Last years I understood that I have a problem with long-term vision and long-term planning. At the beginning of the year I started to work on the new pet project —
1to100, but did not finish it 📉 it just faded away, because of different priorities.I feel comfortable when I need to distribute my tasks within the week or bring any current issue to the decent state. But how to make sure that these achievements add up and together create a better future for myself and my family, that I dedicate time to the things that are important to me in the long term?
The new year is coming soon and I want to try out a new process — 📙 The 12 week year. I just finished listening to this book and want to summarise it for you.
💡The main gist of the book is simple. Year is too long. Many things may happen within this timeframe, and you will not feel time pressure. So why to plan for the year? Let's focus on the upcoming 12 weeks. And for the next iteration, you can plan again. I like this concept.
Ok, accept that we plan for the next 12 weeks only is quite simple. But how to plan? There are five main stages of the process.
1️⃣ Create a vision. Write down your long-term vision for yourself. Who do you want to be? What do you want to achieve? What does it mean for you? Write it down. Create a mid-term vision — where do you want to be within a 3-5 year period? Write it down as well.
Get emotionally attached to that vision. It must be something which drives you. This would be the reason why you will execute your plan.
2️⃣ Plan. Select one or two goals for the next 12 weeks. These goals shall just bring you closer to the vision. You won't achieve it in 12 weeks (if you do — try to be more ambitious the next time), but if you reach them, you will be closer to your vision. Small, but confident steps.
Now think of the tactics — how can you reach those goals in 12 weeks? Create a more detailed plan with the tasks for each week.
3️⃣ Control. You gave a promise to yourself, you promised that at least for these 12 weeks you would commit towards working on the set goals, and you have a plan. Make sure that you stick to the plan and work. Nothing more, you cannot guarantee that you will achieve your goals, but you can guarantee that you will execute.
4️⃣ Measurement and assessment. At the beginning of each week measure which percentage of the plan you've executed the last week? What went good and what went bad? What can be adjusted to make this week better?
5️⃣ Time management. Everyone has 24h per day. We need to use them wisely, so we do have time to work on our 12-week plan. In the book they suggest dedicating at least 3 hours where nothing interrupts you and you can work on your strategic goal heads down.
And that's mainly it. Plan, commit to 12 weeks, execute, and on 13th week you have a free week. Week where you celebrate and plan another 12 week year.
▪️ I'm going to try that out and see if it solves my issue with the long-term planning. The thing that inspires me is creating and writing down a ✨ vision ✨, the fact that you need to plan for 12 weeks only and that this will allow me to give myself permission to work only on several goals at the same time.