How to plan a 2026 project

Break big goals into small steps

Several years ago, as I was considering my 2021 goals, I got a notice from Jeremy Anderberg (of the Read More Books newsletter) that he was planning on leading a group expedition through War and Peace. He noted that this epic novel (1455 pages in my edition!) was divided into 361 very short (4-5 page) chapters. He planned to read a chapter a day over the course of the year.

I checked, and sure enough, while War and Peace itself is very long, each chapter is quite manageable. I tried reading one and was done in a few minutes. This sounded like a doable project to me, so I was in. I read a chapter on January 1, and January 2, and so on…until I finished on December 27th.

This was a really cool experience. Reading War and Peace felt almost effortless! By breaking a big goal into very small steps, I never got overwhelmed. Any slogs (like the Freemasonry section of War and Peace…) just required a few minutes a day.

If you are pondering a big project for 2026, you might likewise figure out how to break it down into very tiny steps, and spread it over a big quantity of time. After all, time will pass anyway. But with some smart planning, in 365 days, you could be done with something substantial.