# 12 Week Year, explained

URL: https://gocutline.com/glossary/twelve-week-year/

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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Facts: https://gocutline.com/facts/ · Updated 2026-10-23