How to cope with all the tasks for the year in just 12 weeks?

Not so long ago, as a member of the SmartProgress community, I came across the “12 weeks a year” program. The idea intrigued me so much that I immediately went in search of additional information and, on the open spaces, Amazon found a book directly connected with this program: “12 weeks a year. How in 12 weeks more is done than others do in 12 months ”(original title: The 12 Week Year: 12 Months ). Who does not want to take their annual plan and “squeeze” it to 12 weeks, and most importantly - to implement everything planned in such a short period of time?

The beginning of the year is the most suitable time for summing up the results of the past year and drawing up plans for the coming year. This time I decided to be inspired by fresh ideas, since my “classical” planning with my husband did not fully suit us. Therefore, I set off in search of interesting solutions on the vast expanses of the Internet. However, I found what I was looking for, much faster than one could imagine - the technique of the 12-week year I liked so much that we decided to try it out in the new year.

What is this book?

The book “12 weeks a year. How to do more than others do in 12 months in 12 weeks ”was written by Americans Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, who are business coaches and consultants with many years of experience (no matter how cool you are, but they know a lot about planning). It is full of good ideas with which you are probably familiar if you have already read such literature. However, repetition is the mother of learning, right? However, the whole book is filled with a fresh and interestingly presented idea of ​​accommodating the annual plan not in the usual 12 months, but only in 3 months, or one quarter, as we used to call a quarter of a year in business. All the methods described in the book are built around this idea.
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Another undoubted advantage of the book is that it is rather small, only 200 pages, so you can easily “swallow” it in a couple of evenings, armed with a cup of tea and wrapped in a warm blanket (good, holidays give us enough days off to read). From myself I want to add that I read it "diagonally" - the easy way of writing allows you to apply this approach. Therefore, the method can be found very quickly.

Methodology "12-week year" and its advantages

The main idea of ​​the book I was very interested. But indeed, it is much more convenient to make a “concentrated” plan for 12 weeks than for 12 months. In addition, for a whole year both in life and in the market (which is important if you are making plans for a business) there can be a lot of changes. And the annual plans themselves are rather something very painfully generalized and very ephemeral. In drawing up such a plan, we most often write goals for tick, not knowing for sure when we get to work to achieve them, as a rule, we give ourselves too much time for each goal, guided by the fact that we still have 12 months to go. Then (often by the end of the year) we remember our shortcomings and try to catch up on everything that has not yet been done, and thus we are coping with the lion’s share of work in the last couple of months. And here we should not forget the remarkable Law of Parkinson: "The work fills all the time allotted to it."

In fact, using the technique of "12 weeks", we fit each month in one week only. In this situation, we do not have time for delay, and we tend to spend this most valuable resource most effectively. Nevertheless, the authors of the book assure that when we set a clear and fairly close, one can say “tangible” deadline, then the deadlines and goals become clearer, and we subconsciously try to complete everything planned by this time. Thanks to this approach, the tendency to procrastination decreases, and the efficiency increases.



If you read my other articles on improving work efficiency and achieving goals, then you know that I love to try various techniques that could help me not only work productively, developing a family business, but also engage in self-development. For me, this 12-week plan is also relevant due to the lack of some stability in life - over the past year and a half, my husband and I moved five or six times (I take into account only the "grandiose" moves) and lived in four countries, and this introduces a certain stir in the way of life, and in the work schedule.

The last week of the outgoing year, many of us traditionally give planning everything that we would like to accomplish in the coming year. As a rule, we succeed in many things, but despite all the plans some things remain unfulfilled. For example, I have not been able to open my own business for two years in a row, since all my husband and I efforts are focused on a common enterprise, which is growing and takes more time. Now, I planned to make a breakthrough over the next three months (considering that quite a lot of developments have already been accumulated) and launch my own project. This unusual technique is remarkable precisely for those who (like me) have long dreamed of and walked around and about their goal, but could not reach it at all - with their whole essence, it calls for action.

Programs and training related to the methodology

The authors of the book themselves offer readers additional support in the form of an online system, consultations and trainings, but all this is provided in English and is quite expensive, and not everyone can take advantage of these benefits. Therefore, I am grateful to the guys from SmartProgress for the fact that they decided to implement their own program based on the methodology described in the book.

The program was developed by Russian trainers to achieve the goals Ilya Slobodinov and Andrei Bannikov, who are also the authors of many other programs and trainings. It will last exactly 12 weeks, and it will start on January 11, 2016. During this period, coaches will not only acquaint themselves with this methodology, but will also help participants learn it and put it into practice. Everyone can realize three goals within the program, two of which are individual for each participant, and one is common to all.



As part of the program, coaches will help you plan for achieving your goals, select the resources you need to work, define criteria for monitoring progress, and establish intermediate points of control for results. It sounds very business-like, which is suitable for those who decided to immediately get to work. If we talk about my situation, then I am an active person and quite motivated by nature, but even for me, additional sources of motivation are needed - not so much to go to the goal, but to increase the pace. Therefore, deadlines, plans and tight control are just what many start-up entrepreneurs need, and just users who set themselves goals not only for professional but also personal growth. I am sure that such an “iron hand” (or, in simple terms, “life-giving Pendel”) has a beneficial effect on the effectiveness of most of us. In addition, one thing - to read a book, and quite another - to interact with a living person. Not for nothing, working with a teacher or mentor has always been considered the most effective type of training, because you won’t get either support or feedback from a book.

So for those who are interested in self-development and achievement of goals , I strongly recommend that you read the book “12 weeks a year. How in 12 weeks to do more than others do in 12 months "or watch the webinar of Ilya Slobodinov and Andrei Bannikov (I would start somewhere from the middle - just by this time they managed to" catch courage "), where they talk about - to some extent this could replace the reading of the book. I sincerely hope that the method created by Brian Moran will help you to make your next 12-week year productive. Good luck and success to you in the coming year!