Why We Deleted 50% of Our 2026 Objectives!

Planning season is supposed to be exciting. You map out your vision, set ambitious goals, and feel that surge of motivation that comes with a fresh start. But if you're anything like us, that excitement quickly turns to overwhelm when you realize your "ambitious" plan is actually just an impossible to-do list.

This year, we did something different. We deleted 50% of our 2026 goals.

Not because they weren't good ideas. Not because we're settling for less. But because we finally understood a hard truth: focusing on everything means accomplishing nothing.

The Problem with Packed Plans

"If your 2026 plan is packed, you're not being ambitious, you might just be confused." That's how Micah opened our latest podcast episode, and it perfectly captures what we've learned about goal setting.

Most business owners confuse being busy with being productive. They think more goals equals more success. But packed plans aren't ambitious, they're paralyzing.

When you try to juggle 20 priorities, nothing becomes a priority. Your team starts asking "what should we focus on?" every week. Projects get started but never finished. You feel busy but not productive.

 Sound familiar?

Our Goal-Cutting Process

For the first time ever, we approached our 2026 planning with surgical precision. Here's exactly how we did it:

Step 1: Brain Dump Everything

We started by putting all our ideas on the table, every initiative, every project, every "wouldn't it be cool if" we'd been collecting. No filtering, just raw possibility.

Step 2: Present and Discuss

Micah built a comprehensive deck in Gamma and presented it in a focused 30-minute meeting. No problem-solving, no decisions, just questions and clarification.

Step 3: Async Feedback

This is where ClickUp's annotate feature became our secret weapon. We uploaded the presentation as a PDF, and each team member left comments directly on the slides. No meetings, no back-and-forth emails, just efficient, threaded feedback.

Step 4: The Hard Question

Then we asked ourselves: "If we only had half the capacity, what would we absolutely have to keep?"

The answer was shocking. Most of what we thought was "essential" was actually just noise.

Step 5: Goal Ownership

For everything that survived the cut, we assigned clear ownership. Not just task delegation, goal ownership. One person responsible for driving that initiative to completion.

What We Learned

Deleting those goals felt wrong at first. Micah was nervous about letting go of ideas we'd worked hard to develop. I, on the other hand, loved it, it felt like decluttering our business focus.

But here's what we discovered: every "good" idea you keep is stealing resources from your "great" ones.

By cutting our list in half, we didn't settle for less. We made room for more. More focus. More depth. More actual progress.

The Results

Three weeks into 2026, we're already making more progress on our remaining goals than we made on our full list last quarter. Our team knows exactly what they're working toward. No confusion. No competing priorities. Just laser focus.

Your Turn

Here's my challenge for you: Look at your 2026 goals right now. If you only had half the capacity, what would you absolutely have to keep?

That's probably what you should be working on.

The most ambitious thing you can do isn't adding more goals to your list. It's having the courage to delete the ones that don't matter most.

Sometimes you have to kill your darlings to make room for your champions.

Want to hear the full conversation about our goal-cutting process? Listen to the complete episode of Automate Your Agency, where Alane and Micah share the exact tools and tactics they used to transform their overwhelming plan into a focused roadmap for success.

Planning season hits different when you realize that a packed plan isn't ambitious, it's confused. Alane and Micah share the uncomfortable truth about their 2026 planning process: they deleted over 50% of their goals, and it was the smartest move they've made all year. 

What You'll Learn:

• Why focusing on everything means accomplishing nothing
• The exact 3-meeting process they used to refine their annual plan
• How ClickUp's annotate feature revolutionized their team collaboration
• Why goal ownership changes everything about execution
• The weekly accountability system that prevents roadblocks from becoming disasters

Tools Mentioned:

• ClickUp (project management and goal tracking)
• Gamma.app (presentation software) 

This episode is raw, honest, and packed with actionable insights for anyone feeling overwhelmed by their business goals. Sometimes the most ambitious thing you can do is say no to good ideas so you can say yes to great ones.