The 12 Week Year
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It was this reality/difficulty that led Brian P. Moran to develop his 12-week year premise. His book, The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months, is intended to help you think in terms of 12 weeks rather than twelve months.
In fact, several studies have shown that most businesses make 40% of their progress towards their annual goals in the last 12 weeks of each year. The reason for this is the end of the year creates a sense of urgency.
Process control deals with the small details of the planning process. For example, say your goal was to lose 5 pounds in 12 weeks. You might use a time block approach to scheduling, where specific hours of each day are dedicated to different activities.
Time must be used efficiently and with intention. In the 12 month year, you feel like you always have plenty of time to catch up. Annual goals and plans can create complacency. The 12 week year avoids the pitfalls of annual goals. Every day matters and you feel a sense of urgency. The 12 week year creates focus.
After defining the why, it is time to define precisely what you want to accomplish in the 12 week period. Outlining goals is not always as easy as you may think, and it is essential to set clear realistic expectations.
Laying out and defining these steps is called the action plan and is absolutely essential. Not only does it give you a direction for your energies and efforts, but it also allows you to gauge success and progress over the 12-week sprint.
Taking time to review your progress is an essential component to the 12 weeks year process. Moran recommends setting aside time every week to look back on what has been accomplished and what still needs to be done.
By doing this every week, it allows you to make adjustments if you need to. Due to the condensed time frame, if reviews are conducted less than once a week, you may not have enough time to implement any changes you may require to meet your goals on time.
In some cases, the goal can be split up into smaller milestones over a series of sprints. For example, a 120% increase in sales over 12 weeks is probably overambitious in most cases. Instead, aim for a 30% increase per 12-week year, which will result in you reaching your goal after four sprints.
At the end of every 12 week period, a large in-depth review should be conducted where you take a deep-dive look at what went right, what went wrong, and what improvements can be made for the next sprint.
Although the weekly reviews are important, they lack the perspective that a final review has. The end of one sprint brings the beginning of another, and people often get caught up in the planning phase and ignore the sprint-ending review.
This burst of productivity is what the 12 week year seeks to tap into and exploit. Since a deadline is always around the corner, people approach every day with a sense of urgency and action, the result of which is a much higher degree of productivity.
The 53-year-old consultant who wants to find a more efficient way to do their work, the 35-year-old with a great business idea who has a hard time making it happen, and anyone that wants to get better at reaching their goals.
Take a few minutes to think about what a great life would look like in each of these categories in ten, twenty, fifty years. What would you like to be able to say those areas included in your life What would you like them to look like
2: On the next page, write:THREE YEAR VISIONA: What needs to happen in the next three years to move towards long-term visionB: What would a GREAT personal and professional life look like, three years from now
Writing down and figuring out your life vision is the keystone of this goal-setting system. I remember when I was in the middle of my first 12 Week cycle, and in the depths of despair over my (seemingly) sluggish progress towards my goals, and wondering if I should just give up or if any of it even mattered, and I happened to read through whatever chapter said that part of my planning/strategic time each week should include re-reading my life vision and checking and seeing if I was still emotionally connected with it.
First, you figure out what you want. You write everything you want out of life on a piece of paper. Then, start categorizing into a timeline. What can you accomplish in 5 years What can you accomplish in 10 years What about 15 years
It was something that I knew if I could do consistently, I would see a huge impact. But like many of the things blocking me from success above, it was too easy to get derailed and not hit my weekly quotas.
That would mean within my side hustle goal, I would have 14 points available each week to earn. If I hit everything perfectly, I would earn 14/14 points and hit 100% productivity. If I hit everything except only published 4 pieces of content, I would earn 12/14 points, and hit 86% productivity.
The 12 Week Year is a system that should help you achieve your goals by helping you execute more effectively. It will help you speed up your execution cycle, cut out the slack in your annual plan and encourage you to measure and face up to reality. But it will only work if you really engage and commit to it, so get to work! Draft your vision, your goals and your 12-week plan today.
The book (and free field guide below) use a Word (or Google) doc template for outlining goals and weekly tasks, but I like something that calculates scores automatically. Enter Google Sheets and ClickUp.
I also have a corresponding Trello board. Add the dates of your weeks to each list. Change the tasks to your tasks and the labels to your goals. Feel free to add due dates or assign tasks to yourself.
The 12 Week Year methodology has been vetted in the real world over the last 10 years with thousands of associates and managers in monster organizations like JC Penny, Tiffany's, New York Life, Coldwell Banker, Wells Fargo, and many, many more.
The cost each year is $2,500*. This covers the cost of developing course materials, support & staff. Additionally, this allows us to update you on our latest discoveries and ensure the quality of The 12 Week Year brand.
In The 12 Week Year, each goal has a number of tactics. Some of these are repeated daily or weekly and others are one-time events. All of them are stated positively, start with a verb, and are measurable. Each week, it will be clear whether I completed each of these tactics or not.
I love the idea of a weekly Strategic Planning block. I use to schedule monthly Think Days, and take a few weeks each year for planning and vision work. But the idea of weekly focus on an item important to my larger goals is something new, and lovely. The 12 Week Year suggested scheduling your Strategic Block early in your week so if you have to reschedule you will have time to do so.
It took me an hour or two to create my Idea Week, and then an hour to actually apply that plan to my first week. Each morning, I spend 15-30 minutes reviewing my plan for the day and looking at the rest of my week. Each evening, I spend a few minutes reviewing the day and thinking about how the rest of my week is shaping up. And at the end of the week, I take time for an honest review.
Most organizations and individuals work in the context of annual goals and plans; a twelve-month execution cycle. Instead, The 12 Week Year avoids the pitfalls and low productivity of annualized thinking. This book redefines your \"year\" to be 12 weeks long. In 12 weeks, there just isn't enough time to get complacent, and urgency increases and intensifies. The 12 Week Year creates focus and clarity on what matters most and a sense of urgency to do it now. In the end more of the important stuff gets done and the impact on results is profound.
Construct a vision of your life 5, 10, 15 years into the future. Be bold, be courageous; create a life vision that inspires you and fulfills your purpose. There are no right or wrong answers. This is the life you deeply desire.
Based on your long-term vision, what do you want to create over the next three years Describe in as much detail as possible what a great personal and professional life would look like three years from today. The more specific you are at this stage, the easier it will be to create your 12 week goals and your plan.
Set your 12 week goal that aligns with your long-term vision and also represents greatness for you in and of itself in the next 12 weeks. Review your long-term and 3 year visions. Decide on the progress that you are willing to commit to achieving in the next 12 weeks.
The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington is just such a book. It was released in 2013. Like Deep Work, another book I read earlier this year, it has revolutionized how I work. I think it can do the same for you.
The Twelve Week Year is an execution planning system where the annual execution cycle is truncated within the twelve-week timeframe. It is underpinned by five disciplines: 1) create a compelling vision, 2) plan your execution, 3) control your process, 4) measure your progress, and 5) manage your time effectively.
Annualized thinking creates a perspective on your workflow that there is all the time in the world to meet your year-end goals. This idea becomes your mantra until you reach October, when suddenly your deadline begins to loom.
But why wait a whole year to feel this heightened level of productivity Rather than redefining your workflow at the end of the year, redefine your timeline to shorter periods to encourage high productivity every day of the year. This idea is the definition of periodization and the backbone of the Twelve Week Year execution system.
Once you have your long-term vision, think about what you need to accomplish over the next three years to make that dream a reality. Which objectives need to be accomplished first, and what are the steps needed to achieve those objectives Be as specific and detailed as possible. 59ce067264