished. Top priority.
- B: Important but can be moved if necessary.
- C: Not vital. Optional.
Then rank each category: A1, A2, A3, etc.
Example: You value mental health. Your clarifying statement: “I care about being emotionally regulated.” Your goal: “I will work with a therapist by March 2026 to improve my emotional health.”
Intermediate steps:
- Find a trusted therapist (by date)
- Attend X sessions per month
- Assess progress (by date)
Therapy days become A priorities in your planner. When you look at your task list and see you have multiple As, plus “get dry cleaning” and “remember the milk” (both Cs), you tell your partner: “I can’t get the dry cleaning or milk today because I’m prioritizing my therapy session and these other things. I can get it tomorrow, or we can have groceries delivered.”
When you do this consistently, it’s amazing how much you accomplish that you actually want to do.
This is what Commit looks like in practice. Not grand resolutions you abandon by February. Real commitment to yourself, one prioritized day at a time. One beautiful thing about this approach is that it’s flexible enough that when your values change, it continues to support you in pursuing your new values/goals. If you look at your values and goals at least annually, you can decide if they’re working for you. And if they’re not, simply revamp them and go again. No need to wait for January 1st! There’s no law that says you can only assess your values and goals on the first day of the new year! Plus if you’re doing this daily and you notice that you’re not accomplishing the As and Bs you said you wanted to, it’s an opportunity to ask yourself if you really valued the things they’re tied to in the first place.
This works, even when you’re in a position to delay pursuing things you desperately want. You can value survival for the moment but set a deadline on what your true value is, how you’re going to get to the place where you can start pursuing it (a new career, going back to college, etc.).
So skip the resolutions. Do the better work: figure out what you value, set real goals, and show up for yourself daily.
That’s how 2026 becomes the year you might achieve some inner peace.
If this was helpful, I hope you’ll share it with someone or post it in your social channels so others who might like it will see it. This is not a career for me, but if you want to support the content you can buy me a coffee. I’m using that money to pay for things on the backend of this platform that WordPress charges for and for email enhancements. Mostly, I’d appreciate it if you’d share it. I’m going to make more concerted efforts to grow the audience for this, especially among men. Thanks!