12-Week Year

A GOOD book to help us finish a project, complete a thesis or accomplish a goal if we are just given limited time is this one co-authored by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington entitled, “The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months”.

The authors have basically reduced 3 months in a year into 3 weeks so as to have a sense of urgency. Imagine how much you can accomplish in a year when you do that. Human nature would always start well when given a task to accomplish but would slacken in the middle phase. That’s why when given an annual goal, most people who work hard in the month of January would slow down in the following months and sometimes even stop working on it and would cram and work like mad by December when the deadline is looming.

(YVMRK E X]TMGEP QSRXL ]IEV MX W IEW] XS TVSGVEWXMREXI SR ]SYV ERRYEP KSEPW &YX HYVMRK E [IIO year, when you are given just 12 weeks to complete a task, there’s a constant sense of urgency because the end of the year is always looming and you need to generate a month’s worth of progress every week! That’s the wisdom of reducing time.

8LI EYXLSVW [SYPH EHZMWI XS EHSTX XLI [IIO year ‘Special O.P.S.’ framework if we are to finish a term paper, a thesis, or a preparation to run a long marathon in 12 weeks. Special O.P.S. means Own, Plan, Score.

Own: Ownership requires 100% commitment to your goals. To own your goal means any failure to accomplish it will not be blamed on anyone else or anything else except you alone. The word “commitment” is defined in the dictionary as “The state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to a course of action, or to another person or persons.” To bind yourself to a course of action means you promise to finish it and to bind yourself to another person means you promise to that person you will do it.

That’s why the book advises making a bet with a friend that if you don’t accomplish what you intend to do in 12 weeks you will treat him to a lavish meal for example. No excuses accepted, that you were too busy, or your house burnt down but you do whatever it takes to accomplish your goal. This is how you generate a super strong sense of urgency to beat laziness and procrastination.

Plan: A 12-week plan gets down to the critical actions that you will need to take each week to reach your goal. Here you don’t plan for the entire 12 weeks in one go. You plan it every week so as to give you a chance to adjust to a more efficient method to work faster or when there are important situations in life that need to be considered. The authors say, “If you take time to plan before engaging with a complex task, you reduce the overall time required to complete the task by as much as 20 percent.” Weekly planning also prevents you from overthinkMRK LSYVF]LSYV HIGMWMSRW ERH XLYW VIHYGIW HEMP] decision fatigue. The authors added that there is usually one or two keystone actions that you need to do for that week that will make your weekly goal getting accomplished. It is critical that you identify these keystone actions and focus on them.

Score: Focus on the action and not so much yet on the results or the score as you start your task. If two people are selling the same product, the person who focuses on sales made may lose enthusiasm and quit if he’s not hitting his weekly sales targets. But the guy who measures his execution (i.e., number of doors he’s knocked on and number of prospects he’s called), and does not fixate on weekly results, will ultimately make more sales.

Stay focused on execution by keeping score of your weekly actions. Each week review your weekly action plan and give yourself an execution score. If you completed 4/5 planned actions, give yourself an execution score of 80% and aim to improve your score next week. If you go below 65% you will most likely fail. Study shows that if you successfully complete 85 percent of the activities in your weekly plan, then you will most likely achieve your objectives. (ECC)