If you’re searching for how to plan your year for 2026 or how to organise your calendar in 2026, you’re likely in the same January headspace as everyone else: wanting to feel more on top of your time, without turning your life upside down.

The problem? A lot of yearly planning advice is built for productivity, and not real schedules, people, or plans.

Our guide will show you how to plan your 2026 calendar in a way that actually works, especially when your New Year’s resolutions revolve around making sure you’re keeping up with your friends.

Step 1: Plan your 2026 calendar before you plan your goals

Big goals are great. But there’s no point setting them if you haven’t stopped to think about when they’ll actually fit into your life.

Before jumping into resolutions, take a minute to map out:

• key dates in 2026
• holidays and long weekends
• birthdays and recurring events
• trips, weddings, festivals, and social plans

This gives you a realistic idea of what the year is going to look like, and helps you avoid saying yes to everything all at once.

Step 2: Put your 2026 schedule in one, reliable place

If organising your calendar for 2026 feels overwhelming already, the biggest change you can make is putting everything in one, reliable place.

Most people aren’t bad at organisation. Their time’s just spread out.

• a work calendar here
• a personal calendar somewhere else
• half-confirmed plans in group chats
• dates you’ve mentally committed to but never wrote down

With Howbout, you can pull your entire 2026 calendar into one clear view without losing any control or context.

Sync your Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Outlook so:

• everything you’ve got going on shows up together in one place
• you can instantly see when you’re busy or free
• double-booking becomes a thing of the past

What makes Howbout different is that it’s social by design.

You don’t just see your plans, you can see your friends’ calendars too (with full control over what’s shared), which makes planning ahead feel easy, natural, and actually fun.

On Howbout, you can:

• choose exactly which events are shared and which stay private
• check friends’ availability at a glance
• keep plans, chats and details all in one place

Instead of asking “are you free this week?”, you can finally plan your entire year with confidence.

Step 3: Plan your year with friends, not just for yourself

A lot of people search for how to plan a year calendar, then try to do it by themselves. Rookie mistake.

The reason that plans fall apart is because:

• availability isn’t clear
• nobody will make a decision
• no one ever locks anything in

Planning your year with friends changes that.

With Howbout, you can share calendars to:

• see availability in advance
• plan weekends, trips and events together
• turn “we should do this” into actual plans

If one of your 2026 goals is to see friends more or be better at sticking to plans, this makes a huge difference.

Step 4: Give yourself a simple January reset

There’s a reason that ‘January Reset’ is trending on TikTok, and that’s because the girlies are getting organised for 2026.

You don’t need to plan every detail of your year in one go, that’s not what the reset it about. A January reset is more than enough to organise your 2026 calendar properly.

Set aside 15–20 minutes to:

Add fixed dates

Birthdays, weddings, trips, festivals, exams, anything you already know about.

Block loose time for priorities

Gym, creative time, seeing friends, downtime. Nothing locked in yet, just space.

Set recurring events

Monthly dinners, weekly workouts, regular catch-ups you want to keep up.

Share plans that involve other people

If friends are involved, put it somewhere shared so it doesn’t live only in your messages (or add them to the event on Howbout!)

That’s it. You’re giving it a shape that’s easy to work with, rather than just micro-managing it.

Step 5: Keep your 2026 organisation system simple

The best way to stay organised in 2026 isn’t stricter rules, it’s about making your organisation and plans easier to keep up with and see at a glance.

A good 2026 calendar sets you up to:

• plan faster
• message less
• remember more

With Howbout, you cut out:

• any doubt in whether you’re free or busy
• back-and-forth follow-ups
• plans scattered across apps

Plan your 2026 calendar the social way

You don’t need to finish planning your entire year in January.

You need one place where your plans can live, grow, and stay organised.

Howbout is the shared calendar for friends, built for your real plans, and it’s a great way to start 2026 feeling clear, connected, and organised.

👉 Start planning your 2026 calendar with Howbout.