You Need to Know What You Want to Accomplish in 2026

What do you really want to accomplish this year?¹ If both local and global events of the past few years have taught us anything, hopefully one of those things was that we really don’t know what the future holds.

You can’t tell what might happen over the next 12 months. You can’t know what adjustments or pivots these months might require, or how large or small those pivots mgiht be.

But these unknowns don’t diminish the value of clear intentions for the year. Quite the opposite is the case.

Why You Need to Think about What You Want to Accomplish

As the year goes by you’ll naturally not to give attention to some things. You’ll still find yourself attending to plenty of things, however. Without clear intentions, you’ll just be more likely to give more or less attention to anything individually than you’d really prefer. This likelihood only grows as the year requires more or larger pivots due to unforeseeable circumstances.

As the year goes by, circumstances might require changes in your intentions. But to change an intention implies two things:

1. that you had a prior intention that you’re departing from and
2. that you’re adopting another intention instead.

The intention you adopt instead could even be to reduce what you’re trying to accomplish in a given time frame. The larger the time frame, the more likely it is that early plans will need to change along the way. But this isn’t a reason not to plan—just like the potential for detours makes it inadvisable to plan a road trip. It’s just a recognition that humans aren’t omniscient.

You want to avoid being swept along by the “tyranny of the urgent”. At its end, you want to look back on this year (or your whole life) and see that you’ve done what’s important. So, for starters, you need to clarify exactly what that is.

How to Think about What You Want to Accomplish

How you clarify what’s important will differ from how someone else does it. But for a place to begin, 5 steps can help. These steps are to²

1. Reflect on your experience.
2. Brainstorm what you’d most like to accomplish this year.
3. Turn your brainstorm results into goal statements.
4. Assign each goal to a particular part of the year.
5. Each week, ask how you can move toward one or more of your goals.

1. Reflect on your experience.

At least for me, when I reflect on what I’ve learned from a prior year, I inevitably notice things that help me plan better in the future. So, as you’re thinking about the year ahead, try some similar reflection. You’ll have your own lessons that you’ve learned, but a couple examples of my own might help get your wheels turning.

1.1. A Professional Example

I’ve sometimes found myself with one or more goals that’re too large to accomplish in any one time period. For me, these time periods are often quarters, but semesters work great too.

That meant larger—but possibly more important—items could get pushed out too far (e.g., finishing a monograph). So, in response, I’ve tried to chunk down larger projects into smaller units that can fit into single

• quarters (e.g., finishing a monograph chapter) or
• months (e.g., writing x number of words).

This subdivision naturally means a larger project will have more discrete goals that lead up to its completion. But that’s the point. Larger projects are larger. They take more time and effort to complete.

So, subdividing larger goals gives me a better sense of just how committed the year already is. It also helps me see better throughout the year how I’m progressing on larger-scale projects.

1.2. A Personal Example

This is true whether that larger project is professional or personal. For instance, I regularly have a goal to take a certain number of days out of the office with my family by the end of the year.

I could drop this goal into the year’s last quarter. But if the goal requires larger blocks of time in other quarters (e.g., for an extended time away during the summer), it’s helpful again to segment a larger goal into any major, per-quarter chunks.

2. Brainstorm what you’d most like to accomplish this year.

You’ll certainly accomplish many more things this year than you can count. But what are the most important things for you to accomplish?

2.1. Make a list.

Make a list of what you think of.³ As you do, it can be easy to think about professional goals and ignore personal ones. But biblical scholarship isn’t about being an academic automaton. So, it’s important to think both personally and professionally. That way, you’ll have a mix of both personal and professional goals that you’re working toward.

Do you want to

• write an article,
• spend more time focused on your family, or
• take a class?

(As a hint, if you’re a student taking a class, completing that class successfully should be one of your goals. 😁)

It might take a few minutes to get going. But once you do, you’re liable to grow your list pretty quickly. Keep brainstorming until you have at least 10 items on your list.

2.2. Subdivide your list.

Once you get to this point, carefully review your list. As you do, ask

What items on your list need to be subdivided?

Don’t worry about subdividing in too much detail. You’re just trying to get a handle on the major component pieces of any larger goals. You want your goals’ scope to be small enough to fit into a single part of the year (e.g., a month, a quarter, a semester).

For example, you might have on your list “Write my dissertation.” But that’s not something you’ll finish all at once. You need to subdivide this project. As you do, your list will begin to reflect better the complexity of what writing your dissertation requires.

You might subdivide this project into

• completing your prospectus,
• completing each of the individual chapters respectively, and finally
• editing and submitting your project.

So, if you have five chapters, “Write my dissertation” could immediately become seven discrete goals:

• one for each of the chapters,
• one for the prospectus, and
• one for final editing and submission.

2.3. Focus your list.

Out of your subdivided list, however, you only get to pick 12 items at most to really work on.

If you only have 10–12 items, that’s great. But what happens if you find yourself with more than 12 items (like I usually have at this point)?

It’s tempting to think you can do it all or fit everything that you want into this year. But that’s rarely realistic, and if it is, your goals probably weren’t really stretching you to begin with.⁴ So, limit yourself to no more than 12 major objectives over the coming 12 months. If you do, it’ll help you feel at the planning stage the strain that your goals will put on your time, attention, and resources as the year moves along.

Anything on this list ultimately means something else can’t be on it. But you still need to come down to your most important objectives for the coming year. So, you might need to reflect, write down, scratch out, reorder, and otherwise hash and rehash your list. It might take revisiting your list over a few days until you’re satisfied with it.

That’s okay. Whatever doesn’t make the cut for this year you can save for another year’s list of possible goals. The important thing is to commit to no more than 12 major objectives to focus on for this year.

3. Turn your brainstorm results into goal statements.

Having these objectives, however, will do little good if they’re fuzzy or merely aspirational expressions. So, once you identify the core of what your goals will be, take a few minutes to turn them into SCHOLARLY goals that are

• Specific,
• Challenging,
• Holistic,
• On your calendar,
• Linked to each other,
• Actionable,
• Realistic,
• Limited in extent, and
• Yielding important outcomes.

Doing so will help crystalize exactly what you’re committing to accomplish by when.

Specific

“Write an article” or “spend more time with my family” are too general. Aiming at them is much like trying to hit anywhere in a target rather than strike the bullseye. Because your aim is so broad, you might miss the garget all together.

Instead, “aim small, miss small.” Set a goal to

• “Write an article about the land promise to Abraham” or
• “Be home by 5:30, and give my full attention to my family each weekday evening.”

These targets are much more specific. So, aiming for them makes it that much harder to miss wildly.

Challenging

A good goal should be doable but stretching. For instance, you might comfortably write academic papers at 200 words per hour.

But how would things be different if you stretched that to 300 words per hour? That 50% increase sounds stretching. But what kind of time would that free up? Or what additional writing would you be able to do?

When selecting a metric, being realistic is also important. But you also want to find something that requires you to improve existing skills or develop new ones.

Holistic

You’re a whole person with a multifaceted life.⁵ Your goals should be multifaceted too. So, as you made your initial goal list, hopefully, you included both academic and personal items.

Goals like

• “Write my paper for SBL” and
• “Take x days off by the end of the year”

are both worth including.

So, survey your 10–12 prospective goals. Ask yourself whether the balance between academic and personal goals looks appropriate. If you’re married, you might also ask for your spouse’s input on this mixture.

On Your Calendar

When do you want to complete a goal? Or how often do you want to do it?

For example, do you want to “Spend two hours a day, five days a week writing my dissertation”? If so, make an appointment with yourself on your calendar. That way, you and others can see how your time is already committed, and you can more deliberately count the cost of any other demands.

Or do you want to “Finish drafting my last dissertation chapter by 30 June”? If so, match your deadline to the part of the year to which you assign a given goal.

Linked to Each Other

Your goals shouldn’t compete with each other. One shouldn’t make life harder for another. Instead, each goal should mesh well with and support each other.

For instance, you could drop in only one goal to “Write my dissertation.” But you’re bound to have problems if you then have 9–11 other goals for projects or other life domains that don’t harmonize with this goal. These other goals don’t sufficiently support your aim of finishing your dissertation because they’re not linked closely enough.

“Draft my dissertation’s first chapter,” “draft my dissertation’s second chapter,” and so on link together much better.

Actionable

To “be less distracted while reading” is a great idea. But what do you need to do in order to be this way?

Do you need to “Read for an hour each day while using Freedom to block online distractions”? That’s something you can do as you cultivate the habit of deep work.

Clarify exactly what action you need to take to achieve a given outcome. When you do, you’re that much more able to make good forward progress on that goal.

Realistic

If you

• work full time in a non-faculty post outside Europe,
• have an active family life, and
• have ongoing commitments in your community,

it might be a lot of fun to “Spend the semester at INTF.”

But it might not be realistic to pull up stakes and start actively moving on this goal. At the very least, you might need to back off to a more preparatory goal like “Plan a semester abroad at INTF.”

Limited in Extent

“Make progress on my dissertation” doesn’t cut it because “progress” is too vague. What counts? How do you know if you’ve successfully achieved your goal?

In principle, one additional character in your dissertation file could count as “progress.” But at that rate, your project will outlive you and never get finished.

“Submit my prospectus” is much better.

Yielding Important Outcomes

If you look over your goals list, hopefully you won’t find anything that makes you yawn. If you do, ask why. Should you remove it to concentrate on something more important? Or should you reframe it in a way highlights why it’s important?

“Spend less time on email” isn’t particularly inspiring. “Recover 30 minutes a day for writing by reducing how long I spend replying to email” clarifies what the important end game is.

4. Assign each goal to a particular part of the year.

Academic life typically revolves around quarters or semesters.⁶ This structure can provide a natural way to segment your year into 3 or 4 major parts.

Either should work. I tend to find shorter and more regular time framse to be more helpful. But they can overlap in odd ways with academic semesters. So, choose whatever approach you feels most natural and creates the least friction.

4.1. Spreading Your Goals throughout the Year

Scheduling each goal might involve simply logging an intention to complete it by the end of “Quarter 3” or the “fall semester.” Or you might pick a particular date within a larger block of time (e.g., 31 August).

However you assign your goals to various parts of the year, don’t overload any one part. A quarter only has 13 weeks, and a semester only has 12–17 weeks. And these weeks also need to include any time you’re wanting to be away.

So, from your list of no more than 12 SCHOLARLY goals for the year, assign

• no more than 4 to each semester (fall, spring, summer, because 12 goals ÷ 3 semesters = 4 goals per semester) or
• no more than 3 to each quarter (because 12 goals ÷ 4 quarters = 3 goals per quarter).

This is important throughout the year, but it’s especially so at the year’s end. The more important objectives you plan to achieve only at the very end of the year, the more likely they are to still be incomplete at the start of next year.

4.2. Benefits of Assigning Your Goals to Parts of the Year

Observing these limits can help you see if you’re overloading a given time period (quarter, semester). If you are, reschedule some goals into less busy parts of the year. Then, focus on those goals more then so that you can free yourself up more during times when things had previously clumped together.

Just like limiting yourself to 12 annual goals, limiting yourself to 3 per quarter or 4 per semester helps you feel the constraints of that time as you plan. Reckoning with those constraints ahead of time can help you avoid larger-scale scheduling crises. After all, your time actually is limited. So, you want to grapple with this limitation as best you can on the front end.

4.3. Two Options for Recurring Activity Goals

A possible, special case is if you’re running a goal that repeats throughout the year. For example, you might want to “Bike for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.”

In this case, weigh how big a commitment this goal’s repetition involves. As you do, think about what this repeated practice will actually require.

Maybe it’s the practice that makes the goal worthwhile and the repetition itself is a fairly small commitment. If so, schedule the goal to show up in the year’s last quarter or semester. At that point, your commitment to your practice over the course of the year will be complete.

But resist the temptation to jump to this conclusion only so that you can try to cram more into your plan for the year. On honest reflection, if the repetition is a larger commitment, schedule the goal in each of the year’s quarters or semesters.

Your plan needs to be realistic, as well as challenging. And things usually take longer than you think they will. So yes, scheduling a larger repetition commitment will occupy more of your total annual goal slots. But those slots are limited exactly because your time is too.

5. Each week, ask how you can move toward one or more of your goals.

If you only have 12–16 weeks to complete 3–4 major goals, you effectively need to complete a full major goal every 3–5 weeks. So, you clearly need to be intentional about what you do in each of those precious weeks.

As works best for you, schedule some weekly time to review your goals for a given quarter or semester. Ask yourself,

What do I need to do this next week toward completing this period’s goals?

You might not be able to work on everything for a given quarter or semester in a given week. That’s fine. You just need to make regular progress, even if it’s on only a small handful of meaningful tasks. Over time, these small handfuls will add up to much larger results.

Conclusion

By the time December rolls around, each year is too far spent to change much of what it involves. So, don’t wait. Instead, “begin with the end in mind.”⁷ Intentionally decide what you’d like to have done this year once it’s at an end. Then, you’ll be ready to start taking deliberate, well-defined steps toward that end. And you’ll have a way to reorient yourself toward these goals as you pivot around whatever unique challenges the year sends your way.