In my earlier post I mentioned that I recently took a personal productivity retreat, inspired by a podcast featuring Mike Schimitz. One of the things Mike talked about was organizing his time around a “12 week year.”
This idea immediately clicked with me. A year is a timeframe that I use to view my accomplishments – what did I achieve this year? By shortening the time frame to 12 weeks you accelerate the pace of your accomplishments. It feels like a very Agile way to structure one’s time.
The idea of the 12 week year comes from a book by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington. I haven’t read the book and I don’t know anything about their methodology. This explainer by Mike Fishbein summarizes the 12 Week Year pretty well and makes it look it’s worth a read-through.
For me the idea of a 12 week year brings up the idea of having 12 week-long sprints starting with a Monday morning kick-off and ending with a Saturday retrospective. At the end of 12 weeks there’s a goal review that incorporates learning and adaptation for the next 12 week cycle.
Today is the kick-off for my first 12 week year! I have set of eight goals for this cycle and I’ll talk more about that in a follow-up post. But I’m excited to start fresh and I’ll let you know how it goes.
