8 Reasons to Rethink Your Calendar in 2026

Welcome to The Purpose Memo, a newsletter where I give you ideas for wrestling your life back from digital technology and living a principled life. 

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Read time: 8 minutes

Today is New Year’s Eve.

It’s a hopeful day because the year ahead is a blank slate. Something about the turn of the calendar gives us a real sense of possibility.

There’s a feeling in the air. We wonder to ourselves, What kind of person will I be a year from now? How would I feel if I made those changes I’ve always wanted to make? Or pursued those dreams I’ve always wanted to pursue?

The gravity of life—that force which tends to pull us back down to earth and create a subversive (and persistent) skepticism of our ability to ever actually change—seems to be suspended in this moment. For the first time in months, we believe.

And so, we set out to accomplish many things. How will we fare?

I received James Clear’s Atomic Habits Workbook as a Christmas gift this year. Clear is the one of the world’s preeminent experts on habit formation, having sold over 25 million copies of Atomic Habits.

As I was looking through the workbook, I came across an otherwise unremarkable paragraph that struck me as wildly insightful. He argues that the most common temptation for anyone trying to change their behavior is to attempt everything at once.

He writes, “My recommendation is that you work on only one habit at a time.”

One habit at a time.

That’s it.

As I entertain this idea, I can feel my subconscious getting restless. Surely I must do more than focus on one thing at a time? I was fully prepared to jumpstart all 19 of my new habits tomorrow! There’s no way I’ll accomplish much of anything this way… right?

This idea—progress via elimination—might be the most important idea for your new year.

Your habits are one area where overcommitment will show up time and time again, but there’s another category where it is even more common: your calendar.

Social media presents us with the illusion that everyone is doing everything. Kids are playing all the sports, adults are attending all the social gatherings, families are taking all the trips, friends are a part of all the clubs, and so on.

Consequently, we assume we must fall in line. We say “yes” too often and we add things to our plate until there is no margin left in our schedule.

Instead of doing a small handful of things exceptionally well and feeling proud of them, we do far too many things, resulting in the inevitable mediocrity that comes from just trying to keep our heads above water as we go from one thing to the next.

Perhaps it might be time to give yourself the freedom of a looser schedule.

But don’t take my word for it. Hear what a few other people have to say.

8 reasons to rethink your calendar in 2026:

1) To gain a competitive advantage

“The person who fills their calendar with average opportunities has no time for exceptional ones.”
- Shane Parrish

Opportunity often requires spontaneity. A busy calendar isn’t conducive to spontaneity, which means a busy calendar isn’t conducive to opportunity. Want to separate yourself from the pack? Do what no one else is doing: leave open space in your calendar.

2) To treat time like money

“We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest of misers.”
- Seneca

Most of us refuse to spend any significant sum of money without careful consideration. Most of us also freely give away big blocks of time without careful consideration. Paradoxically, your time is more valuable than your money. Act accordingly.

3) To exit the rat-race

“You combine insecurity and ambition, and you get an inability to say no to things.” 
- Jon Ronson 

You don’t have to take on more things. You can say no. Choose today to relentlessly prioritize the most important things and eliminate everything else. Don’t let the internet convince you otherwise.

4) To fight commitment creep

“What each of us calls our ‘necessary expenses’ will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.”
- George Clason

The first time I read this quote I immediately re-wrote it in my mind: "What each of us calls our ‘necessary commitments’ will always grow to equal our total available time unless we protest to the contrary.” Protest to the contrary.

5) To live the width of life

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well.” 
- Diane Ackerman

There aren’t many imaginable endings to life worse than looking back on a perpetually busy schedule and wondering why you ever did any of those things in the first place. Living the “width” of life requires you to slow down: to reflect, ponder, and rest. All things you aren’t afforded without margin.

6) To make life longer

“Life is long if you know how to use it.”
- Seneca

There’s a reason we use the phrases like “slowing down” to describe a schedule with breathing room and phrases like “going a million miles an hour” to describe a jam-packed schedule. Life moves faster when your calendar is full.

7) To live with purpose

"One cost of rushing from thing to thing is that you lose the space to think. Hard work matters, but nonstop motion often hides a quiet truth: you could have used your time better. If you never pause, you confuse activity with effectiveness."
- James Clear

Succeeding in the wrong things is a much greater danger than failing in the right things. If you have margin to pause and reflect, you will be the one who decides how you spend your time. If you don’t have time to pause and reflect, everyone else will decide how you spend your time.

8) To get more done

“It is wonderful how much work can be got through in a day, if we go by the rule—map out our time, divide it off, and take up one thing regularly after another. To drift through our work, or to rush through it in a helter-skelter fashion, ends in comparatively little getting done. ‘One thing at a time’ will always perform a better day’s work than doing two or three things at a time. By following this rule, one person will do more in a day than another does in a week.”
- Thomas Mitchell

Your plan isn’t the problem. It’s everything else distracting you from the plan. Do more by doing less.

2026 could be the year your whole life changes. Don't let the busyness trap keep you from making it happen.

It all starts with your calendar.

Here’s to another trip around the sun together.

Happy New Year!

Dear Reader,

For me, 2025 will always be remembered as the year I finally started something I’ve been wanting to do for years: this newsletter. Unsurprisingly, all it took was a sweeping overhaul of my screen time habits to finally find the time. For everyone who has subscribed, replied, commented, and shared The Purpose Memo, I am sincerely grateful.

I will continue to do everything I can to make this as valuable as possible. Can’t wait to share some things I’ve been thinking about in 2026.

See you next year!

PW