Are you tired of making New Year’s resolutions that you never keep?
Do you feel like you’re always behind schedule and never quite caught up?
At the time of writing this review that’s me for sure, but it won’t be for much longer
I’ve just read a book that has totally changed my mindset and although I’ve only implemented the concept over the last week or so it’s already had a massive impact.
The 12 Week Year is a book that focuses on the idea of concentrating only on what’s important for the next 12 weeks, rather than having an entire year to accomplish.
The book goes into the importance of the 12 Week Year as well as how to actually accomplish your goals during those 12 weeks.
It does a great job of explaining why you should focus on only what’s important for the next 12 weeks and has some great tips for succeeding in your 12 Week Year.
The book is divided into two main sections.
The first section is all about the importance of the 12 Week Year, why it works and why you should use it.
The second half of the book contains tips, tricks, tools, templates, and checklists that are useful for putting this concept into practice.
Overall, this is a book that I would highly recommend to people who are struggling with working on the right things and getting them done quickly.
Redefining The Year
The whole premise of the book is that you redefine your year.
Having annual goals and plans get in the way.
Sure, they are better than having no plans at all but only visiting these once a year means you’re not going to get the best results.
By setting annual goals you’re giving yourself a lot of time to complete them. You set your goals in January and you’ve got until December to complete them – It’s not exactly going to instil any kind of urgency.
You set your goals in Jan, you’re already behind your targets in Feb which annoys you but you’re not overly worried as you’ve still got 10 months to hit them, right?
This just goes on and on through the year, April – Not to worry, still got 8 months to catch up…
…and on it goes.
There’s no sense of urgency at all and we forget that every single week, day, minute of our lives counts.
It’s important to remember that we need to make sure we are taking action every week, scrap that, every day. Not just every month and quarter.
If we stick with annual planning and goals then we’re limiting what results we can truly get.
What’s something a lot of us do in the last month or two of the year?
We have a BIG push. This could be a push to reach our goals, to hit our sales targets, whatever it is we seem to go harder at it when it comes to the end of the year.
We might start working later to finish that project that we planned on doing all the way back in January. We run the ‘end of year sale’ to help us hit our revenue goals.
That final month or two can make or break our year.
Imagine if you had that urgency every 12 weeks?
“There’s nothing like a deadline to get you motivated”
If you’ve had a bad year then you know what that means. January is here again so we can right our wrongs from last year.
Had a good year? Great, let’s increase our goals for the year ahead.
“It’s important to understand that the results that you achieve are a direct byproduct of the actions you take”
The basic concept is that 12 weeks equals a year, a week becomes a month and a day becomes a week.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time Abraham Lincoln
The importance of focusing on what’s important in the short-term
When it comes to productivity and success, it’s important to focus on what’s important in the short term.
Focusing on what’s important for the next 12 weeks is a much better way to achieve your goals than waiting until the next year.
This change in mindset will allow you to be more productive and successful because you’ll be able to focus on what’s important now, rather than worrying about everything that needs to be done later.
Overall, I think the 12 Week Year is a great way to be more productive and more successful because it will help you focus on what’s important now.
I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book to get started today!
Tips on how to be successful during your 12 Week Year
In order to be successful during your 12 Week Year, you’ll need to focus on what’s important and stay organised.
Here are a few tips to help you stay on track
- Make a list of what you need to accomplish in the next 12 weeks. This list should include both short-term and long-term goals, as well as the steps you’ll need to take to achieve them.
- Set a schedule for yourself and stick to it. Having a set schedule will help you stay organised and on track
- Create a workspace that is conducive to productivity. This may mean creating a specific work area in your home or office or using specific tools and software to help you.
One of my main takeaways from the book is that you don’t really have any control over the outcomes of your goals.
Let’s say that one of your goals in your first 12 week year is to turnover £50,000 in revenue.
You don’t have any actual control on bringing that money in. You can’t just walk up to someone and take it out of their pocket.
But what you do have control over are the actions that you take on a daily and weekly basis to reach that goal.
So for example, to hit that revenue goal your actions may be;
- Make 20 sales calls a day
- Create 5 new blog posts a week
- Follow up with all your leads daily
These actions are something you have control over. The key is to come up with actions that if you complete them then you are highly likely to hit your goals.
If you don’t hit your goals then fine, you need to look at the actions you created and work out why they didn’t get you there.
And the best part? You get to do that in 12 weeks, not 12 months!
In Summary
The 12 Week Year is a great way to be more productive and successful because it will help you focus on what’s important now.
I highly recommend picking up this book if you want to change your mindset from waiting until the next year to focusing on what needs to happen in the short-term (12 weeks).
The key thing about success and productivity is understanding that we don’t have control over outcomes; we only have control of our actions.
This means coming up with specific tasks for yourself, sticking to them, and looking back at why they didn’t work out when they didn’t go as planned.
It can be daunting thinking about how much may need to be done during such a small time frame – but most likely there are things you’ve been putting off for months that need to get done.
Don’t be scared of this change in mindset, focus on what’s important now and you’ll have a much more productive year. Well, 12 Weeks!
The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington is a winner for me!
