The easiest tool to start reaching your goals
Achieve more in 12 weeks than some people do in 12 months with this simple shift in how you plan your goals!
The end of the year is creeping closer… Christmas countdowns have begun, people are starting to refer to things happening in 2023 (I mean seriously, how did we get here?!)
For many of us this time of year signals a wave of anxious thoughts, or just an underlying sense of I’m running out of time to do the things I really wanted to do this year.
I’m sure you have the same little phrase running through your head each year… “this will be the year I finally…”
… and did you?
If I look over my Annual Review of last year I realise there’s a lot of things I wanted to accomplish this year that I didn’t get to and that’s okay — I’m still in the process of unlearning the habit of putting way to much on my plate and creating unrealistic expectations of my little human existence. I did however get to a few big milestones on my 2022 Roadmap that I set sail for at the beginning of the year and for that, I’m really freakin proud!
The thing is, I want to live a life of intention. Doing things that carry meaning & purpose even in the mundane parts of life, which honestly is ‘life’ — I want to do those things with a sense of joy & fulfillment because life isn’t just one big race to unending checkpoints that ultimately only lead to exhaustion & burnout… eina!
A process that I have come to value immensely in my journey to becoming a more intentional human in life & business is planning my year in quarterly blocks, and that’s what I want to share with you today. It’s actually possible to follow through on multiple goals (believe it or not!) and this process is the how.
So without further ado, let me introduce to you the 12-week year — your new best friend when it comes to planning your life!
What is a 12-week year?
So the concept of a 12-week year was theorised by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington in their book titled, you guessed it — The 12-week Year. To sum it up in the most simple terms, the book shows you how planning annually actually stumps your performance and that you could in actual fast get more done in 12 weeks with the right process than you could if you planned a whole bunch of things to happen over a 12 month process.
Most of the year, you probably fall behind on all your goals and then start scrambling towards the end (a.k.a now, Q3!) to get things done and with the added pressure of the end of the year that’s honestly why a lot of people burnout or just feel a little fatigued — you know the feeling.
What happens when we plan 12-week goals instead of 12-month goals? — there’s a sense of urgency, 12 weeks is not a very long time! If you’re familiar with Parkinson’s Law you’ll understand this. Simply put, work expands to fill the time allocated for its completion. So if your project is due in 2 months it will take you 2 months to complete it, if the same project is due in 2 days, it will take you 2 days to complete it. So essentially, you push yourself to accomplish something within a shorter period of time. Using the 12-week year framework, each goal is instantly more manageable and you can focus on the core tasks & actions to reach it. AND — with a deadline that is actually within reach, it creates more productivity and helps you keep more control over your time.
So how does it work?
Essentially there are 8 different “ingredients” necessary when implementing the 12-week year strategy — 5 disciplines & 3 principles. I’ll briefly walk you through them here, but over the next few weeks, I’ll be diving into a lot of these concepts of productivity & planning to really give you a comprehensive perspective of what it takes to start living your life with more intention.
These are the 8 ingredients mentioned in the book to help you have success with the framework:
Vision — create a compelling vision that creates a clear picture of the future you want. This will help you stay on track with goals that align to the life you want to build
Planning — you have to create an effective plan that clarifies & focuses on the top-priority actions needed to achieve the vision
Process Control — a set of tools and events that align your daily actions with the critical actions in your plan
Measurement — indicators to provide you with the necessary information you need to make informed decisions
Time use — you have to have effective & intentional use of your time
Accountability — the willingness to take full ownership for your actions and results regardless of your circumstances
Commitment — doing whatever it takes to keep the promises you made to yourself
Greatness in the moment — immersing yourself fully in the moment. The results are not ultimately the attainment of greatness but only the confirmation. Make every day count!
Now what?!
Let me tell you how this works for me to make it a little bit more digestible.
I have a calendar (a large printed one that’s stuck on my wall next to my desk) on which I can clearly see my full year front & center. This calendar is visually divided up into 4 quarters so I can quickly see where I’ve dropped my most critical work for each. I use the calendar as a visual cue and I keep all my other detailed planning and task management elsewhere.
I outline a full vision for my life and for my next year in my Annual Review (more on that in a later blog post) and based on that I set goals for the year. I’ll then have a look at those goals and look at my calendar & decide which goals I will dedicate to which quarters and I simply divide them in.
This is an extremely simplified description of how I do my goal planning, but that’s the bare bones of it. From there on I create a plan to actually achieve these things and Bob’s your uncle…
But I know it’s not THAT simple to actually get your goals ticked off, but I wanted to start up your thinking so you can begin to imagine how this process could fit into your life and where your biggest areas of focus will need to be.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be unpacking a few things that have shaped the way I now view work, planning, productivity & getting things done. A little disclaimer though, I don’t have this all figured out — I just geek out about this stuff way too much to not share it with you! I’m doing this so I can continue to learn & grow into a more intentional human being too. Remember — it’s all a process and as long as you give yourself the necessary grace to trial & error, succeed AND fail you can come along for the ride.
I’ve already prepped my printable calendar for next year’s planning to begin and I want you to have one too, so just download your below and let’s set sail my friend!