Work goals: examples and a yearly goals template

Look back at this year first

Last January’s goals, set against what really happened, show how much a year of your work can hold.

With this year’s goal list, your calendar and a record of what you shipped in front of you, answer four questions in writing:

1. Which goals did I set, and what happened to each? Finished, carried over or dropped.
2. What did I finish that was on no list?
3. What took the most time, and was it worth it?
4. What will I not take on again?

If most goals were carried over or dropped, you set too many or set them too large. Work that was on no list and still filled your calendar will come back next year, so leave room for it.

My own 2026: I set about 8 goals, finished 4, carried over 2 and dropped 2. The unplanned work that took the most time was product firefighting and exam prep, and I also spent more time than planned building and tweaking automations, which paid off, but not always on schedule. For 2027 I am setting about 5, more than the three this guide suggests: at least one around FocusPilot growth and one around increasing output per hour through AI workflows. The one I can share is a user milestone for FocusPilot.

Choose three work goals

Three work goals is the limit we suggest, because each one needs three lines in every weekly check: nine lines for three goals, fifteen for five. Personal and health goals can go on a list of their own.

Write each goal as a result you could check on 31 December. “Grow the business account” is a direction; “Launch the business account, with 500 businesses paying from it in December” is a goal. A resolution names a change; a goal names a result and a date. In Locke and Latham’s review of 35 years of goal-setting research, specific, difficult goals led to higher performance than being told to do your best.

A result you can check on 31 December covers most of SMART, which asks for goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. On achievable, the same review sets the bar higher: the hardest goals produced the most effort and the best performance, until people reached the limits of their ability.

What to leave out

The look back will give you more than three candidates. Cut these first:

• Work your job already requires. The roadmap and the monthly numbers happen either way, and the Eisenhower matrix sorts them week by week.
• Anything you could not check on 31 December, such as “be a better leader”.
• Outcomes someone else decides, such as a promotion. Write down the part you control.
• A goal carried over twice. Make it one of the three, or drop it and tell whoever expected it.

Then write a short not-this-year list: the projects you are turning down now, so the no in March is already decided.

Write every goal as something you will build

In a study that followed 159 New Year’s resolvers, 46 percent were continuously successful at six months, against 4 percent of comparable people who wanted to change a problem later and made no resolution. In a larger experiment on New Year’s resolutions, 1,066 people were followed for a year, and 55 percent of those who answered considered themselves successful. Of those whose resolution was to start or build something, 58.9 percent considered themselves successful, against 47.1 percent of those trying to stop or avoid something. Success was self-reported in both, and most resolutions were about health, not work. The rewrite still costs nothing to try.

So turn a goal about stopping something into one about building something. “Stop being the bottleneck on every release” becomes “Hire a second product manager who owns the cards roadmap by 30 June”. For a skill you are still learning, count what you will be able to do yourself: four pricing experiments, from design to readout.

Two of my own rewrites: “Stop saying yes to every meeting” became “Build a protected 3-hour deep work block every morning”, and “Stop doing repetitive tasks by hand” became “Build systems that run them without me”.

Examples of work goals you can check on 31 December

Each direction on the left fails one of the rules above. The goal on the right keeps the ambition and adds a result and a date.

A result per quarter, a check every week

From January, 31 December is too far away to tell you whether you are on track. Work backwards and write what has to be true at the end of each quarter, with a date and a check. Plan the first quarter in detail and the others in one line each: by March you will know more, and the end of a quarter is the moment to change a goal. In FocusPilot, a year goal holds its quarter results as tasks with due dates (set it up).

Once a week, in the same slot, write three lines per goal:

• What moved this week. Evidence only: a number, a signature, something shipped.
• Is this quarter’s result still on track? Yes or no, and one reason.
• The next step, and the day it happens.

A meta-analysis of 138 studies found that getting people to check their progress helped them reach their goals, and the effect was larger when progress was written down or reported to others. Add the check to your weekly plan and book the first one in the first week of January: commitments to goals rise after a fresh start such as a new year (Dai, Milkman and Riis, 2014). In the same week, block time for the first step of each goal.

A goal with nothing to write for three weeks running is a finding: change the plan, or cut the goal at the end of the quarter. If you miss a few weeks, start again on the next Monday or the first of the month: in Dai, Milkman and Riis’s data, the same lift came at the start of a new week or month. Show the plan to one person who will ask about it, and book the four quarter reviews now.

A worked example

Template

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Look back at this year

1. Which goals did I set, and what happened to each? (finished, carried over, dropped)
2. What did I finish that was on no list?
3. What took the most time, and was it worth it?
4. What will I not take on again?

Three work goals for next year (each something you will build, with the number or event that says it is done, and a date)

Not this year

A result for every quarter (one block per goal)

Goal:

• Q1, by 31 March:
• Q2, by 30 June:
• Q3, by 30 September:
• Q4, by 31 December:

Weekly check (same slot every week, three lines per goal)

• What moved this week? (evidence only)
• On track for this quarter’s result? Yes or no, and why:
• Next step, and the day it happens:

Shared with

• Name, and the dates of the four quarter reviews:

Where a year plan falls short

A year is a long horizon for a fast-changing role or an early company, where 12-week cycles or quarterly plans fit better. Goals that belong to a team fit OKRs. If your employer sets goals in a review cycle, write your three inside it. None of this needs an app: a sheet of paper or a notes file holds the whole method.

Set up your year in FocusPilot

FocusPilot holds the goals, and its weekly review checks them.

1. Add each work goal from the + button (Goal), with its deadline and the Professional area. Personal and health goals go in their own areas.
2. Under each goal, add the first quarter’s result as tasks with due dates, and each later quarter as one task dated to the quarter’s last day.
3. Every week, open the Goals tab, tap ⋯, then Weekly review: last week’s hit rate, the split by category and the pattern row for a task that keeps slipping.
4. When a goal stalls and your journal and recent days point to the same cause, a Mentor Brief (+ button, Mentor Brief) names what to cut.

FocusPilot is free to download on iPhone and Android, and every plan starts with a free trial.

FocusPilotiPhone and Android

We make FocusPilot. The method above works without it.

The bottom line

One page, three goals and a weekly check carry most work years; in a role that changes every quarter, plan in 12-week cycles instead. Book the first weekly check now, for Friday 8 January.