The 12 Week Year summary

Most of us think annually. We set New Year’s resolutions; we celebrate anniversaries; our businesses have annual reports and yearly targets. We tend to judge our achievements on an annual basis.

But what if annualized thinking is a trap?

Think of humanity’s greatest achievements: the printing press, the internet, modern medicine, space travel, smartphones. Each of these creations began as a vision – a vague and fantastic dream that people and organizations thought up and then worked hard to make happen.

Vision inspires action, progress and results.

It can be easy to think, “I know what I need to do – I don’t need to waste time writing out a silly plan.” But plans help us stay on track. Many people know they need to exercise more and eat less. But without a firm plan to take a pre-work jog and count every meal’s calories, they fail. Knowing isn’t a substitute for planning.

A 12-week plan helps you proactively manage your time and focus on important actions.

In the blunt words of boxer Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” In business as in life, we all take a few hits from time to time. So how do you stay on course, especially when the going gets tough?

Willpower and determination can take us a long way, but neither can take us all the way.

Every CEO of a major corporation tracks key numbers: units sold, monthly profit margins and revenue. You should do the same. Measuring metrics and KPIs enables you to understand progress and make decisions about your future actions. So the question becomes, “What should you measure and how should you measure it?”

To be effective, measurement systems should include lead and lag indicators.

We’ve all been there. You know you need to write that winning proposal. But just as you get started, you notice that your emails are piling up, and you’ve got five new voicemails – oh, and there’s that invoice you keep meaning to deal with. So you take the time to tackle these urgent but unimportant tasks, figuring that the proposal can wait.

But here’s the thing: deferring strategically important tasks to accomplish urgent but less important actions means you’ll never deliver to your potential.

When we’re struggling with something – a hectic period in the office, say, or an overwhelming amount of academic work – it’s easy to blame our circumstances. We say things like, “I’m just too busy with these projects to make my sales calls,” or, “I’ll quit the cigarettes when the stress of these exams is over.”

But the reality is this: until we throw off a victim mind-set and take ownership of our actions, we stand no chance of improving our results.