# The 12 Week Year  ## Metadata - Author: [[Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington]] - Full Title: The 12 Week Year - Category: #books ## Highlights - agree with Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, that most of us have two lives: the lives we live and the lives we are capable of living. ([Location 228](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=228)) - Execution is the single greatest market differentiator. Great companies and successful individuals execute better than their competition. The barrier standing between you and the life you are capable of living is a lack of consistent execution. ([Location 248](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=248)) - The fact is every week counts! Every day counts! Every moment counts! We need to be conscious of the reality that execution happens daily and weekly, not monthly or quarterly. ([Location 337](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=337)) - “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” —Aristotle ([Location 390](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=390)) - The secret to living your life to its potential is to value the important stuff above your own comfort. Therefore, the critical first step to executing well is creating and maintaining a compelling vision of the future that you want even more than you desire your own short-term comfort, and then aligning your shorter term goals and plans, with that long-term vision. ([Location 456](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=456)) - Without a compelling vision, you will discover there is no reason to go through the pain of change. “Behind every impossible achievement is a dreamer of impossible dreams.” —Robert K. Greenleaf Vision is the starting point of all high performance. You create things twice; first mentally, then physically. ([Location 465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=465)) - For actual examples of 12 week plans join the 12 Week Year community at www.12weekyear.com/gettingstarted. It’s free! ([Location 597](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=597)) - Consistent action on the critical tasks needed to reach your goal is the key to getting what you want in life. ([Location 617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=617)) - To use your weekly plan effectively, you will need to spend the first 15 or 20 minutes at the beginning of each week to review your progress from the past week and plan the upcoming one. In addition, the first five minutes of each day should be spent reviewing your weekly plan to plan that day’s activities. ([Location 636](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=636)) - A study conducted by Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research and Shamsi Iqbal of the University of Illinois found that after being distracted from serious mental tasks by things like emails or instant messages, the typical Microsoft worker took an average of 15 minutes to get back on their original task. ([Location 1986](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=1986)) - Spending leisure time and doing comfortable tasks is undoubtedly healthy in moderation, but when we consistently choose comfortable activity, we are dooming ourselves to lives lived far short of our capabilities. ([Location 2003](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2003)) - As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Eventually everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences. ([Location 2005](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2005)) - To accomplish what you desire will take sacrifice. The number-one thing you will need to sacrifice is your comfort. ([Location 2008](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2008)) - You will have to choose to spend time on the difficult things that create your biggest payoffs. To be great you will need to live with intention. That will require you to be clear on what matters most, and then to have the courage to say no to things that distract you. You will need to guard your time intensely, delegating or eliminating everything possible that is not one of your strengths or does not help you advance your goals. ([Location 2010](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2010)) - Unique capabilities are one or two things you do absolutely the best. They also tend to be the things that you enjoy doing. Whether you know it or not, your unique capabilities are responsible for your greatest successes and joys throughout your life. ([Location 2021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2021)) - As discussed in Chapter 7, there are three components that form the foundation of effective time use; they are: strategic blocks, buffer blocks, and breakout blocks. Each of these three time blocks is designed to help you accomplish key activities more efficiently. ([Location 2039](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2039)) - Strategic blocks are three hours in length and should be scheduled early in your week so that if one gets interrupted or cancelled, you have time to reschedule it. They are blocks of time when you work on your business, not in it. Strategic blocks should also be scheduled during times when your work activity is typically lowest. One strategic block per week is usually adequate. ([Location 2041](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2041)) - Buffer blocks are designed to deal with the lower-level activity and are typically between 30 minutes and one hour in length, scheduled one to two times per day. The actual amount of time for buffer blocks will depend upon the amount of email, phone calls, interruptions, and other “administrivia” you normally are required to handle. ([Location 2044](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2044)) - Breakout blocks are designed to prevent burnout and create more free time. They are three hours in length, and should be scheduled once a week—after the rest of the 12 Week Year is working for you. We recommend that you only have one per month until everything else is working, and you are executing well. ([Location 2047](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2047)) - The model week doesn’t try to eliminate low-value activities from your week; that doesn’t work very well. Instead you will carve out time each week to focus on your high-value, high-payoff activities. If you have a 12 week plan, those high-payoff activities are the actions in your plan. ([Location 2056](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2056)) - Let’s get started. Using the template in Figure 17.1 complete the following 5 steps. Figure 17.1 Model work ([Location 2061](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2061)) - “Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” —Robert Louis Stevenson ([Location 2275](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00CU9P31K&location=2275))