5 minutes
A Leader’s Guide to Priority Planning
As the year winds down, most leaders are in reactive mode—wrapping up projects, closing out budgets, and trying to squeeze in end-of-year reviews. It’s a busy season, and without intention, it’s easy to get consumed by the urgent instead of focused on the important.
But the end of the year can be one of the most strategic moments a leader has.
This is the time to pause, reflect, and lay the groundwork for a more focused, intentional, and impactful upcoming year. It’s the perfect moment to build the priorities and practices into your calendar that will become the structures guiding your most impactful leadership in the year ahead.
In my new book, The Elevated Leader, I call this Priority Planning—a simple yet transformational practice that helps leaders shift from reactive to purposeful so you can start the new year with clarity, momentum, and impact.
Priority Planning is the intentional, strategic practice of scheduling your most important professional, leadership, and personal commitments upfront so your calendar reflects what truly creates impact. It ensures that your essential work—your key result areas, strategic thinking, development, and wellbeing—is protected instead of competing for whatever time is left over.
Why Priority Planning Matters
It’s human nature to procrastinate on the important, often more time-consuming work that takes more energy and focus, in favor of smaller, easier tasks. Emails, meetings, and interruptions fill our days, and before we realize it, the important work keeps slipping further down the list.
Instead of setting our agenda, we let our inbox and our calendar dictate it for us.
Priority Planning is more than planning ahead; it’s the strategic leadership practice that builds the core elements of exceptional leadership into your calendar—the habits, commitments, and structures that elevate your effectiveness.
The best time to begin Priority Planning is before the new year starts, before your calendar fills up with meetings and other commitments. You are intentionally building in time to focus on your key result areas that produce the best results in your position.
By planning now, you:
- Begin January with clarity and intention
- Protect time for strategic work
- Prevent reactive leadership
- Set expectations for yourself and others
- Ensure your most important commitments actually happen
Instead of starting the year in reactive mode, you design your schedule with a clear plan that supports intentional, elevated leadership.
What to Include in Your 2026 Priority Planning
Here are examples of what leaders can Priority Plan for 2026. These steps help you design your year from a place of clarity—not chaos.
- Schedule your vacations and personal time.
- If you delay, the year will fill itself—and the time you need for renewal and important family events will be harder to schedule. Book early. Block the time. Protect your wellbeing.
- Schedule regular strategy days for you and your team.
- A monthly strategy meeting—individually for you as a leader, as well as with your team—provides dedicated time to ensure you stay focused on the most important initiatives instead of getting caught up in day-to-day tasks.
- Build in weekly planning time.
- Choose a consistent day and time—Fridays at 3:00 p.m., Mondays at 9:00 a.m.—to intentionally plan for your week and month.
- Schedule recurring team meetings for the entire year.
- Consistency builds clarity, accountability, and alignment.
- When starting a new project, schedule recurring blocks of time to work on the project.
- Instead of hoping you’ll “find time,” proactively schedule it as a priority.
- For team-based projects, schedule all stakeholder meetings at the start.
- This eliminates the constant back-and-forth of scheduling.
- Plan daily productivity sprints (60–90 minutes).
- Productivity sprints are blocks of time where you are focused on one important task or project in your key result areas. Intentionally blocking time each day when you are at your personal peak energy ensures you make progress on important strategic goals.
- Schedule recurring coaching sessions with each team member.
- Development doesn’t happen by accident. Consistency matters because steady, ongoing conversations are what build capability, confidence, and lasting performance. Development happens through consistency—the regular, meaningful, mini-conversations throughout the year.
- Block time to read industry news and research best practices.
- Keeping up with industry developments and strategic leadership insights helps you lead a department that’s relevant, competitive, and constantly evolving for the future.
- Schedule all important personal commitments now.
- Schedule personal priorities like doctor appointments, kids’ events, and family commitments upfront so you’re not scrambling to fit them in later. I schedule regular massages for the whole year (because waiting until I need them means they don’t happen because my schedule is already booked) and I also plan monthly dinners with a friend. Ever since we started putting all our dinner dates on the calendar in January, we’ve been much more consistent about getting together. I also enter my kids’ school events as soon as I get the calendar, so I don’t miss important games and recitals.
- Decide now which conferences and industry events you’ll attend.
- Register early. Block the travel. Prioritize your development.
If something truly matters—your development, your wellbeing, your strategic work—put it on the calendar before the year begins. When you don’t, other people’s priorities will fill that space for you.
Priority Planning helps you take back control of your time, focus, and energy. Instead of reacting to whatever shows up, you intentionally build in the practices, projects, and commitments that support you in leading with clarity, impact, and results. Leaders who do this don’t just manage time more effectively—they think more strategically, are more influential, and build thriving teams.
2026 is right around the corner. Start designing your schedule and building your priorities in now so you can step into the new year focused, energized, and prepared.
Laurie Maddalena, MBA, CSP, CPCC, is a professional speaker, leadership consultant and founder of CUES Supplier member Envision Excellence LLC in the Washington, D.C., area. Her mission is to rid the world of bad management practices and help organizations create cultures where people love to come to work. Maddalena facilitates management and executive training programs and team-building sessions and speaks at leadership events. Prior to starting her business, she was a human resources and organizational development executive at a credit union in Maryland. Contact her at 240.605.7940 or laurie@lauriemaddalena.com
