Smart Choices for a Smoother Year: Research-Backed Tips for a Better 2026

Keep big ideas in your back pocket

Julia DiBenigno, Professor of Organizational Behavior

The last year has been volatile. Turbulent periods often prompt us to hunker down and wait for stability to return. Yet these moments can also open windows for meaningful change. As the writer Vivian Greene observed, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”

In research and work with organizations I conducted with Michaela J. Kerrissey and Elisabeth Yang, we find that when tumult begins, a brief strategic window often opens in which certain organizational changes become easier to pursue. Savvy change leaders prepare during stable times by developing “shovel-ready” ideas and monitoring their environments for the right moment to act. When a disruption creates a pressing problem that their idea can help solve, these leaders are well-positioned to pitch it quickly, increasing its chances of being green-lighted, supported, and funded.

We suggest how to “not waste a crisis” by temporarily setting aside traditional, incremental change approaches, such as small wins or slow pilot projects, in favor of opportunistic tactics that emphasize speed, boldness, and permanence. Those who recognize and seize these windows of opportunity can bring ambitious change ideas to life to improve their organizations.

Look for mutually advantageous trades

Daylian Cain, Senior Lecturer in Negotiations, Leadership, and Ethics

Imagine dividing 20 poker chips with a stranger, where each chip you keep is worth $1 to you. Most people would split the chips evenly. You get one up on them and secure 11-9. Not bad—until you learn each chip is worth $10 to your counterpart. The smart move? Give them all 20 chips and split the cash value, netting you $100 instead of $10. The lesson: Don’t fight over issues until you know their true value to both sides. Look for trades where something is valuable to one side but cheap to the other, and then maximize those trades. Sometimes the biggest wins come not from claiming more chips, but from getting paid to give them away.

Use technology to eliminate repetitive tasks

K. Sudhir, James L. Frank ’32 Professor of Private Enterprise and Management; Professor of Marketing; Director, China India Insights Program

This year in my course Large Language Models, we explored how AI agents—systems that automate multi-step workflows—can transform businesses. But agents need not improve only work; they can improve life as well. While many student projects focused on business efficiency, some of the most interesting ideas involved personal logistics: triaging inboxes, studying more effectively, coordinating family schedules, managing travel, or planning weekly nutrition.

The key insight for next year is to create more cognitive space in your day. Rather than using AI only to generate content, use agents to absorb the repetitive tasks that quietly chip away at attention—scheduling, searching, tracking, organizing. When these loops run in the background, you regain the focus needed for deeper work, clearer thinking, and more meaningful connections.

A more fulfilling life often begins by lightening the mental load—and AI can help you do that.

Choose community

Teresa Chahine, Senior Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship

My research is on agency—the freedom to define your choices and goals and to act on them, even when facing obstacles and opposition. In my research with refugee and migrant women in New Haven, we identified six themes related to how their agency emerges and evolves over time. These include means of living, community connection and support, sense of belonging and place, healing and hope, desire to do things for others, and epistemic empowerment (the recognition of lived expertise and the confidence to use this knowledge to lead, advocate, and create change within their communities).

How might these results relate to the average non-refugee American? In January 2025, in his parting “Prescription for America,” outgoing surgeon general Vivek Murthy ’03 wrote that the erosion of social fabric and loss of community have become one of the defining challenges of our time. His prescription was simple: choose community. In doing so, we pave the road to fulfillment for ourselves and others.

How will you choose community in 2026?

Distinguish data from noise

X. Frank Zhang, James L. Frank ’32 Professor of Accounting

One clear takeaway from my research is that people and organizations make better decisions and ultimately become more productive and fulfilled when they focus on underlying fundamentals rather than short-term noise or emotional reactions. Across my work in financial markets—from understanding how information uncertainty affects decision-making to showing how strong fundamentals drive long-run performance—the evidence consistently demonstrates that clarity, transparency, and disciplined analysis lead to better outcomes. This insight applies well beyond investing. Whether in work or life, individuals gain more control and reduce stress when they prioritize high-quality information, avoid overreacting to distractions, and make deliberate, well-informed choices.

Collaborate in smarter ways

Tony Sheldon, Senior Lecturer in the Practice of Management

Our research on “evidence in practice” explores the approaches and processes that have been most successful in grappling with complex, transdisciplinary challenges such as sustained economic development, rural public health, and gang violence. Addressing these “wicked problems”—questions which have confounded repeated efforts by deeply knowledgeable researchers, policy makers, and practitioners—entails collaborations that span disciplines and communities of practice. Given the diversity of viewpoints and expertise that are needed, standard models of collaboration often break down. We have identified a set of “scaffolding” practices employed by many of the most successful program interventions we’ve encountered; these practices serve to create and sustain the level of shared engagement that is needed. We refer to them as scaffolds because they are temporary, modular, and interdependent with other components of project design and execution.

We break down these scaffolds into structural and programmatic practices. Structural scaffolds (establishing a learning orientation, using multivocal orchestrating, creating protective convening spaces, and pursuing adaptive financing) help establish and sustain a stable foundation for ongoing collaboration. Programmatic scaffolds (negotiating a shared problem, distributing authority and expertise, pricing participants’ respective "currencies of exchange,” and mapping learning pitches) address fundamental organizational questions on how to distribute work, coordinate effort, make collective decisions, and adapt as new evidence emerges.

When integrated into program design and execution, these scaffolding practices offer a framework for actors from an array of organizations and disciplines to collaborate and learn, despite the uncertainty and complexity inherent in the nature of the problems they have chosen to investigate together.

Decide what to say, then let AI decide how to say it

Jiwoong Shin, Professor of Marketing

My recent research shows that generative AI can help people communicate more effectively in situations where clarity and professionalism matter. Studying more than one million consumer finance complaints, we find that individuals who used LLMs to help draft their message were substantially more likely to receive relief—even though the facts of the complaint were unchanged. LLMs improve how a message is articulated, not what is said, which especially benefits consumers facing language or literacy barriers. The broader takeaway is that using AI to structure and clarify your communication can make work and life more productive by ensuring your ideas are heard as you intend.

Think twice before making business decisions based on buzz

A.J. Wasserstein, Eugene F. Williams, Jr., Senior Lecturer in the Practice of Management

Search funds and entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) are booming opportunities for aspiring CEOs and investors. For post-MBA students, this is a potential pathway to catapult into a CEO role with a generous equity stake immediately after graduation, without having to start a business, find capital, or generate a market-disrupting idea. For investors, the allure of eye-popping internal rates of return and multiples of invested capital beckons. There is a stampede of money and talent entering the sector, hunting for easy riches.

However, our research at Yale paints a slightly different picture. In a note I wrote with David Lazier and Jacob Thomas, “How are Search Fund Investors Really Faring?”, we analyze actual investor returns in the space for the first time. Additionally, we present detailed histograms of the array of entrepreneur and investor outcomes. Spoiler alert: returns are concentrated in relatively few companies, and there are far more disappointing outcomes than winners. In another note, “Does Recurring Revenue Really Drive Financial Outcomes in Search Fund–Acquired Businesses?”, we explore the correlation between recurring revenue and financial outcomes in ETA companies. Spoiler alert number two: We cannot say there is any significance. So, while we are unabashed fans of ETA and cannot think of a better post-MBA arc for our students, we encourage them to enter the arena with caution, eyes wide open, and a full understanding of the odds of success.

Schedule time to reset

Kosuke Uetake, Professor of Marketing

Recent research on everyday decisions shows something surprisingly comforting: we’re not lazy—just human. We often stay subscribed to things we don’t use or maintain habits we don’t really value, not because we choose them, but because we never stop to rethink them. But studies on subscription behavior around credit-card expiration dates also find that when people build in small moments to check in with themselves, they make choices that feel better in the long run.

So here’s one practical takeaway for next year: Create gentle “reset moments” for yourself. Once a month, take five minutes to look at your ongoing commitments such as subscriptions, projects, and habits. Ask yourself, is this still bringing me value? Would I sign up again today?

These tiny pauses help clear out the noise, free up time and money, and make space for what truly matters. A more intentional, fulfilling year often starts with a single question: Do I still want this?