2026 Reset Plan

2025 wasn't a great year for me at work. If you use products that I'm involved in, well, you're probably not too surprised to hear me say that. What might be surprising is that when I was looking in the retrospective mirror it was less about the short-term (1-year) outcomes and more about how I felt along the way. Every day of 2025 felt like a chaotic mad dash to try to salvage, stretch, and find compromises.

It wasn't sustainable, and I had a few near-breaking points. I don't want that for this year (on multiple levels) so I've been intentional about the first steps of 2026 to bring a new tact and perspective to the way I internally operate.

Gratitude

Before I dive in, I wanted to extend my gratitude to Kelly Vaughn with the Modern Leader for creating and sharing the reset challenge. Provided as a series of bite-sized prompts over the first 3 weeks of the year, it helped me in examining the patterns that I was exhibiting and what ingrained habits I have that perpetuate this situation. There's a lot of leadership-branded stuff in the market that's laden with the bullshit or heavy on a singular viewpoint, but the reset challenge was approachable and kept space for individuality.

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1. Where I was

 I was operating as a high-capacity, high-responsiveness PM, constantly taking on more work than planned in the name of being useful, adaptable, and dependable—especially during organizational instability.

In practice, this meant:

• Letting “urgent” inputs bypass my planned work
• Regularly pushing aside my own priorities to do things that felt fast or helpful
• Carrying work “temporarily” that never actually moved off my plate

On paper, things kept moving. Internally, my focus, momentum, and mental health steadily eroded.

2. The pattern I identified

Over-pressuring myself to do more and different things—by default, not by choice.

This pattern shows up as:

• New emails, messages, and asks jumping the queue over my todo list
• Convincing myself something will “only take an hour” and doing it immediately
• Defaulting to me as the solution instead of finding the right owner

The result wasn’t flexibility—it was constant self-interruption.

3. Why it matters

When this pattern runs unchecked, it quietly costs me:

• Mental health and emotional stability
• Momentum on meaningful, multi-week work
• A sense of accomplishment at the end of the day

Most dangerously, it trains my brain to prioritize urgency over importance, which is the opposite of what good PM leadership requires—especially at senior levels.

4. The experiment I’m running

 This is a time-bound learning experiment, not a permanent rule.

Experiment:

• For 2–3 working days, I will not accept “day-of” work
• Every incoming ask gets written down, not acted on
• One week later, I will review:
  • What truly mattered
  • What no one noticed
  • What only felt urgent in the moment

Supporting constraints:

• Everything I work on must go through my todo list—even exceptions
• If I choose to diverge, it’s explicit and visible

This adds just enough friction to interrupt autopilot without breaking my job.

5. What success looks like

Success is not “perfect focus” or “zero distractions.”

Early signals this is working:

• I end more days feeling done, not depleted
• I feel prepared for the things that matter—or calm about what doesn’t
• Weekly reviews of my 1–3 month goals trigger less anxiety and more clarity
• Decisions feel lighter because fewer things are competing for attention

These are signals, not metrics. If they show up, I’m on the right path.

6. What I’m not trying to change right now

This reset is intentionally narrow.

I am not trying to:

• Become less helpful or less responsive overall
• Fix organizational instability or external chaos
• Eliminate distractions entirely
• Prove anything about my worth or capability
• Operate at 100% focus every day

I am trying to: Turn the volume down on a harmful default—by about 20–30%—and reclaim enough cognitive space to do the work that actually matters.

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🥂 Cheers to 2026.