Planning for 2026 Starts with Looking Back
There's a moment at the end of every year when you sit down with good intentions to review what happened over the past twelve months, and suddenly you're hit with a wave of frustration. You didn't track things as well as you meant to. Your notes are scattered across different notebooks, random digital files, and those optimistic journal entries from January that you abandoned by March.
Looking at the incomplete picture of your year, it's tempting to think: "You know what? This year was just different. Let's skip this whole review thing and jump straight to planning what I want to do in 2026."
I get it. I've been there. And I'm here to tell you that skipping the review is exactly the wrong move.
After nearly eight years of running my online creative business, I've learned that the most effective planning for any new year doesn't start with dreaming about the future – it starts with honestly assessing what actually happened in the year you just lived. Not to beat yourself up about what you didn't accomplish, but to capture the wins you might not even realize you achieved and to extract the lessons that will make next year exponentially better.
This is Part 1 of your 2026 planning process: looking backward so you can move forward with clarity and confidence.
The Chicken and Egg Problem (And Why You Need to Solve It)
Here's the chicken and egg situation that traps so many creative entrepreneurs: you need good tracking systems throughout the year to do an effective year-end review, but you won't build those tracking systems until you understand why the year-end review matters so much.
The truth is, most of us enter a new year with ambitious goals and then get swept up in the day-to-day demands of running a business. We launch programs, create content, serve clients, manage our email lists, and handle the thousand small tasks that keep everything moving forward. Somewhere around March or April, those careful tracking habits we started in January have completely fallen away.
By December, when it's time to look back and assess, we're left trying to piece together what actually happened from credit card statements, random calendar entries, and whatever we can remember. It's frustrating, incomplete, and it makes the whole process feel like more trouble than it's worth.
But here's what I want you to understand: even if you didn't track perfectly this year – even if you barely tracked at all – doing this review process now will serve two crucial purposes. First, it will help you recognize and celebrate wins you've probably forgotten about or discounted as "not that big a deal." Second, it will convince you to set up simple tracking systems for 2026 that will make next year's review infinitely easier.
So give yourself grace. This year's review might feel harder than you'd like, but it's worth doing. And I'm going to give you a framework that makes it as straightforward as possible.
The Tools That Changed Everything for Me
Let me share what I've learned after eight years of doing this annual review and planning process. I'm not going to pretend I've always done it perfectly – there have been years when my tracking was spotty at best. But I've discovered one tool that has made the biggest difference in my ability to both review what happened and plan what's coming: color-coded Post-it notes on a large wall calendar.
I know that might sound almost too simple to be effective, but stay with me.
In my creative studio (which happens to be my garage), I have an oversized wall calendar where I track the major activities and milestones of my business. The magic is in the color-coding: different colored Post-it notes represent different business activities and assets.
When I launch my Pattern Design Academy program, that gets one color. I can see at a glance how many days the launch took, and I write the results directly on the calendar – how many students enrolled, what the revenue was, any major insights about what worked well or what I'd change next time.
My membership activities get pink Post-its, and they're always positioned on Mondays. Even though we're not live every Monday (we only have two touchpoints per month), this visual reminder helps me stay aware of that ongoing commitment and track when we opened doors to new members.
New lead magnets or freebies get another color. When I create and launch one, it goes on the calendar with the date, and I make notes about how many new email subscribers that lead magnet has generated over time.
Workshops, events, or special programs get their own color too. If you're doing in-person events like paint-and-sips or creative workshops, you'd track those with their own designated color.
The beauty of this system is threefold. First, it's visual – you can see your entire year at a glance and recognize patterns about when you're busiest, when things tend to take longer than expected, and where you might have gaps that could be filled with different offerings.
Second, it serves double duty: it helps you review what happened AND helps you plan what's coming because you can literally see the rhythm and flow of your business activities.
Third – and this is crucial – Post-it notes are movable. When something takes longer than you thought (which happens constantly in business), you can shift those notes to reflect reality. When life happens – someone gets sick, your family decides to take an unexpected trip, a major project requires more attention than you anticipated – you can move things around. The calendar adapts to your actual life instead of becoming a monument to failed intentions.
Your 2025 Review Framework (Even If You Didn't Track Anything)
Now let's get into the actual review process. I'm going to give you a framework that works whether you tracked everything perfectly or you're starting from scratch trying to piece together what happened this year.
Step 1: The Money Trail
Start with the most concrete evidence you have: your financial records. Pull up your bank statements, credit card statements, PayPal or Stripe reports – wherever money came in or went out for your business.
Create a simple spreadsheet with months across the top and track:
Total revenue for each month
Major revenue sources (which products, services, or offerings generated income)
Major expenses (especially investments in courses, tools, or equipment)
Any patterns you notice (busy seasons, slow periods, unexpected windfalls)
This isn't about perfect bookkeeping – it's about getting a bird's eye view of the financial story of your year. You might be surprised to discover that your "slow" month actually brought in more revenue than you remembered, or that the program you thought was a failure actually covered its costs and then some.
Step 2: The Creation Inventory
Next, make a list of everything you created this year. And I mean everything:
Blog posts or articles
Email newsletters
Social media content series
Products (digital or physical)
Courses or workshops
Lead magnets or freebies
Client work or commissions
Don't judge whether these things were "successful" yet – just document that they exist. One of the biggest mistakes creative entrepreneurs make is forgetting how much they actually produced. We're so focused on what we didn't do that we forget to acknowledge everything we did create.
Step 3: The Learning Log
This is where you capture the insights that will make 2026 so much better. For each major activity or launch from this year, ask yourself:
What worked better than expected?
What took way longer than I thought it would?
What would I definitely do again?
What would I never do again?
What surprised me (good or bad)?
These insights are gold. They're the difference between repeating the same mistakes year after year and actually evolving your business based on real experience.
Step 4: The Energy Audit
This one might surprise you, but it's crucial: track what gave you energy and what drained you this year.
Make two lists:
Activities that lit you up, made you excited to work, left you feeling energized
Activities that consistently drained you, that you dreaded, that left you exhausted
Your business needs to be financially sustainable, yes, but it also needs to be energetically sustainable. If everything on your "this made good money" list is also on your "this completely drained me" list, you've got important information about what needs to change in 2026.
Step 5: The Hidden Wins
Finally, look for the wins you might have overlooked. These often include:
Skills you developed (even if you're not "expert" level yet)
Relationships you built or deepened
Systems you created or improved
Boundaries you set and maintained
Times you showed up even when it was hard
Experiments you tried (even if they "failed")
We tend to only count the obvious wins – the successful launches, the revenue goals hit, the big milestones. But the hidden wins are often the foundation that makes those obvious wins possible.
Setting Up for a Better 2026 Review
Now that you've done the hard work of reviewing 2025 (even with imperfect data), let's make sure next year's review is easier and more complete.
The Minimum Viable Tracking System
You don't need elaborate systems. You need simple ones you'll actually use. Here's my recommendation for the absolute minimum you should track in 2026:
Monthly Revenue and Expenses: One simple spreadsheet, updated once a month. That's it.
Weekly Activity Log: Every Friday, spend five minutes writing down what you worked on that week. Not a detailed time log – just "Worked on new lead magnet," "Launched email sequence," "Had three client calls."
The Wall Calendar: Get yourself a large wall calendar and some Post-it notes. Pick 3-5 colors for your main business activities. Every time you start or complete something significant, put it on the calendar.
The Wins Jar: Keep a jar or box where you write down wins as they happen – big and small. A new subscriber, a nice client email, finally figuring out that tech issue that's been bugging you. At the end of the year, you'll have physical evidence of how much good happened.
The Review Ritual
Mark your calendar now – not for January 1st, but for mid-December 2026. Give yourself time to do this review before the holiday chaos fully kicks in. Make it special: favorite coffee, cozy space, maybe even make it a half-day retreat for yourself.
The review isn't punishment for what you didn't do – it's a celebration of what you did accomplish and a treasure hunt for insights that will serve you going forward.
Your Next Steps
Right now, before you move on to the next thing on your to-do list, I want you to take one small action:
If you haven't done any review yet: Pull up your bank statement for just one month of 2025 – maybe your best month or most interesting month. Look at what came in and what went out. What story does it tell?
If you've started reviewing but feel overwhelmed: Pick just ONE project or launch from 2025. Write down three things that worked and three things you'd change. That's it.
If you're ready to dive deep: Block out 2-3 hours in your calendar this week to go through the full framework I've outlined above.
Remember, imperfect information is infinitely more valuable than no information. A partial review is better than no review. And recognizing even a few wins from 2025 will give you momentum as you head into planning for 2026.
Coming Next Week
In Part 2 of this planning series, we'll take everything you've learned from your 2025 review and use it to create a realistic, achievable, and exciting plan for 2026. We'll talk about how to set goals that actually work with your creative brain, how to build in flexibility from the start, and how to create a planning system that grows with you instead of constraining you.
But for now, your job is simple: Look back at 2025 with curiosity and compassion. Celebrate what you created. Learn from what challenged you. And get ready to use all of that wisdom to make 2026 your best year yet.
Remember: You've done more than you think. You've learned more than you realize. And you're more ready for what's coming than you know.
Let's capture those 2025 wins so we can build on them in 2026.
Three Ways to Work with Me
If you're ready to take your creative confidence to the next level, there are three ways I can support your journey:
To get started in surface pattern design: Grab a copy of my From Doodles to Dollars® workbook. This is a downloadable PDF with the step by step instructions for how to turn a doodle or sketch into a repeating pattern. You’ll create your very first repeating pattern and gain the foundation skills to begin expressing your artistic voice in a new, exciting way.
If you've already made repeating patterns in Adobe Illustrator and you want to up-level your skills: Join the self-study version of my Pattern Design Academy® program. You get the complete program, with lifetime access and $500 off the regular price of $1,997. Click HERE for details.
If you're already running a successful creative business and you want guidance on how to expand online: Apply for my Creative Business Mastermind. This program is limited to 20 students and is designed to help you scale and achieve greater profitability using my proven 6-part framework.
Your creative voice is valuable. Your artistic perspective matters. The world needs what you have to offer.
Right now, in this season of reflection and giving, it’s the perfect time to begin trusting the voice that's been waiting patiently inside you all along.
The sketchbook is ready. The season is perfect. Your voice is calling.
What’s the perfect next step for you?
xo,
Anne
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
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Create your very first repeating pattern by following my Three Golden Rules. Grab this downloadable PDF workbook and get started today.
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The Creative Business Mastermind is my highest level program. Learn how to implement the 6-part framework I used to build my creative business from scratch.
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
