Matt Ragland argues you shouldn't wait until January to start. Pick one goal you can finish by December 31st and use his Analog Action system, a pen-and-paper method requiring 10-15 minutes weekly planning, to build momentum into 2026.
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So we've got 10 weeks left in 2025. I mean, to be honest, it's really only 8 weeks if you count in the holidays. And I know what a lot of you are thinking. The year is already passing me by. I can't believe it's middle of October, towards the end of October. I'll just like cruise control for the rest of the year and really get going on my goals when January 1st hits. I'm here to tell you today that that is a mistake. And here's what you should do instead. Here's what I want you to think about. What if this wasn't the end of something, but the beginning? What if these last 10 weeks were your chance to lock in and build real momentum and energy going into 2026 instead of just waiting for it to come to you? If you're like me and many other people, you start the year with goals. Hopefully you write them down. You get to some of them, maybe not all of them, because let's be honest, life happens. Good things in life happen. Momentum fades and your goals kind of get buried under a load of busy work and stuff that you need to do, but maybe they aren't necessarily the things that you know you want to be doing with your life. So here we are. You feel the year slipping away and you tell yourself, okay, fresh start in January. New year, new me. I'll just wait until then. But here's what actually happens when you think and act that way. You don't just lose the next 10 weeks. You lose momentum. You lose energy. You lose confidence in yourself and your ability to do things. And worst of all, you show up to January 1st with no momentum and the exact same habits and systems and routines that have kept you stuck this year. So here's what I want you to do instead, and I'm going to be doing this with you. I want you to lock in with me over the next 10 weeks. Now, you might have heard the great lock-in from a bunch of other people on the internet, but this is our opportunity to do it together, to do it with pen and paper, with whiteboard and sticky notes and note cards. These are the things that I believe will help us make important and meaningful progress on the goals that we have as we close out the year. Here's what we're going to do together. We're going to pick one thing, one thing that matters that you can complete before December 31st. Not 10 things, not even 2 things. What is the one most important thing that you can do and make progress on before the end of the year? For me, it's actually this channel. It's been a few weeks since I posted. I was on a good stretch and then I was off for a good stretch because I was traveling a little bit. And I'm thinking December and January are always the best months for this channel. What if I didn't just wait until the second week of December and be like, ah, I gotta post some videos. And I actually went into December and January with a week by week cadence and confidence that a quality YouTube channel would have. That's my commitment to you. That's what I'm locking in for over the next 10 weeks. So here's what you'll get, not necessarily from me, but from yourself and for your own confidence. One, you will know that you are capable of doing the thing that you set out to do. And that's why we say just one thing, not 10 things. If you do 10 things like a few different ways, then you're not going to make the progress that you want. But if you just have the courage and the focus, say, I'm going to focus on this one thing and above all other things that I have to do, this thing is going to get done. You will make incredible progress. You will go further than you ever thought was possible just by focusing on this one thing for the next 10 weeks. The second thing that will happen is that you show up on January 1st. With the most momentum you've ever had in your life. Not showing up on January 1st, maybe a little hungover, probably a little tired and worn out from the holidays and just thinking, I hope this year will be different. You will go in knowing the last 10 weeks have been different. The last month has been different. I feel better and more focused and more confident than I ever have in my entire life. And that starts today. That starts with selecting the one thing that is going to be the most impactful for you in the next 10 weeks and going into the next year. Okay. So I know what you might be thinking, Matt, this sounds great, but how do I pull this off when I already feel stretched really thin, when I don't really have the habits, the routines, the system that will help me lock in and get these things done over the next 10 weeks? Well, that's exactly what I created Analog Action for. Analog Action is my complete system for getting things done with pen and paper. But it's not just a productivity course, it's also a vision setting course. Because like I said earlier, when you know what matters to you and you know where you want to be going in life, you are going to give every single task that you do, every action that you take will be in alignment with the kind of life that you want to live and the person that you want to become. Now, this isn't a complicated system. You don't have to learn new software. All you have to do is use your notebook or use note cards. Either one works. And it also doesn't take a lot of time. I spend maybe an hour a week total on this system because it takes 10 to 15 minutes to plan at the beginning of the week. And then I spend 5 to 10 to 15 minutes every day, the rest of the week to get everything done. And like I said, that means that I go into each day knowing these are the things that matter. These are the things that are going to lead me to a successful completion of my goal. So I don't waste time anymore. I don't get distracted as easily because of— instead of even like pulling up an app, I just look at my notebook and it says like, these are the things that I got to get done today. I do those things. I'm like, wow, I've gotten so much done in such a shorter amount of time than I used to when I felt so scattered and distracted and overwhelmed. This is what Analog Action teaches you to do. Define your vision, align your weeks, build momentum going into the new year. And so if you want to use these last 10 weeks to actually lock in and finish strong, this is exactly how you can do it. So this is where we are. This is the choice that's in front of us. There are 10 weeks left in 2025, probably 8 working weeks or less. And you can decide if you want to coast into the new year or if you want to drive into the new year with momentum and confidence, focus and success. And here's all that you need to do. Pick that one thing, commit to it, keep showing up for it, and prove to yourself that you can finish a thing that you set out to do. Because here's the truth: the difference between people who achieve their goals and people who don't isn't talent. It isn't even necessarily skill most of the time. It's dedication. It's commitment. It's focus. It's showing up consistently and doing what you said you would do. Now, you can do all of this on your own if you watch this channel There are literally hundreds of videos that can show you how to do this, but if you want organized, intentional, direct help on all of this, check out Analog Action. You can save $50 for being a subscriber to this channel. Just click the link in the description below. The coupon code is already loaded in. It's only gonna be for a couple of weeks, but I highly encourage you to check it out. If you don't like it, there's 100% refund. No worries. Not gonna force you to do anything. But I know that it can make an impact on your life and the work that matters the most to you. Thanks for watching. Bye.
