9 Goal-planning tools to help you stick to your New Year resolutions

Every new year is a chance to set new goals and working on changing the habits you've long wished to change. But changing long-practiced habits and mindsets can be daunting. There's so much to consider, and most of us give up on them after a week or two. This year, try using a planner to help you achieve your goals.

Goal Planning App on iPad with iPhone 11 Pro / Isaac Smith via Unsplash

We all set new goals at the beginning of the year. New Year’s Resolutions abound all over social media with hastags like #NewYearNewMe, #NewYearsGoals, #NewYearNewYou. Because, of course, we can’t set personal goals without letting everyone know we’re doing it. We wouldn’t be very good Millennials and Gen Z’ers if we didn’t post it all over the place. But if you don’t have the right goal-planning tools, you probably are going to give up pretty fast.

One of the best ways to achieve your goals is to set S.M.A.R.T. goals and to write them down and keep track of them. And not to concentrate on too many at once. Change happens incrementally, and if you try to bog yourself down with starting fourteen new habits at the same time, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Instead, try focusing on one or two small things at a time and work to build new daily habits.

Using a planner has helped me tremendously. It’s easy to keep track of everything at a glance with weekly and monthly layouts, and habit trackers that I can fill in daily keep me on track. I have one planner for work and one planner for home and personal items. It sounds like a lot, but once you start living that planner life, there’s no going back.

Here are some great planners to get your started on your 2020 goal-achieving journey.

BOSS Personal Planner Personal Productivity Notebook

It’s easy to lose track of small tasks, not to mention large goals. But the BOSS Personal Planner Personal Productivity Notebook can change that. This planner is a full productivity system that helps you create a simple roadmap of your goals so you can always keep your most important goals in sight. And you can also use this notebook to track your habits and tasks too.

90X Action Planner Notebook

Join a community of thousands of driven individuals and entrepreneurs and use the 90X Action Planner Notebook to achieve your goals. This notebook uses a proven 90-day goal system to improve your life and help you achieve your #1 goal in 90 days. Utilizing a proven time-tested system, the 90X Action Planner combines psychology and science to help you take action, increase productivity and actually achieve more. Designed for travel and on-the-go, this planner can fit easily in a purse or backpack and can be taken anywhere with ease.

Daily Goal Setter Productivity & Gratitude Planner

Set your eyes on the prize with the Daily Goal Setter Productivity & Gratitude Planner. It’s loaded with tools to make your life more productive, efficient, and positive. The minimalist Scandinavian-inspired design allows you to focus by decluttering your mind and focusing your thoughts. This goal-setting planner breaks down actionable tasks to move you closer to your goals every day. At the beginning and end of each day, the Daily Goal Setter inspires you to end on a high note by reflecting on your accomplishments and everything you’re grateful for.

The Habit System Life Goals Planner

Start living your best life with The Habit System Life Goals Planner. The Habit System makes it easier to balance your life and line up your goals. It even helps reduce stress and anxiety by making things less overwhelming. Divided into Months, Weeks and Days, the three-month planner lets you break down high-level goals.

Rocketbook Everlast Reusable Smart Notebook

Start taking notes the smarter and eco-friendlier way with the Rocketbook Everlast Reusable Smart Notebook. Featuring 36 pages for your notes, ideas, and doodles, this smart notebook actually wipes clean with a damp cloth when you use Pilot’s FriXion line of writing utensils. You can choose to leave your notes in the notebook or send them instantly to your device. The Everlast Notebook syncs with Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, Box, OneNote, Slack, iCloud, and even your email. With just a tap, all your writing blasts to these apps for effortless sharing and archiving. When you need another page, simply wipe away your writing and start again.

Eplanner Revolutionary Emotional Planner

The Eplanner Revolutionary Emotional Planner is designed to improve your leadership and wellbeing so you can become more in touch with yourself. The Eplanner is a scientific tool that combines emotional intelligence, neuroscience, and managerial studies to tap into your brain hemispheres to make the most of them. Eplanner provides you with introspective and thought-provoking tasks to grow your self-awareness and self-regulation.

The Focus Journal Task-Based Organizer

Keep your goals in sight and unlock better productivity with the Focus Journal Task-Based Organizer. This goal-planning tool helps you concentrate on the tasks that matter. Inside the book, you will find uncluttered pages that offer useful prompts. The pages help you to prioritize urgent to-dos and find time for longer projects. Furthermore, you can time and track bigger tasks to see proof of your hard work. There are no rules you have to follow, but the journal provides a framework for structuring your thoughts.

Clever Fox Planner

The Clever Fox Planner has monthly and weekly layouts so you can keep track of things on both a longer term and smaller scale. The weekly pages allow you to keep track of your day-to-day tasks and appointments, and you’re able to set goals and habit-building tasks each week. It allows you to determine and focus on what’s most important, and it’s super satisfying to fill in the daily habits you want to build and then color in the circle as you achieve them. It also has areas for you to reflect on how you did that week and make notes for how you want to improve the next week.

Legend Planner

The Legend Planner helps you focus on what you want to get out of your life and what you want to achieve long-term. You’ll use this planner to create your personal vision and then break the steps needed to accomplish it down into short and long-term goals so you can incorporate them into your daily life. This daily planner was created using leading scientific studies that have been proven to work. It also includes monthly and weekly reflections to help you stay on track.

So, now you’ve got some goal-planning tools to get you started on your most productive year yet. As we head into 2020 and a new decade, how are you planning on changing your habits? What goals are you setting, and do you have a plan to achieve them?