Welcome to the last deep dive I will send you in 2022!

As I've mentioned before, the end of the calendar year offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on the past and plan for the future.

Last week's issue covered my reflection process—specifically the template for my Personal Annual Review.

Note: You can download that template for free here.

This week will cover my annual planning process—which includes:

• Simple goal-setting framework
• Four system-building mental models
• Strategy for tracking and adjusting throughout the year

This annual planning process has been an immensely helpful exercise to which I would credit many of my greatest achievements. I hope that it will spark you to conduct your own before year-end, as I'm highly confident you will get the same value that I have from the exercise.

You can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template here.

The Goal-Setting Framework

There are two primary categories to consider as you plan for the year ahead: Professional & Personal.

Note: Some of you may like to break this up further—Personal could be split into Health, Personal, and Relationships—but I find it easier to just focus on the two major buckets.

For each primary category, my goal-setting framework has four connected components:

1. Big Goals
2. Checkpoint Goals
3. Daily Systems
4. Anti-Goals

Here's how it works...

Big Goals

These are your big, audacious goals. These should be big and ambitious—but stop short of being completely ridiculous.

The Big Goals are the summit of the mountain—motivating on a macro scale, but perhaps too far off, grand, and intimidating to be motivating on a micro daily basis.

Sahil Example: One of my Big Goals is to build this newsletter to 500,000 subscribers by the end of 2023.

Action Item:

Select 1-3 specific, measurable Big Goals within each category.

Crystallize these Big Goals. Write them down.

Checkpoint Goals

Work backwards from your Big Goals to formulate a set of Checkpoint Goals.

If the Big Goals are the summit of the mountain, the Checkpoint Goals are the mid-climb campsite. You can't reach the summit without reaching this point, as all paths lead directly through it.

Sahil Example: My first Checkpoint Goal associated with my 500,000 subscriber Big Goal would be to hit 300,000 subscribers by the end of June 2023. Specific, measurable, and a near-term checkpoint that would ensure I was tracking towards my Big Goal.

Action Item:

Select 1 specific, measurable Checkpoint Goal for each Big Goal.

Write it down below the associated Big Goal.

Daily Systems

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

The Daily Systems are the key to the entire framework.

These are the 2-3 daily actions that you need to take to create tangible, compounding forward progress—the simplest daily actions to generate progress in a given arena.

If the Big Goals and Checkpoint Goals are your compass, setting your direction, the Daily Systems are your feet, actually moving you forward on your climb.

Sahil Example: To hit my Big Goal and Checkpoint Goal for newsletter subscriber growth, my daily systems will include: (1) 30 minutes of focused reading, (2) 30 minutes of focused writing, and (3) daily management check-in with my newsletter growth team. The reading and writing will contribute to a consistent content flywheel, while the check-in will ensure overall growth ops are running efficiently.

Action Item:

Think about what the simplest daily actions are that would propel your forward progress toward your Big and Checkpoint Goals.

Select 1-3 specific Daily Systems for each Checkpoint Goal.

Write them down below the associated Checkpoint Goal.

Anti-Goals

"All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there." — Charlie Munger

​Anti-Goals are the things we DON'T want to happen on our journey to achieve our Big Goals.

Anti-Goals are about avoiding the Pyrrhic victory—a victory that takes such a terrible toll on the victor that it might has well have been a defeat.

If the Big Goals are your summit, Anti-Goals are the things you don't want to sacrifice while executing the climb—like your life, your toes, or your sanity. You want to reach the summit, but not at the expense of these things.

Sahil Example: My Anti-Goals associated with my newsletter subscriber growth Big Goal are: (1) Never "sell out" with low quality, growth-hacky content and (2) Never let the newsletter writing hinder the book writing process.

Action Item:

Invert the problem:

• What are the worst possible outcomes that could occur from your pursuit of these Big Goals?
• What could lead to that worst possible outcome occurring?
• What would you view as winning the battle but losing the war?

Using your answers to these questions, select 1-3 specific Anti-Goals for each Big Goal.

Write them down below the associated Big Goal.

4 System-Building Mental Models

This all sounds excellent in theory—but sometimes we struggle to build momentum. Even with our Big Goals to motivate us and our Daily Systems all planned out, we may fail to execute.

Ideas are CHEAP, execution is EXPENSIVE.

To guide your execution against your Daily Systems, here are four system-building mental models to consider...

The Two-Day Rule

With whatever habit you're trying to build, never allow yourself to skip more than one day in a row.

The science agrees. Quoting a study in the European Journal of Social Psychology: "Missing one opportunity to perform the behaviour did not materially affect the habit formation process."

Skipping one day won't hurt your habit building, as long as you don't skip the next one.

30-for-30 Approach

Do the thing you're trying to improve at:

• 30 minutes per day
• 30 straight days

30-for-30 provides clarity on whether you're psychologically invested in the thing you want to improve at. 30 days of effort is a real commitment. If you are half-in, you won’t want to take it on and commit to the 30 days.

30 minutes per day is short enough that you can mentally take it on. Pre-start self-intimidation is one of the biggest drivers of stagnation. If we make it too daunting, we don’t take it on.

30 days of 30 minutes per day is 900 total minutes of accumulated effort. This will yield surprisingly significant results. There’s almost nothing in the world that you won’t improve at if you spend 900 minutes of focused, dedicated effort on it.

Minimum Viable Progress

Never skip a day, but anything above zero counts.

Have a goal in mind to do 30 minutes of the action every single day—but if you can’t hit that, just do any tiny amount above zero.

Remember: Anything above zero compounds!

Habit Stacking

James Clear famously pointed out that we execute on Daily Systems most effectively when they are fixed to a time or action that makes them easy to structure and regiment.

He calls this Habit Stacking:

• "I'll journal 30 minutes before bed."
• "I’ll do 25 pushups when I get out of bed."
• "I'll read 30 minutes of my favorite novel while doing cardio."

It's a simple, effective behavioral trick to execute against Daily Systems.

Tracking and Adjusting

There's an aviation concept referenced in Atomic Habits called the 1-in-60 Rule. It says that a 1 degree error in heading will cause a plane to miss its target by 1 mile for every 60 miles flown.

The concept applies directly to your annual planning. Tiny deviations from the optimal course are amplified by distance and time. A small miss now creates a very large miss later.

This highlights the importance of real-time course corrections and adjustments.

Here's a strategy I use to track and adjust my course during the year:

Conduct a monthly check-in on the last Friday of each month.

In this check-in, I ask myself three core questions:

1. What really matters right now in my life and are my Big Goals still aligned with this? This is a simple way to pressure test your Big Goals and ensure they are still the right ones.
2. Are my current systems aligned with my Big and Checkpoint Goals? Assess the quality of your Daily Systems and whether they are creating the appropriate momentum. If not, make adjustments accordingly.
3. What do I need to cut from my life to progress more efficiently? Assess the quality of your environment and evaluate whether there are any toxic habits or relationships that are a drag on your growth. Make necessary changes.

Write the answers down.

The ritual takes ~30 minutes each month and creates an opportunity for monthly reflection and course correction on your journey.

Your Annual Planning Guide

To summarize my annual planning process:

1. Establish Big Goals within Professional and Personal category.
2. Establish Checkpoint Goals for each Big Goal.
3. Establish Daily Systems associated with each Big and Checkpoint Goal.
4. Establish Anti-Goals for each Big Goal.
5. Execute against Daily Systems using the Two-Day Rule, 30-for-30 Approach, Minimum Viable Progress, or Habit Stacking models.
6. Track and adjust using the 1-in-60 Rule Monthly Review.

The annual planning process is a life changing exercise. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

To get even more out of it, consider conducting the annual planning process in a small group format. Go through it individually, but then get together with a small group of your intellectual sparring partners and walk through it. Pressure test, question assumptions, and provide feedback. This is a great way to prepare yourself for 2023 to be the best year of your life.

As a reminder, you can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template here. Please share the link with anyone who you think will benefit from it.

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