Design Your Year
“New year, new you” is a funny phrase. January 1 might mark the start of a new year, but you’re still you.
And that’s a good thing, because the key to starting a new habit or accomplishing an aim is to figure out an approach that works for you.
Ready to start designing your year? You’re in the right place.
How to Design Your Year
As the new year approaches, many people feel the pull to set goals or create resolutions. But while resolutions are popular, research shows that for many people, they’re not particularly effective.
Designing your year takes a different approach: instead of making sweeping promises to yourself, you’ll use three flexible (and fun) tools—a one-word theme, a yearlong shared challenge, and a list of aims for the year—to help you make consistent progress toward what makes you happy.
You can try one of these tools or use all three together, and you can start any time—January 1, your birthday, the start of the school year, or next Monday.
Design Your Year:
2026 Tools
My research and experience shows that when we set specific aims that match our personal preferences, energy levels, circumstances, and tendencies, we’re far more likely to achieve them.
These tools offer different approaches so you choose the ones that feel right. Whether you’re a New Year’s resolution person (or not), you can put these strategies to work:
- Choose a one-word theme
- Join the ’26 in ’26 Challenge
- Write a ’26 for ’26 List
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Build Momentum
I’ve been using this Design Your Year framework for years, and while the three core tools stay the same, I create new resources each year with fresh themes, updated lists, and timely challenges.
How to get organized
My research on habits and happiness shows that for most people, outer order contributes to inner calm. Getting control of your space doesn’t require a major overhaul. The right strategies, applied consistently, make a real difference.
Design Your Summer
Every year on the Happier podcast, we talk about “designing your summer.” The challenge is to identify what you want out of the season and mindfully design your approach so that the months don’t slip away in a blur of obligation and missed opportunity.
The idea was initially inspired by Robertson Davies, who writes:
“Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather. Circumstances have not allowed me to make a good summer for myself this year…My summer has been overcast by my own heaviness of spirit. I have not had any adventures, and adventures are what make a summer.” (The Enthusiasms of Robert Davies).
Whether you want a season of reflection, refinement, or celebration, there’s no right way to design your summer; just the way that’s right for you.
Design Your Summer with the Happier™ App
The Happier™ app offers a variety of tools that make designing your summer practical, fun, and concrete. If you’re not sure where to start, choose a prompt that resonates with you and build from there.
☆ FEATURED ARTICLE
Paperwork is one of the toughest forms of clutter to vanquish. Here’s how to get it done.
Article
How to help a friend clear clutter
Article
New ideas for organizing
Article
Spring Cleaning Ideas: How to Get Started (and Make It Fun)
Read 25 in 2025
Gretchen Rubin partnered with Bookshop.org, the online marketplace that supports indie bookstores, for her annual group challenge which, that year, was to read 25 minutes a day in 2025. The campaign was selected as a 2026 Webby Honoree.
The Design Your Year Guide
Life feels richer and more memorable when each season feels distinctive. This guide is designed to help you shape your year, season by season, with reminders to stop, reflect, and consider what changes could make your life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for happiness and good habits. The exercises in this guide, inspired by the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast, offer many creative ways to approach building habits and accomplishing your aims for the year. You can start any time.
Dive Deeper
Related Reading
- What Will Make You Happier This Year? Take This Quiz
- How to be happier in 2025, and the Question Everyone Forgets to Ask
- A Fun Way to Shape the New Year: Pick a One-Word Theme.
- 3 Reasons to Give Up on Your New Year’s Resolutions
- Design Your Year: 2025 Tools
- Design Your Year: 2024 Tools
- Design Your Year: 2023 Tools