How to Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Most Do All Year
Episode 921: Show Notes
Imagine accomplishing a year’s worth of goals in just 12 weeks. That’s what I’m doing here at Boss Project and today I’m going to share my game plan with you! I want you to think of the concept of the 12-week year as a period of focused sprints rather than annual plans. This approach creates urgency and focus and allows you to see what’s coming in a tangible way. A little while ago, I felt demotivated when it came to goal setting because a lot of the time, I either overpromised and underdelivered or simply couldn’t control the outcome of the goals anyway. When I decided to stop setting goals and instead view things as experiments, focusing exclusively on the process, I found approaching business fun, exciting, and challenging without the pressure of wins and failures. After hearing how successful other businesses have been when implementing this technique, I wanted to try it out and document the process for you to see and I think January is the perfect time to start fresh!
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The Power of the 12-Week Year
The concept of the 12-week year is very simple and easy to understand logically, even though it’s difficult to execute. It requires you to set objectives that can be accomplished completely within a 12-week window. It gives you the opportunity for planning and momentum with enough sense of urgency to inspire you to follow through with the work. For 12 weeks, you are fully committed to this particular project and set of objectives. The most difficult part of this process to implement is the idea of removing annualized thinking. The 12-week goals are not a piece of a puzzle but rather, they are the whole puzzle. If your focus is on fewer ideas with greater impact, you’re probably going to get less done more completely, and this is likely going to take you much further. With a 12-week plan and focus, you have opportunities to drive weekly accountability. Only 8% of people actually achieve their annual goals and shorter sprints of focus like a 12-week year increases that rate dramatically!
How I Implemented the 12-Week Year in My Business
I did not dictate to my team what their 12-week-year focus should be. Instead, they had already set annual goals in December and were very clear on their role in the business. I told my team to pick their own focus after giving them a basic concept of what I want to accomplish overall. Tomorrow, we are having a meeting to present these ideas to the full team. We are all going to need to work together as a team but enough of the project will be individually owned. I don’t know what their focus is but I do know what mine is and I wanted to share that with you today. Instead of it being a goal, it’s almost like a project that has some sort of measurable outcome and there’s something about that that feels amazing!
My Focus for the Upcoming 12-Week Sprint
Before I share my focus, I want to preface this by saying other work still needs to be done in the business. These are just the primary focuses week-to-week, and everything else needs to fit around it. This will be my priority at the beginning of every day! For the first 12 weeks of the year, my endgame is to turn our most popular products completely evergreen on paid advertising and have those be profitable. This means that my paid ad strategy is my primary focus for the first 12 weeks of the year! I created some measurable objectives to help me as well. I’m not necessarily going to get into the specifics, but I did make specifics a part of it. So, one of the things I am doing is a live challenge, and I have so many objectives associated with it. I also want to create daily entry-point product sales that upsell into my membership. The entire goal of all of this is to reach a two-to-three X return on advertisement spending with a sales goal attached to that.
How Am I Managing My Time?
Now, with this being my focus you’d think that I’d spent a ton of time on ad spend and deliverables and that’s actually not where I’ve spent all my time! Instead, my 12-week plan consists of the deliverables I need to complete in order to move this strategy forward. And at the end of the day, this is so simple! My weekly plan is all that I need to get done to achieve this bigger objective. If you give yourself a realistic time frame to achieve the things you have set out for yourself, you can feel more confident that you are setting yourself up for success. Yes, I will need help from my team and yes this is going to take up a lot of my time but it is my primary focus and that is what is to be expected!
Starting Your 12-Week Year
If you are interested in applying this framework, there are a couple of things you can do. For one, you can read the book or even listen to it on Audible. You also need to simplify your focus. You are trying to do too much and, therefore, aren’t getting anything done. So I want you to pick one big goal. What are you most excited about working on? What is going to move the needle most for your business? There are so many things you could do. But you need to break these things down into weekly actions. These are not goals or metrics you need to meet, they are just items on your to-do list! If you get stuck after some time, I think this is a brilliant time to leverage AI to help you come up with potential options. A weekly team meeting is also a great way to discuss your primary objectives and diminish any misalignment. It’s also important to stay flexible in your plan. If something isn’t working, don’t be scared to change it!
If you are ready to try the 12-week year for yourself (no matter the time of year you’re starting) you can pick 12 weeks of objectives and start now! I would love to hear all about it so pop me an Instagram DM and make sure you’re subscribed so you can follow my own 12-week year journey!
Quote This
I have a 12-week plan but I’m not married to my plan. If something needs to change, I’m going to change it.
Highlights
The Power of the 12-Week Year. [0:08:30]
How I Implemented the 12-Week Year in My Business. [0:16:29]
My Focus for the Upcoming 12-Week Sprint. [0:19:30]
How Am I Managing My Time? [0:28:24]
Starting Your 12-Week Year. [0:31:08]
Key Topics:
The 12-Week Year, Goals for 2025, Business Objectives, Goal Planning
We Mentioned:
Talitha Coffee helps support survivors of human trafficking
Indeed.com/STRATEGYHOUR for a $75 sponsored job credit
