The book that made the biggest difference for me this past holiday season?

The 12 Week Year (affiliate link).

I will readily admit that the ideas in this book weren’t foreign to me.

(Oddly enough, even the authors say something along the lines of, “We’re not telling you anything you probably haven’t already heard before.”)

But in my case:

I first learned the idea of splitting up the year into 90-day chunks from James Schramko…

And later refined my ability to plan and rally a team around 90-day projects in the two-year Team, Management, and Leadership Program.

So, I’ve had quite a bit of experience with 12-week sprints.

To be honest, I was getting to the point where I was kind of getting sick of them.

But this book got me thinking differently about them.

Here are some of my key takeaways:

• For most individuals and companies, the last quarter of the year tends to generate the most results. Why? Because people and businesses alike tend to procrastinate. Put off things until the last minute. Rush to get everything done before the new year. Instead of getting caught in the “there’s still so much time before December comes along” trap, if people could think of their years as three-month containers in which to complete a project, they would accomplish immeasurably more.
• If you want to know if your actions are aligned with your goals, you must have a plan. Most people simply don’t have a plan or don’t stick with it long enough to gain clarity on its effectiveness. If you work your plan for 90 days and it doesn’t produce the results you’re looking for, you can learn from that experience and avoid those mistakes the next go round. Planning can also help with completing tasks faster.
• The only way to know if you’re achieving is if you’re measuring. I certainly wouldn’t call this fresh insight – especially for someone who’s read The Slight Edge a few times – but this is a solid reminder. Documenting what you’re doing makes it possible to know when progress is being made, and further boosts your self-esteem.
• Take the 13th-week to reflect. This is HUGE. It’s been my experience that most programs give you not so much as a day or two to think about what worked and what didn’t before urging you to start planning your next quarter. BAD. The ideal is to take the 13th week to pause, rest, evaluate what you’ve accomplished, and plan what you’d like to do next.

If this sounds interesting, check out the book for yourself and let me know how it goes.