Plan Your Best Year with this ChatGPT Prompt
Every January, millions of people set goals. By February, most have quietly abandoned them. Not because the goals were bad, but because there was no system behind them. I've been thinking about this problem for a while — how do you bridge the gap between ambition and execution? And more specifically
Every January, millions of people set goals. By February, most have quietly abandoned them. Not because the goals were bad, but because there was no system behind them.
I’ve been thinking about this problem for a while — how do you bridge the gap between ambition and execution? And more specifically, how can AI actually help with something as personal and messy as planning your life?
So I built a prompt for it.
The problem with most goal-setting
Most planning frameworks fall into one of two traps. They’re either too vague (“be healthier, earn more”) or too rigid (colour-coded spreadsheets that fall apart the moment real life intervenes). What’s usually missing is the bit in between — the honest conversation about trade-offs, constraints, and what you’re actually willing to give up.
That’s where AI becomes genuinely useful. Not as a motivational poster generator, but as a thinking partner that forces clarity.
What this prompt does
I’ve put together a single prompt that turns ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever AI tool you prefer into something like a Chief of Staff for your year. It walks you through a structured conversation — starting with just five questions — and builds out a full plan covering your north star, your weekly system, your “red zone” protocol for when things go sideways, and an ongoing accountability check-in.
The key design choices were deliberate. It asks about constraints and non-negotiables before it asks about goals. It forces you to create a “not doing” list. And it builds in a minimum viable week — the bare minimum you need to protect even when everything else is on fire.
No fluff. No motivation. Just specifics.
Why I think this matters
We’re at a point where most people are using AI for surface-level tasks — rewriting emails, generating social posts, summarising articles. All useful. But the real unlock is using AI for thinking. For the kind of structured reflection that most of us never make time for.
A prompt like this doesn’t replace your judgment. It scaffolds it. It asks you the questions a good coach would ask, then organises your answers into something you can actually act on week by week.
Try it yourself
I’ve made the full prompt freely available as a Google Doc you can copy and paste straight into your AI tool of choice.