In the next few weeks, your team is going to be hit with a brand new list of projects and priorities.
And you know as well as I do: your team still has a long list of unfinished work from 2025.
So when all of it matters, how can we help our teams harness “New Year, New You” energy—even as they’re still dragging old work across the finish line?
“We Didn’t Finish Last Year’s Work. Now We Have a New To-Do List.”
You come back from the break with real energy, eager for your team to tackle a new slate of projects and initiatives. Then you open your planning deck to see a long tail of work that was supposed to be done already.
Whether you lead one team, five teams, or a full PMO, I bet you’re experiencing some version of this collision:
- On one side: momentum, optimism, and the pressure to show progress early.
- On the other: half-done initiatives still consume attention and resources.
Most leaders simply stack the new commitments on top of the old ones and hope for the best. They might even believe that the ballooning to-do list will lead to a “healthy sense of urgency.”
It doesn’t.
The reality is this:
Your decision—or non-decision—about how to prioritize the new year’s initiatives does more to determine how the year unfolds than just about anything else.
And “white knuckling” your team’s workflow is a recipe for gridlock, confusion, and missed deadlines across the board.
The High Cost of “We’ll Make It Work”
When unfinished work collides with new priorities, most teams don’t stop to sort it out (especially if they’re under pressure). They keep going.
The work that’s already in motion doesn’t stop, because someone is still expecting updates on it. And the new work starts, because someone just asked for it.
Teams (correctly) assume that if the leader isn’t going to provide them cover, the safest course of action is to show stakeholders visible activity across all the work.
So teams optimize to show motion—not movement.
- They add meetings—status meetings, check-ins, etc.—because face time is the clearest signal that work is happening
- They gravitate toward tactical action items and quick wins over strategic, significant ones
- They let decisions sit in limbo, because other work can continue while those calls are “out of their hands.”
- They keep projects open longer than necessary, because no one can agree on when it’s okay to call something done
And dysfunction breeds dysfunction. By March, teams across the board are:
- Spending more time in meetings than doing the work itself
- Obsessing over the wording of status reports instead of resolving underlying issues
- Struggling to coordinate calendars because everyone is already booked solid
- Losing momentum on the work that matters most, even as activity stays high
Do This Instead: A Game Plan for 2026
I run into all these same temptations leading The Persimmon Group—and I’ve learned the hard way that stacking old work on top of new and hoping it sorts itself out is a reliable way to stall everything.
After five years in the seat, our leadership team has landed on a simple way to reset and recenter each year—one that helps us get things finished, not just started. It’s the same approach I’m recommending to clients right now, from small businesses like ours to Fortune 200 PMOs.
Here it is:
Step 1: Take a Fast Inventory
Before adding or communicating new work, it’s vital to understand the current state.
At Persimmon, we do this step after we already have a point of view about what matters: clear desired outcomes for key areas of the business, and signals that tell us whether we’re moving in the right direction. The fast inventory isn’t about setting direction—it’s about understanding what’s already consuming capacity, and whether it’s helping or hindering those outcomes.
Here’s what to inventory:
- Open Items. What’s still open that we expected to be done by now?
- State of Completion. For open items, what’s the real state of completion? And what’s in the way of “done”?
- Location of Sludge. What took far more effort than it was worth? (And what did those things have in common?)
- Removal of Sunk Cost Thinking. What are we keeping alive because “we’ve already spent so much time on it?”
- Impact Assessment. Which in-flight initiatives would make the biggest, soonest impact on this year’s desired outcomes?
(Some of you might be saying at this point: “I don’t have any control on what we work on.” I get it. You should still know the answers to these five questions. And if there are obvious losers in your project portfolio, part of your leadership responsibility is to raise that up. Your executives might not agree, but it’s equally likely you’re surfacing trade-offs that they need and want to hear.)
Step 2: Kill Work That No Longer Matters
Once you’ve taken a fast inventory, the next move is uncomfortable—but essential.
If everything stays alive, nothing finishes. And most teams aren’t overwhelmed because they lack priorities—they’re overwhelmed because obsolete work never actually dies.
This step is about creating space before you try to sequence anything new.
Here’s how we approach it.
- Relevance Check. Which initiatives no longer meaningfully contribute to this year’s desired outcomes? If you wouldn’t start it today, given what you now know, that’s a signal.
- Return on Attention. Which efforts consume ongoing coordination, reporting, or emotional energy without delivering proportional value? These are often more expensive than they look.
- Constraint Awareness. Which work exists mainly to accommodate an old assumption, structure, or fear that no longer applies? When the constraint has changed but the work hasn’t, drag sets in.
- Exit Viability. Where is there still a clean exit? If stopping doesn’t require a public failure or financial unwind, take advantage of that window.
Most leaders underestimate how much capacity is reclaimed—not just in hours, but in focus and morale—when teams see leadership willing to say, “This no longer matters enough to keep carrying.”
And if you don’t do this step on purpose, it will still happen—just later, messier, and under more pressure.
“Wait, but I don’t get to choose our team, or PMO works on.”
I get it. You should still know the answers to these five questions.
And if there are obvious losers in your project portfolio, part of your leadership responsibility is to raise that up. Your executives might not agree, but it’s equally likely you’re surfacing trade-offs that they need and want to hear.
Step 3: Declare Definitions of Done
After you’ve killed work that no longer matters, the next risk is subtle—but common.
Work that should finish doesn’t. It lingers in review cycles, partial handoffs, and “one more thing” conversations.
This step is about protecting completion.
Here’s what we define—explicitly:
- Outcome Clarity. What does “done” actually mean for this initiative?
- Decision Ownership. Who has the authority to say this is done—and not reopen it by default?
- Quality Thresholds. What is good enough for now? Perfectionism is a common way unfinished work disguises itself as rigor.
- Change and Adoption. What changes once this is done? If nothing downstream behaves differently, the work probably isn’t finished yet.
Step 4: Finish What’s Closest to Done
Once definitions of done are clear, the fastest way to create capacity isn’t to start something new.
It’s to finish what’s already almost finished.
This step is about reducing the drag of unfinished work—and giving teams the psychological and operational relief that comes from actually closing loops.
Here’s how we think about it:
- Near-Done Identification. What work is truly close to done—not 80% done, but one or two real moves away from finish?
Be honest about what “close” actually means. - Effort-to-Relief Ratio. Which finishes would free the most attention, coordination, or mental load relative to the effort required?
- Momentum Creation. What can we finish quickly to restore confidence that work does end here? Finishing changes how teams show up to the next thing.
Step 5: Shape New Work Before You Start It
After you’ve cleared space and finished what was closest to done, the biggest risk is backsliding.
New work shows up fast—often well-intentioned, loosely defined, and emotionally compelling. If you start it before shaping it, you’re rebuilding the same conditions that created overload in the first place.
This step is about slowing just enough to avoid creating new unfinished work.
Here’s what we shape before anything starts.
- Intended Outcome. What problem is this meant to solve—or what change should we be able to observe if it works? If the outcome isn’t clear, effort won’t be either.
- Definition of Done. What does “finished” mean before we begin?
Work that starts without a finish line almost never finds one. - Sequencing Fit. Where does this actually belong relative to other commitments?
“Important” doesn’t mean “now.” - Effort Reality. What will this realistically displace or delay?
Every start is a trade, whether you name it or not. - Reversibility. How easy will this be to stop or change once it’s underway?
The harder it is to unwind, the more shaping it deserves.
The Leader’s Real Job: What To Do With Your Plan
Once the work is shaped and underway, a leader’s job changes.
This isn’t the moment to keep re-prioritizing, refining, or reacting to every new idea that surfaces. It’s the moment to protect the system you just designed.
- Hold the line on scope.
New ideas can be added—but they also don’t automatically interrupt work already in motion. And not without declaring trade-offs. - Remove friction faster than you add direction.
When teams get stuck, help clear obstacles—and make sure you’re a safe space to raise them. - Watch for unfinished work creeping back in.
If something keeps reopening, that’s a signal the definition of done wasn’t strong enough—not that the team is failing.
If You Only Do One Thing
Clarify the definition of done for the work that’s already open.
For your open items, explicitly declare what “finished” means—with a bias toward good enough, not perfect.
This one move surfaces hidden disagreement, collapses endless review cycles, and frees more capacity than adding a single new priority ever could.
Finishing changes the system faster than starting.