Stop Planning Your Year and Just Do Something
How to escape the dopamine loop of endless goal-setting
It’s January 3rd and I’m staring at my perfect 2026 plan. Color-coded goals organized by life area. Monthly milestones. A vision board with actual magazine cutouts because I got really into it. I spent four hours on New Year’s Day building this thing, and it felt incredible. Like I’d already accomplished the whole year just by planning it.
Now it’s three days later and I’m looking at this beautiful document and I have absolutely no idea where to start. Do I start with the fitness goal? The creative project? The career thing? The plan doesn’t tell me. It just sits there, perfect and complete and totally useless.
Why planning feels so productive (but isn't)
That planning high? That’s dopamine. Real, actual dopamine flooding your system because your brain genuinely cannot tell the difference between “researching the perfect productivity system” and “actually being productive.” You spent New Year’s weekend designing your dream year, and your brain handed out achievement medals like you’d already lived it.
Planning a whole year feels amazing because it gives you all the good feelings with none of the hard work. A blank calendar is pure potential for ADHD brains. Just 365 pristine days you get to design however you want. So you build the system. The Notion workspace. The habit tracker. The monthly themes. You can spend hours on this stuff, and it all feels productive.
But here’s the trap: when you’re planning, your brain focuses on the benefits (the imagined perfect year) while minimizing the costs (all the boring daily work). Your brain treats “I made a detailed plan” the same way it treats “I actually did it.” Same dopamine hit. Same sense of accomplishment. Except one of those things changed your life and the other one is just a very pretty document you’re staring at on January 3rd with no idea what to do next.
