Every December, business owners fall into the same trap.
We sit down to plan the next year and immediately start adding: adding goals, adding initiatives, adding projects, adding ideas. On paper, it looks ambitious. In reality, it creates the exact dynamic we talked about last week when I walked through the seven founder delusions that sabotage annual planning.
Founders don’t struggle because they lack vision.
They struggle because they plan from a set of assumptions that make the plan too heavy to execute.
This week, we’re taking that conversation one step further.
If last week was about recognizing the mental traps that make planning unrealistic, this week is about addressing the main killer that makes plans un-executable: complexity.
Complexity is the enemy.
Complexity slows decisions.
Complexity blurs priorities.
Complexity creates fuzzy accountability.
Complexity stalls execution.
Complexity exhausts your team.
And most business owners, without realizing it, carry forward far too much complexity from year to year.
So instead of traditional planning, I want to introduce you to something far more powerful:
The Anti-Planning Method: subtraction as strategy.
This isn’t about doing more.
This is about doing less, so your team can finally execute on what matters most.
By the end of this article, you’ll build a one-page Anti-Plan you can use to guide your business through 2026 with more clarity, focus, and momentum than you’ve ever had.
Let’s get into it.
WHY ANTI-PLANNING WORKS
Business owners have a natural bias toward addition: add ideas, add projects, add priorities, add systems.
Anti-planning gives you permission to subtract.
To stop doing the things that drain ROI, clarity, and momentum.
To cut the work that creates noise instead of progress.
To reduce the weight your team carries so the most important initiatives move faster.
Subtraction forces focus.
Subtraction creates speed.
Subtraction is a strategic advantage.
When I've talked about this with business owners, many aren't sure where to start. So below I've identified five methods that can help you think through how to start subtracting.
THE IDENTITY TEST
Look at every major initiative, project, product line, service, tool, and commitment in your business.
Ask one question: “If I weren’t already doing this, would I start it today?”
If the answer is no, that’s a massive signal.
Most business owners get trapped by the sunk cost fallacy: “We’ve already put so much into this, we might as well keep going.”
Anti-planning flips that thinking on its head.
This test forces you to confront the truth:
Just because you’ve invested in something doesn’t mean it deserves to survive into next year.
If it wouldn’t make it onto your 2026 roadmap fresh, why is it still here?
THE EXCUSES TEST
Every founder has a list of projects that are “almost ready,”
“about to start,” or “we’ll finally move forward next quarter.”
If something has lived in that stage for 3, 6, or 12 months, you’re learning something important:
Either it’s not actually important, or it matters—but you’re intimidated by it.
Anti-planning helps you separate the two:
- If it’s unimportant → kill it.
- If it’s important → confront the resistance and bring it forward.
- If it’s neither → defer it, but stop pretending it’s a priority.
Excuses are diagnostic.
They tell you exactly where to cut and where to re-engage.
THE “FIX IT LATER” TEST
Anything you keep saying “we’ll fix it later” about is almost always damaging your business today.
Broken processes.
Bad clients.
Key hire gaps.
Systems held together with duct tape.
Roles you’ve outgrown but still sit in.
You’re postponing these fixes because you’re overloaded with other work.
Anti-planning forces you to see what you’ve normalized.
Ask yourself:
- What bottlenecks are strangling growth?
- What recurring problems waste your time?
- What keeps showing up in meetings as “we know we need to fix this…”?
Then ask the uncomfortable but essential follow-up: What else are you doing that’s distracting you from addressing this?
Often the “fix it later” items are exactly the work that will unlock next year’s growth once you stop drowning in everything else.
THE IMPACT-COMPETENCY MATRIX
I mentioned this tool in the annual planning series last year. It’s one of the simplest and most powerful frameworks in PlanningOS.
Plot every initiative based on:
- Impact (low → high)
- Competency (low → high)
Then decide:
High Impact / High Competency → DO
These are the few initiatives you should carry into next year.
Your sweet spot.
High Impact / Low Competency → DECIDE
Do you hire?
Train?
Partner?
Or defer until you can resource it properly?
Doing high-impact work halfway is the same as not doing it at all.
Low Impact / High Competency → AUTOMATE or SIMPLIFY
You’re good at these, but they don’t move the needle.
Keep them, but remove effort.
Low Impact / Low Competency → KILL
Immediately.
These are pure complexity without payoff.
This matrix is an execution filter.
Most businesses discover that 70% of their activity belongs in the “simplify” or “kill” categories.
THE BUSINESS INVENTORY
Now it’s time to look at your business holistically and label everything:
- KEEP
- EVALUATE
- KILL
Move through four areas:
1. Income Statement
Look at every line:
- Revenue streams
- Cost of goods
- Margins
- Marketing channels
- Subscriptions
- Overhead categories
Ask of each: keep, evaluate, or kill?
You already know which ones need to go and where you’ve just avoided pulling the trigger.
2. Balance Sheet
Focus on the things you quietly tolerate:
- Slow-moving or dead inventory
- Past-due AR from clients you should fire
- Assets you maintain but don’t need
- Debt that needs restructuring
- Prepaid contracts you forgot about
There’s less volume here, but often more leverage.
3. Operations
Evaluate:
- Sales processes
- Delivery workflows
- Efficiency metrics
- Systems and tools
- Internal processes
If a process exists only because “we’ve always done it this way,” put it in evaluate.
If it exists only because one person insisted on it, put it in kill.
4. Your Calendar & Meetings
What meetings no longer serve you?
What recurring commitments drain energy but don’t move goals?
What personal obligations keep you from doing CEO-level work?
Label each: keep, evaluate, kill.
YOUR ONE-PAGE ANTI-PLAN
Once you’ve run one (or all) of these tests, you’ll have a bit more clarity.
Now boil everything down into a simple, powerful, one-page plan where you identify the following:
- 3 things we will STOP
- 3 things we will SIMPLIFY
- 3 things we will PROTECT
- 1 thing we will PURSUE with focus
That’s it.
Ten lines and one page become your strategic operating system for 2026.
Print it, share it with your team, and review it monthly.
Use it as your filter when shiny objects appear, accountability when you get distracted, and a compass when you feel overwhelmed.
If your plan doesn’t fit on a page, your team will never execute it.
It’s so easy to default to blind ambition, the next idea, or new thing.
But most businesses don’t fail from lack of opportunity, but instead from overcommitment.
Reducing complexity is the highest-leverage move you can make in 2026.
It unlocks speed, creates clarity, restores momentum, and rebuilds confidence.
It forces your attention onto the thing that actually matters.
Make next year the year you subtract your way into progress.
Let’s build your Anti-Plan and get back to momentum.
