My Simple Goal Setting Framework To Get More Done In 2026 (Even If You Haven't Accomplished Goals Before)

I've set hundreds of goals, but rarely achieved them until I stumbled on Ali Abdaal's goal framework.

Ali recommends starting with what you want to achieve this year, then break that down into what you need to achieve each quarter, month, and week in order to hit it. He also highly recommends reviewing your goals and progress daily. After using Ali's for a few months, I decided to expand it a little to include longer-term goals as well as tie measurable actions to those goals (and integrate it all in Notion).

This is the exact framework that I will be using this next week to ensure that I make 2026 the best year for me and my company as possible.

Goal Level 0: Long-Term Goals

Spend a little time thinking about the things you really want to accomplish in life.

These goals will change and evolve over time, so don't overthink them and put the things that pop in your head immediately. These should all be goals that will take years to accomplish with enough work toward them. That said, leave off more "bucket list" items like everywhere you want to travel.

The idea of adding the long-term goals is it gives you an amazing way to keep track of your progress toward them over several years.

Goal Level 1: Annual Goals

On January 1st every year, half the planet sets New Year's Resolutions to be more healthy, spend less money, and spend more time on what's important... until those resolutions vanish January 14th.

We're not setting resolutions, but tactically deciding where we want to be before the new year ends. Start from your long-term goals and decide on the 2-3 you want to focus on for the year. Keep in mind that you don't want to have conflicting goals such optimizing your time and spending more time with family.

You should be left with 3-5 large goals that you can realistically accomplish within a year with enough focus, consistency, and work.

Spend a good amount of time on your annual goals because these will be what drives everything else you do for the year.

Goal Level 2: Quarterly Goals

If you're already in the corporate world, the idea of sticking to the quarter system might be nauseating, but it's a better idea to break down into quarters than immediately to twelfths.

Just start with the first quarter of the year and decide which of your annual goals you want to focus on for the first part of the year. Set exactly where you need to be so that you set your second quarter up for success.

Goal Level 3: Monthly Goals

Now, let's repeat the process, but focusing on the quarterly goals you just set and decide where you need to be in 1 month to set up the second month for success.

Monthly is where we start to get more tactical and less high-level. Make sure the goals are still attainable as long as you put the work in.

Goal Level 4: Weekly Goals

Finally, we take the Monthly goals and break them down in to individual weeks.

Again, decide where you need to be after the first week in order to set up the second for success. Weekly is where things might diverge slightly from the long-term or annual goal slightly so you can get good systems in place and focus on consistency. For example, if you're working on cold outreach for sales, you might have a weekly goal of being consistent every day with outreach.

Weekly is the lowest level of the goal framework because daily goals are really just bite-sized pieces of progress toward weekly and we'll tackle that next.

Putting Actions Toward The Goals

You have your long-term vision and have broken it down into bite-sized chunks that you're able to tackle, but vision without execution leads you to where you are now, not where you want to go.

For me, I keep my goals, projects, and tasks all in Notion so I can see them anywhere I go easily. I like to have a goal that relates ("links") to 1 or more projects, which relate to as many specific tasks as are needed to complete the project. This system lets me audit my goals quickly (which we'll cover next), but also see the tasks themselves in other places when I have some time for a particular area, such as my writing.

The mistake I made in 2025 that I am remedying for 2026 was to have a single project for a single weekly goal. Realistically, I might have 2-3 projects for a single annual goal, but want to see the tasks in all the related goals down to weekly based on the due dates.

While I'm still working on the Notion side of this, the idea is that I'll be able to move tasks forward if I'm ahead on a goal or push back if I need to shift focus.

Critical: The Daily & Weekly Review

You've put all the work in, you have the goals set, and it's week 1, so where do you start?

I try to start every day by reviewing that week's goals including where progress is on it, what might be blocked, and what's going well. That allows me to focus my day on executing what I need to so that I am set for success tomorrow without losing sight of where I'm trying to go. On Sundays, I do a weekly review starting with how the past week went, then reviewing all the goals in the layering starting with long-term down to monthly, then set the next week's goals since I have freshly reviewed.

The daily review should be less than 5 minutes to make sure you're on the right track and the weekly review should be less than 30 to set up the next week for success toward all your goals.