Goals & Progress
A life plan template that fits on one page
A life plan template is a single structure that holds your long-term direction and the goals you are giving the next twelve months across every part of your life. This one is the Year Plan sheet from the free Life Goals Worksheets, on its own page so you can print it now. At the top you write your Summit Goal, the one big thing you want your life to hold in five to ten years. Under it, you write a goal and a first step for the two or three life areas you choose this year.
It is built for one person planning their own life. The top line looks five to ten years ahead, and the table only asks about this year. Keeping the two apart stops a life plan from turning into a wish list you never open again.
The sheet is free in A4, A5 and US Letter, and you need no email address to download it. It is also the year page of a free life planner template. If you want the pages for the quarter, the month, the week and the day as well, see the full set of planner pages.
Download the printable life plan template.
One page, blank and ready to print. No email address needed.
- A line for your Summit Goal and the year in a word
- Six named life areas plus a blank row for one of your own
- A goal and a first step per area, then the goal that matters most
- A4, A5 and US Letter, plain black and blue on white
Free to use and print as often as you like. Run it again next year.
What is on the sheet
One page, printed in black and blue on white, with every field blank. You fill it in from the top down, and each part narrows the one above it.
- A line for your Summit Goal, the five to ten year goal you work toward this year. It sits above everything else on the page.
- A short field for the year in one word. One word is easier to remember than a paragraph, and you can test each new commitment against it.
- A three-column table: life area, this year's goal, and the first step. The named rows are health, relationships, career and work, growth and learning, finances, and well-being, with a blank row for an area of your own.
- A line for the single goal that matters most this year.
- A last line for what you will not take on this year, so the goals in the table stay possible.
How to fill in the life plan template
Work from the top down and keep every entry short enough to remember without looking. Half an hour is usually enough if you already know your Summit Goal.
- Write your Summit Goal first, in a sentence a stranger could picture. If you do not have one yet, ask yourself what you want your life to look like in five to ten years. Write the first answer in pencil. A rough line is enough to fill in the rest. The life goals worksheet helps you sharpen it later.
- Give each life area two scores from one to ten, in the margin next to the row. The first score is how satisfied you feel with the area today. The second is how much it matters to you. The areas with the widest gap between the two scores need your attention most this year.
- Write a goal in two or three areas, not all seven. Focusing on more than three areas at a time is how a year plan becomes a list of things you feel guilty about in March.
- Give every goal you write a first step in the First step column, small enough to do in the next week. Without a first step, the sheet does not tell you what to do on Monday. If the step repeats every week, add it to the printable habit tracker as well.
- Write the goal that matters most this year on its own line. Pick it now, while the year is calm. In a busy week, when two goals need the same evening, this line tells you which one comes first.
- Use the last line for what you will not take on this year. Each thing you write there leaves time for the goals in the table.
Leaving rows blank is a choice. An area with no goal this year is an area you have decided to hold steady. That is a legitimate answer, and usually a wiser one than spreading yourself across all seven.
This sheet stays free on this page, with no email. It is one of twelve sheets in the free Life Goals Worksheets. The other eleven include the quarter, month, week and day pages, and they come as one PDF by email if you want them.
A filled example you can copy
Here is the sheet filled in, so you can see how specific each entry needs to be. Three areas have a goal, and three are left alone on purpose. The Today column is the satisfaction score from step 2. To keep the table small, it leaves out the second score, how much each area matters.
Summit Goal (five to ten years)Build a healthier rhythm so I have the energy for work, for my family, and for myself.
| Life area | Today | This year's goal | First step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 3 | Exercise three times a week by the end of the year, without it depending on motivation | Book two fixed slots in next week's calendar |
| Relationships | 5 | One protected family block every weekend, kept even in busy months | Agree the slot with the family on Sunday |
| Career and work | 4 | Stop taking meetings after 18:00 so the evenings stay usable | Change the calendar working hours today |
| Growth and learning | 7 | Holding steady this year | |
| Finances | 7 | Holding steady this year | |
| Well-being | 4 | Holding steady, because the health goal already carries it | |
| Your own area | Left blank |
The goal that matters most this yearExercise three times a week, because the other two get easier once it holds.
Copy three things from that sheet. Each goal serves the same Summit Goal. Each goal names something you could check from the outside. And each first step is small enough to do in the next seven days. A goal like "be healthier" passes none of these tests.
The blank rows are part of the plan too. Well-being scores as low as career here, and it still gets no goal. This person expects the exercise goal to lift it too, and a fourth focus area would take time from the three that matter. Holding an area steady on purpose is a decision as well, so write "holding steady" in its row.
What if it does not go to plan
Most year plans run into trouble around week six. These are the situations that stop most of them, with the answer the method gives for each.
What if I do not have a Summit Goal yet?
Write a rough line in pencil before you fill in anything else. Each goal in the table should serve the top line. Without it, you end up with seven unrelated resolutions. Step 1 shows a quick way to draft the line, and the life goals worksheet helps you sharpen it.
What if every area feels like it needs work?
Use the two scores from step 2 to narrow it down. Take the two areas with the widest gap, plus a third if it is close behind. The method allows three focus areas at most. With a fourth, each goal gets less of your time, and all of them move more slowly.
What if I am already behind by March?
Being behind on a year plan usually means you tried to work on the year as a whole. A year is too big to work on directly. Break the goal down into the next quarter, then pick no more than two priorities for each month. Two priorities a month for nine months still covers a lot of ground, and you do not need to rewrite the plan.
What if two goals need the same evening?
Look at the line for the goal that matters most this year. You chose it ahead of time, so a busy week does not force you to decide again. If the line no longer feels true, change it at your quarterly check-in, after the busy week is over.
What if my circumstances change completely?
A new job, a move or a new baby changes your year, and it rarely changes your Summit Goal. So print a fresh sheet and rewrite the year goals and the first steps. Keep the Summit Goal unless the change altered what you want in five years.
What if I fill it in and never look at it again?
Then you need a regular check. Once a month, decide what the next four weeks should cover. Once a week, look at what moved and what did not, so you notice early when a goal falls behind. Pin the page somewhere you pass every day, and put the monthly check-in in your calendar on the day you print it.
Where the year plan fits in the bigger system
A year is too long to act on directly. In the Goals and Progress method, the year is one level of the Goal Cascade. Your values and your purpose point to a Summit Goal. The Summit Goal narrows to an annual goal, and the year narrows to a quarter, a month, a week and today. Each level takes its focus from the one above, so this sheet asks for the Summit Goal first.
This sheet holds the two top levels on paper: the Summit Goal and the year. Once it is filled in, you cut one of these goals into a ninety-day slice on the Quarter Plan sheet. On the Month Plan sheet, you cut that again into at most two priorities. You can see the full chain in the guide to goal cascading from vision to daily tasks.
Regular check-ins keep the plan up to date. At the quarterly check-in, you adjust a goal that is not moving. At the monthly check-in, you decide what the next four weeks should cover. At the annual wrap-up, you look back and fill in a fresh sheet.
Each sheet in the set does one job. This table shows which one to use, and when.
| Sheet | What it does | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Life goals worksheet | Guided exercises for choosing your Summit Goal | You do not have a Summit Goal yet |
| Life plan template (this sheet) | Spreads one year across your life areas, with a goal and a first step in two or three of them | You know your Summit Goal and want to plan the year |
| Life goals template | Takes one goal and runs it down every level, from your values to today | You have picked the goal that matters most this year |
| Weekly review template | A five-minute reflection that keeps a year plan from going stale | Every week, once your year plan is filled in |
A free life planner template, built from these sheets
A life planner template is a set of pages you use all year. It has a page for the year, and pages for the quarter, the month, the week and the day. The sheet on this page is the year page. The other pages are free as well, and each one comes in A4, A5 and US Letter. The A5 size fits a journal or a half-size planner binder.
| Planner page | How often you use it | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Values List and Shortlist | Once, before you write your Summit Goal | Free printables page, no email |
| Life Areas Map | About once a quarter | Free printables page, no email |
| Life plan template (this sheet) | Once a year | This page, no email |
| Printable Habit Tracker | Every month | Free printables page, no email |
| Weekly Review Template | Every week | Free printables page, no email |
| Quarter Plan, Month Plan, and Daily Plan & Reflection | Every quarter, month and day | The Life Goals Worksheets, free by email |
All the sheets marked "no email" are on the free printables page, as direct PDF downloads. The Life Goals Worksheets hold all twelve sheets in one PDF, so one sign-up gets you the whole planner.
To set up your planner, print this sheet and fill it in first. Then print a small stack of weekly pages and one habit tracker for the month. Keep them together in a folder with the year page on top. That way, each weekly review starts with a look at your year.
See also: best goal planners, paper, tablet and app compared by yearly cost.
How it compares with a free Notion life planner
Many free life planner templates are made for Notion, a notes and database app. One of the most popular is The Action Tracker by Visual Hustles on Gumroad. On 14 October 2026 its page showed 27,762 sales and a rating of 4.9 from 829 ratings. You choose the price, and $0 works. It holds a weekly planner, a goals tracker, a habit tracker, to-do lists, a fitness planner and a finance tracker.
Pick a Notion planner if you already work in Notion and want your tasks, workouts and money in one place. Pick these sheets if you want to plan by hand and choose your two or three focus areas first.
If you would rather plan on a screen
On paper, you copy each goal by hand from the year page to the quarter, the month and the week. The Life Goals App does this step for you. Your Summit Goal breaks down into a year, quarters, months, weeks and days, and each of today's tasks shows the goal it serves. You do a short review at the end of each day, week, month, quarter and year, so the plan stays current. If you like paper, every main screen prints as a clean page.
You can discover your values and define your purpose statement for free without registration. The full app costs $49.99, introductory price, with a 14-day money back guarantee.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a life plan template and a life goals template?
A life plan template spreads one year across the different areas of your life; a life goals template takes a single goal and runs it down through every level, from your values to today. This page is the first of those. The life goals template is the second, and the two work well together: fill in the year across your areas here, then take the goal that matters most and cascade it there.
Do I have to fill in every life area?
No, and filling in all of them is the most common way this sheet goes wrong. Two or three areas is the working limit for a year, because each goal needs quarters, months, and weeks behind it to move. The other rows are there so you can see what you are deliberately leaving alone.
When should I fill it in?
Any month works; January has no special power. The natural moment is your annual wrap-up, when you have just looked back at the year that ended and the answers are still fresh. If you are starting mid-year, plan the months you have left rather than waiting for a clean date.
What if a goal stops making sense in April?
Cross it out and write the truer version next to it. The plan is built to flex at the bottom and hold steady at the top, so changing a year goal is normal while changing a Summit Goal should be rare. The quarterly check-in is the natural moment to make that edit.
What size does it print at?
All three sizes are here, each as one portrait page: A4, A5 and US Letter. Take the one that matches your printer or your planner, and print it without scaling. Black and white printing is fine, since the blue carries no information.
Can I fill it in on a tablet or a computer?
The PDF is made for printing, and it has no fields you can type into. You can open it in a note app that accepts PDFs, such as GoodNotes or Notability, and write on it with a stylus. If you want the whole plan on a screen, the Life Goals App runs the same steps from your Summit Goal down to today.
Where do my five-year goals for each life area go?
This sheet has one Summit Goal line on purpose, so the whole year serves one direction. In the full method, each focus area can have its own Summit Goal, 3, 5 or 10 years out. The Goal Cascade Template in the free Life Goals Worksheets has a line for them, and its Three Futures sheet helps you choose them.
Is this for personal life planning or for work?
It is built for personal life planning. Career and work is one row among six, which is the point: a plan that only covers your job is what leaves the other five areas to chance. If you need OKRs for a team, this is the wrong sheet.
Start your life plan today
Download the size you print on: A4, A5 or US Letter. Write your Summit Goal line today, even in pencil. Then put your first monthly check-in in your calendar before you put the sheet away.
Related pages
- Life goals: the hub page for the whole method, from values to daily action.
- Free printables: all seven free sheets in A4, A5 and US Letter, without an email address.
- Life goals worksheet: guided exercises for choosing the Summit Goal that belongs at the top of this sheet.
- Life goals template: the same method applied to one goal, cascaded down through every level.
- Weekly review template: the five-minute reflection that keeps a year plan from going stale.
- Printable habit tracker: a month of the repeatable actions behind these goals, on one page.
- Annual planning guide: the longer walkthrough for planning a year properly.
- Life audit workshop: a guided 60-minute review of your past year before you plan the next.
