I'm doing a "12-week year" experiment
The internet says it's life-changing. Let's see.
In case it wasn’t obvious from my “Let’s do something completely unrelated to my previous field” career pivot, I like experiments.
I find them a life hack version of those perfume and makeup testers in the drugstore.
Don’t know if you’d enjoy meal prepping? Try it for a month!
Not sure if LinkedIn is the right platform for you to focus on? Experiment with it for a month!
I believe that reserving the right to change our minds prevents us from taking failures too close to heart when they inevitably happen.
You can always say an experiment of yours failed and then try to do something else, or more of the same thing but in a different way.
Now, there’s a field in which my pile of failed experiments is as tall as a mountain.
It’s the grizzly “Productivity tips & tricks” area.
I tried 43920 versions of journaling, calendar blocking & related stuff. In most cases, the only thing they successfully increased was my self-guilt-tripping for not being able to make said tricks work for me.
Luckily, I grew up a bit, so nowadays if something doesn’t work for me I take it only as a sign that it’s not right for me and not as a measure of my value.
But, as you can see, I haven’t stopped experimenting with productivity stuff.
(Will I ever? Wait, don’t answer that.)
My newest experiment: the 12-week year.
What is “the 12 Week Year”?
As explained in the book of the same name, “the 12 Week Year” is a productivity system created by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. It primarily revolves around this idea: you don’t need a year to make most things happen. In fact, by stretching things out across 12 months, you might be missing opportunities to reach your goals faster and simply live a life that you feel challenges you the right way.
Now, the premise sounds like there’s *so much* room to turn this into another “hustle hustle megalomania hustle” narrative. In fact, the sales slogan of the book says “Get more done in 12 weeks than others do in 12 months”. But I don’t care about what others are doing and don’t want to compare - I just want to live a life where I feel like I’m doing what feels right and using opportunities to grow.
And yes, I feel that there’s room to use the concept without crossing your boundaries. That’s exactly what I set out to do last week.
Here’s what you do in your 12-week year:
Define your vision for the future;
Choose a goal you can accomplish (or get closer to accomplishing) in 12 weeks. The goal must be in service of that vision you set;
Turn your goal into a to-do list: what needs to happen during these 12 weeks for you to accomplish your goal? Which tasks should be repeated daily, which need to happen once or twice? Write it all down.
Do the things from your list: it’s the action that moves the needle.
Evaluate progress weekly: learn from the past 7 days in order to make the next seven more smooth.
Celebrate your wins: I plan to go book shopping. You do you.
That’s about it in short. If this concept tickled your curiosity, I recommend you pick up a copy of “The 12 Week Year” and get down to writing. And then working (*cue Springsteen’s “Working on a Dream” here*).
I can imagine so many possible applications for the concept - health & wellness, socializing with loved ones, learning languages, taking up a new hobby, and - yes - making a career pivot.
And speaking of career pivots…
What am I using the concept for?
My goal for the 12 weeks is to have applied for at least 10 jobs in quality assurance by the end of the sprint. That implies spending 12 weeks studying, practicing writing test cases and bug reports, exploring different software, editing my CV again, creating content about my new industry & job search on LinkedIn, and networking with potential future employers. Yes, that’s all on my to-do list for these 12 weeks. Exciting, right? :)
Today marks the end of my first week working on this goal. Yes, I know it’s Tuesday. No, it’s not weird.
I decided to start last Wednesday because I got the idea for it on Wednesday so why wait until Monday!? Rule #1 in life: every day counts, order is a myth, and lists are arbitrary (including this imaginary list of rules :) ). Life is life. We love, lose, win, fail, and in most cases, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Monday, or January, or the first day in a month. Life waits for no one so we shouldn’t squander our days.
So I make it my business to start whenever I feel the spark for it and to believe that that’s good enough.
According to the calendar, my 12-week year ends on May 1st. Yay, Labor Day break!
You can expect a detailed breakdown of the time spent on this experiment sometime in May, whether I fail or succeed at it.
So far, week one has been more than a pleasant surprise.
I have my work cut out for me.
But the way I structured it makes it look more like an adventure than anything else.
That’s what’s good about experiments.
Your “I’ll use every opportunity to make myself feel like life is an adventure in a fantasy movie” weekly inbox visitor,
Andjela
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Have you read “The 12 Week Year”? What were your impressions of the concept? Let me know!
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Welcome to the Career Pivot Diaries where I chronicle my journey from sustainability communications to QA testing! This is where we’ll cover all things career change, such as going from entrepreneurship to 9-to-5, exploring new professional identities, and *finally* updating that dusty CV. Most importantly, we’ll explore how to see ourselves as more than our work and find a sense of safety in choosing a new path while allowing room for creative play.
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