The Book

The book called “The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months” and written by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington.

In his book authors write about the different approach for planning. Instead of annualized thinking they suggest to see future as 12 week cycles.

The advantages of 12 weeks planning:

• It’s more predictable. It’s much easier to predict future for 3 months.
• Clearer focus! It’s very important to focus on things that matter when you have only 12 weeks to achieve goals.
• This plan has fundamentally different structure. Authors specify 8 components: Vision, Planning, Process Control, Measurement, Time Use, Accountability, Commitment and Greatness in the Moment. Each component adds own advantages to planning.

This book is the guide with ready tools that help create a compelling vision of the future, define goals, learn to manage time, not afraid of responsibility and be honest with yourself.

Few useful links: 12weekyear.com and book on Amazon.

My adaptation of this system

I merged this idea with 2 other systems: The ABCDE method and Evernote.

The ABCDE method for task prioritization

I took the ABCDE method for prioritization from “Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time” by Brian Tracy.

The main idea is to categorize tasks into categories:

1. “A” for very important tasks(there will be negative consequences if you don’t do them).
2. “B” for important tasks(there will be minor negative consequences).
3. “C“ is “nice to do” (there will be no negative consequences at all).
4. “D” should be delegated (these tasks can be assigned to someone else).
5. “E” is for elimination (these tasks you should eliminate to free up your time).

First 2 categories have the highest priority amount all others. Tasks from these categories should be done first.

This method works for me very well. There are many methods for time management in this book. I suggest you to read it as well.

Evernote as my only tool for planning

Evernote is a great tool for a lot of things. It’s cross-platform, easy to use and free. And it’s good for planning too.

I have few notes in a separate notebook:

• 12 Week Plan. This note contains: global goals for current 12 weeks, approximate tasks for each week and tasks for current week divided into A,B,C,D,E categories.
• Aspirational Vision and Three-Year Vision. Lists of all the things I want to achieve in 3 and 10 year from now. All “12 week plans” should be related to these global goals.
• Log note. Contains achievements and results of previous weeks and iterations.