Ep 37 Your 12-Week Year: Plan Big, Achieve Bigger
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[00:00:00] What if you could achieve a year's worth of goals in just 12 weeks. Welcome to the productivity genius podcast. I'm your host Kelly Fifield. And today we're talking about the 12 week year by Brian Moran.
I actually haven't even finished this book, But I love it so much already that I am completely all in planning my year, this way. Or at least the first 12 weeks, we'll see how it goes afterwards. To make this easier for you. I actually created a tool so that you can plan your own 12 week year.
That tool is in the show notes, and I'll tell you how to access it.
It's very easy. You're just going to click a link, but I'll tell you more about it later in the show.
So the next few minutes, I'm going to give you a really fast overview of the book. Why I think it's such a great idea. And I'll tell you about that tool so that you can plan your own 12 week year. First the book it's actually very simple. In fact, you probably already kind of get the gist just from the title.
The 12 week year suggests you plan to accomplish the things you would normally accomplish in a year [00:01:00] in a 12 week timeframe. Honestly, that's not exactly what they're saying, but that's how I like to think about it.
I'm sure you can already see some advantages and some disadvantages to this. So let's look at both. Some of the disadvantages to planning annually is. Well, it usually doesn't work. Right? How many people do you know who at the end of December are still tracking those things that they were set on achieving back in January? It's a very small percentage of people trying to keep your momentum and focused for an entire year is very difficult. A little bit easier when we're only talking about 12 weeks.
Plus when people plan for a whole year. They have a tough time narrowing down and getting really.
Specific.
And limited in their goals.
You're much more likely To achieve a goal if it's your only goal, but when you have like 10 goals, your attention gets.
Spread out.
And it decreases the chances that you're going to achieve any of them. But when you know that you're going to be able to choose a new goal in 12 weeks, I think that [00:02:00] gives your brain a little bit of space to be okay with punting, the other goals for awhile for kind of putting them on the back burner and give your full attention to just one or maybe two goals.
So every 12 weeks cycle, you can revisit the goals. Continue on with like maybe the next version of it, or if you didn't actually achieve the goal, go for another 12 weeks to try to achieve it or up level it. Or you can just choose a whole new goal accomplish the first one and then move on to a new one.
If you're talking about a 12 week period versus a year period, obviously there's going to be more urgency, more focus. These tighter timeframes and these tighter deadlines.
Are going to keep that goal top of mind for the entire time, or at least it's much more likely for that to be the case.
So the basics of the system, we think about the goal. We choose a goal. We think creatively about how to achieve that goal. What measurable. Clear specific actions would we need to take to make it most likely that we would achieve that goal. And then we get to work.
During that time, that 12 weeks you can be flexible.
You're [00:03:00] probably best off. If you decide you're going to do a bunch of experiments. Hey, this is how I think I could achieve this in 12
weeks.
Let me try this week. One, let's go see how it works and adjust.
When you have that confined restrictive timeframe to achieve something, you've got to think more creatively. A year feels like a very long time. So you feel like you can try this and try that. And maybe sometimes you try things for a little too long. If you only have 12 weeks, you have to try something.
Go all in on it, test it and move on.
If it's not working, you don't have time.
To let mediocre tactics. Play out.
If you're dealing with a 12 week year, each week is like a month. So in one week's time, you want to achieve the same things that you would normally think of achieving in a month .
Now that does not mean that you're doing. The work that you would normally do in a month. You're not doing all of the same tasks, but working extra hours or extra hard.
You're going to have to think [00:04:00] creatively about what are the important task, what are the things that I would have done in that month? That would actually make it more likely that I've achieved the goal.
Yes, you may need to cut some things out. And if you don't cut things out, You're definitely going to have to think more creatively.
In the tool that I provided you.
In the show notes. I've actually programmed it to help you think creatively.
I have created for you accustom GPT. And that is just a fancy way of saying that I have written a set of instructions. To help you. Plan out your 12 week year.
So it's like your personal AI productivity assistant.
It's going to be like a little productivity coach.
So you're going to click the link in the show notes, and it's going to go to chat GBT. If you have an account and totally can be a free account, you do not need the paid account. If you have an account, it's just going to go right to the GPT. If you don't have an account, or if it's opening in a browser where you don't have an account, then it's going to ask you to create an account. Again, you don't need a paid version.
You [00:05:00] just need an account in order to be able to use chat GBT.
When you get to the custom GPT, you're just going to click the little box.
That says, are you ready for your 12 week plan?
Let's finalize it together.
And it's going to start asking you questions.
Chacha BD does have an advanced voice mode. I don't love it, but I do like talking to it to type the text so you can dictate to it. You totally can talk to it as well. It just interrupts me so much. I'm sure they're going to improve that, but currently I don't love the voice. Version.
But you can either type your responses, speak your responses. It'll take you through a bunch of questions and help you choose your goal and create a plan for how to achieve it.
Now if you've never used a custom GPT before, don't worry about it.
I know that may sound like a little fancy. It's really very easy. You're literally just going to click on the screen and it's going to start asking you questions and you just answer the questions.
I programmed it to keep things simple. I don't want this to add to your list of things to do. I want it to be something that's fun and exciting for you to do.
And I've actually [00:06:00] programmed it with a couple extra resources. So I have a program with the content of the 12 week year and. I'd also programmed it with the content of Ten X Is Easier than Two X.
By Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. That book really compliments the 12 week year, because the basic idea in 10 X is easier than two X. Is that when you ask yourself to do 10 times better than maybe you did in the past, or you have a goal and you want to 10 X, that goal.
The idea is that 10 X-ing it versus doubling.
It would be easier. Because when we think about doubling something, usually the easy way to do that is just to work twice as hard. Work as twice as many hours, like basically input twice as much to get twice as much output. But when you're asked to 10 X something, there usually aren't enough hours in the day or resources. To 10 X. Your previous efforts.
So when you try to 10 X something,
You have to come up with a [00:07:00] new creative plan.
So as a piece of the custom GPT that I built for you, I gave it the background of that book to help you think creatively. For your own 12 week plan.
It's also going to help you with weekly planning. It's gonna give you a system for weekly planning as well as daily routines to help you stay on track for this goal.
If you want to buy the book, you can go right ahead. I'll link both of those books in the show notes, but you don't need to buy either of them because I've trained the AI to know the content of that book.
And to help you implement the lessons of those books into your plan.
But don't just listen to this episode. Go ahead and start. Obviously not if you're driving a car right now, but if you aren't driving a car, go into the show notes. Scroll down to the show notes. Click on the link for the custom GPT. You can do it on your phone. You can do it on a computer if you're on your phone, but you want to do it here. On your computer, just copied the link on your phone or email it to yourself.
I'm also going to include a video in there.
Actually now that I think about it, I think what I'll do rather than direct you, to [00:08:00] the custom GPT, as I'll send you to a page on my website where I give you a little bit of instruction. So for those of you who haven't used a custom GBT, if you're a little bit freaked out and wondering how to do this, I'll walk you through it.
I'll show you clicking the link where it's going to take you on how to use it. I promise it's super simple, but I want to make sure if anyone's a little resistant, a little nervous to do it, that I walk you through that. In the show notes, you're going to see a link. That link will take you to a video on my website with the link to the custom GPT.
Actually, you know what? I'll put both of the links in there, so you can go right in if you're comfortable with custom, GPTs go right there. If you want a little bit of instructions and background on how to do it, go to the link for my website. And I love to hear your plan for your 12 week year.
What are you going to accomplish?
Now, one of the action items that I have in my own 12 week year plan is to help 20 people a day.
So one way that you could help me help you is to download my free AI Quickstart mini course.
It's going to help you get up to speed with AI.
Three months of emails and [00:09:00] 90 days of social media content in under 20 minutes. So check that out. That link is also in the show notes. And I also have some other exciting things I'm working on. And I will share that in the next episode, but until then, I hope you have tons of fun planning out your 12 week year, and I hope you find that tool super helpful. Have a great week.
