This year, my planner isn’t a book. It isn’t an app. It isn’t something I check once a week and forget about.

It’s one single sheet with the entire year printed on it and laid out where I can see all of it at once.

No flipping pages.
No hiding months.
No pretending December is far away.

Just the truth of time, staring back at you.

When you can see all twelve months at the same time, the game changes. Time stops being theoretical. Seasons stack up faster than you expect. Commitments clump together. Empty space becomes visible—and suddenly valuable. You also realize something most people avoid admitting: you can’t do everything. And once you accept that, you can finally do the right things.

Before I ever plan ahead, I close out the year behind me. Every serious business does an audit at the end of the year. People should do the same. I slow down long enough to look honestly at what worked. I consider what didn’t work. I think about what actually mattered. I recall what I accomplished that I’m already starting to forget. That reflection matters. But reflection alone isn’t enough. I want to clear space.

I don’t want to drag clutter, loose ends, or mental junk into a new year.

Closing out the year is practical and intentional. I want to walk into January ready to attack, not already behind. That usually means a few simple resets:

• Clearing physical clutter
• Cleaning and organizing my workspace
• Doing a hard digital reset
• Writing handwritten thank-you letters

The letters matter more than people realize. I make a list of people who helped me, influenced me, or showed up for me during the year and I send them real mail. People may ignore emails and skim messages, but everyone reads a letter. It strengthens relationships, closes loops, and reminds you that progress doesn’t happen alone.

Before planning goals, I take an honest look at my life as a whole. I imagine throwing everything into one blender—finances, health, relationships, work, where I live, happiness—and asking one simple question: on a scale from one to ten, where am I really? Whatever instantly pops into my head as the reason I’m not a ten is what needs fixing next. Not someday. Next year. Not everything—just the two or three things that actually matter. If those don’t improve, nothing else truly changes.

Most people live on calendar defense. Their schedules fill up with meetings, appointments, obligations, and other people’s priorities. By the end of the year they’re exhausted and can’t point to anything they intentionally chose. Planning a full year on one page flips that model. I put the things that matter most on the calendar first—family milestones, adventures, travel, races, experiences that make life feel alive. Work will always fill in. Responsibility doesn’t need help getting busy.

When the entire year is visible, planning gets sharp. I’m really only anchoring a few things:

• One big, year-defining goal
• Several small adventures spread throughout the year
• A handful of habits layered in gradually

That’s it. Simple. Aggressive. Effective. Enough structure to give the year a storyline without suffocating it.

This works because it’s visual. You can instantly see where your time goes. You can spot overload before it wrecks you. You can protect margin instead of hoping it appears. There’s no scrolling, no hiding, and no negotiating with reality. The planner becomes a map, not a nag.

At the end of the year, that single sheet becomes the most honest autobiography you’ll ever have. Not what you planned to do. Not what you talked about doing. What you actually did. You can roll it up, save it, and years later say, “This is how I lived that year.”

Planning an entire year on one page doesn’t make life rigid. It makes it intentional. You can still be spontaneous. You can still change plans. But when you start with clarity, time stops leaking away. If you don’t plan newness, it doesn’t magically show up. Time will get spent either way.

The difference is whether you spent it on purpose.

If you try planning your year this way, I’d genuinely love to know — do you think this system would work for you?