Daniel Pink and a co-host rate common New Year's resolution practices as overrated, underrated, or appropriately rated. They weigh in on vision boards, stop-doing lists, daily shutdown rituals, quarterly goals, batching tasks, and other habits people adopt in January.
Overrated, underrated, New Year's resolution edition.
Remove negative people from your life.
Underrated. It's one of the most important things that we can do.
Make a vision board.
Oh boy. I mean, go for it if that's your thing, but I think that's kind of overrated. Better just to just do your fucking work.
New year, new me.
Um, I'd probably appropriately rate it. I mean, New Year's is a fresh start date, so it can be useful.
Create a stop-doing list for 2026.
Underrated. It's a hugely important thing. I do it myself. We should all— we should subtract more and add less. Write your to-do list.
Make a to-do list the night before.
That's underrated. I don't think— I don't do that enough myself, and I probably should start doing it.
Do your hardest task first thing in the morning.
You know what? I think that's still underrated. We've heard it for years. Mark Twain talked about eating the frog first thing, and Mark Twain is still right.
Schedule a daily shutdown ritual.
That's underrated. I like that idea. I think we need cues and markers to help us move our way through the day.
Set quarterly goals, not yearly ones.
That's underrated. Not enough people do that, myself included. A year is a very long Time horizon. 90 days is very manageable.
Theme your days. Writing day, meeting day, deep work day.
Hmm, I'm gonna put that one in the middle. It really depends on what kind of work that you have. The danger of that is that you don't have sustained attention over time.
Pick 3 goals for the year and stick to them.
Appropriately rated. I like having a small number of goals, but every once in a while you have goals and you realize you're pursuing the wrong goal, and I don't want you to stick with a bad goal Come October.
Schedule more time for joy.
I haven't met Joy, so I don't know what she's like, but if you're really into Joy, do it.
Batch all similar tasks together.
That's underrated. That's a very effective tool.
Write out your mission statement and look at it every day.
Appropriately rated. Works for some people, doesn't work for other people. I mean, I like having a North Star. There's a lot of evidence that that can be useful.
It's okay if you don't hit your goals.
Depends on what the goal is and depends on a lot of different things. I'm gonna put that one in the middle. Appropriately rated.
Plan your week every Sunday.
Let's call underrated. I think that having that kind of week-by-week vision is really useful.
