Glossary
12 Week Year, explained
The 12 Week Year is a planning method that treats every 12 weeks as a full "year", with its own goals, a weekly plan and a weekly execution score. Brian Moran and Michael Lennington introduced it in a 2013 book of the same name.
What it means
An annual goal feels far away, so urgency arrives in November. A 12-week horizon keeps the deadline close all the time. The method measures execution (did you do the planned actions?) rather than only results.
How to do it in a calendar
- Choose 1 to 3 goals for the next 12 weeks.
- Turn each into weekly actions with time blocks.
- Each week, score the share of planned actions you finished.
An example
Goal: launch a paid newsletter in 12 weeks. Weekly actions: write 2 posts (2 × 2 h), 30 outreach messages (5 × 30 min). The finished-blocks rate is the weekly score.
Common mistakes
- Too many goals. Three is the limit; one is better.
- Scoring results only. Score the actions you control.
Where it comes from
Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year (2013).
Questions
What score is good?
The book suggests that finishing about 85% of planned actions in a week tends to lead to the goal.
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