14: The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran, Michael Lennington

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1. 00:00:00 How are you sir?
2. 00:00:01 I am much better than yesterday, so thanks for agreeing to move this. My voice probably still sounds a little funky, but
3. 00:00:07 Only slightly like I at least I can only pick up
4. 00:00:11 cool bits
5. 00:00:14 Did you have a cold like a bad vocal issue?
6. 00:00:19 Yes
7. 00:00:22 I never really got like
8. 00:00:24 full-on flu type sick, but basically was
9. 00:00:29 completely drained and
10. 00:00:31 Yeah without being too gross or graphic my my voice was affected
11. 00:00:39 Yeah, I've I've had a lot of meetings at our church lately and
12. 00:00:44 the main
13. 00:00:47 Pastor that I've had most those meetings with hasn't been there for the last week because he's been out with the flu
14. 00:00:54 So I don't know how many times I meet everybody else it's supposed to be in the meeting. I was like yes
15. 00:00:59 He needs to stay away like go away mister. I don't I don't want to be anywhere near you right now
16. 00:01:05 That's the last thing I want is the flu, right?
17. 00:01:08 Well fortunately through the magic of internet you are still not able to catch my cold, so
18. 00:01:14 good well in theory the last company I worked for was a virtual company and I am
19. 00:01:20 convinced that
20. 00:01:23 Somehow I would still catch colds from people. I don't know
21. 00:01:26 Someone would be
22. 00:01:29 Talking about how they had something massive and it was completely wrecking their lives and then
23. 00:01:34 It seemed like a couple days later. I would come down with it. What on earth this is
24. 00:01:39 I work from home. I should not be able to pick these things up nearly as frequently as
25. 00:01:45 If you're in like a you know cubicle nation
26. 00:01:50 Just the way it goes sometimes they just kind of sweep the whole Midwest I think
27. 00:01:54 Yeah, that's uh, I think a big part of it is in the Midwest right now. It doesn't know whether it wants to be fall or winter
28. 00:02:03 Yeah, what's with that?
29. 00:02:06 It was like 65 and sunny the other day and that's kind of when I first started noticing this and now today it's like 35 degrees
30. 00:02:14 Yes, and there's frost on everything this morning, so
31. 00:02:20 Welcome to Midwest weather
32. 00:02:22 And I'll apologize in advance for any gross noises I make that you may have to edit out
33. 00:02:27 You okay? All right
34. 00:02:30 That's fine with me. I don't have any of my own coughs and pauses. I edit out
35. 00:02:36 All right
36. 00:02:39 Do you want to jump into our follow-up?
37. 00:02:41 Yeah, let's do it. So
38. 00:02:44 You've got a couple of them here first, so let's uh, yeah
39. 00:02:48 the first one of those
40. 00:02:50 From the last show I had put down that I wanted to start writing down
41. 00:02:55 What my long-term?
42. 00:02:57 Expectate
43. 00:02:59 Expectations Wow that was kind of it was one of those I don't know if I'm saying this right moments
44. 00:03:04 So writing down my long-term expectations on commitments or in my case projects
45. 00:03:10 whenever I create them and I
46. 00:03:13 Started doing this, but I haven't closed any of those yet, so I don't really have
47. 00:03:17 much to report on that one other than I have started collecting that information and
48. 00:03:22 the
49. 00:03:24 If you're for the listeners here if you haven't
50. 00:03:27 listen to the last episode what I'm getting at there is that
51. 00:03:30 We talked about how if you write down what you expect and how you
52. 00:03:35 Plan for a project to end if you write down what you think the end of that project will look like and then compare that to
53. 00:03:44 How it actually turned out at the end of that process that you can learn an awful lot about yourself and how you
54. 00:03:50 Operate and how you think so that's the idea behind what I'm doing and I have started the first half of that mic and have not finished
55. 00:03:58 Any of those projects to know how it works?
56. 00:04:01 That's a very appropriate
57. 00:04:04 Pre podcast follow-up given what we're talking about today. I know I know it's
58. 00:04:12 interesting so that's
59. 00:04:14 Yeah, that'll make sense later
60. 00:04:16 the second one that I have down is the daily rule of three and
61. 00:04:19 The concept there is that writing down your and people talk about this in the productivity space quite a bit the three MIT's or most
62. 00:04:27 important tasks and I just started doing it on paper effort in a couple articles about that process here lately
63. 00:04:32 But it's it's one that I've been doing and it has a lot of power. I think it's been working really well
64. 00:04:39 I'm this is one that I for sure will continue to do
65. 00:04:42 It seems like some of these action items Mike. I end up starting them. They're great for a couple three weeks
66. 00:04:47 And then I they're gone and this is one I think is gonna stick for quite a while because it's been extremely helpful
67. 00:04:53 cool
68. 00:04:56 So my turn, huh? Yes, I'm done you go. Okay, so my first follow-up item was to know my strengths
69. 00:05:03 Which my version of doing that was gonna take the strengths finder assessment which I did
70. 00:05:09 so my top five strengths according to strengths finder 2.0 are
71. 00:05:13 achiever input
72. 00:05:16 strategic
73. 00:05:18 learner and
74. 00:05:20 responsibility
75. 00:05:21 So I have to now read through the book and identify
76. 00:05:25 What those actually mean I have a little bit of a vague idea of what they mean
77. 00:05:29 But I want to dive into the specifics and then also I'm gonna make my wife take this as well
78. 00:05:35 See that's what we did my wife and I both took it and that was it's extremely helpful to see that
79. 00:05:41 I think because you get to understand how each other
80. 00:05:44 thinks and operates and there's I mean there's a marriage conversation for you if you want one right
81. 00:05:50 Yeah, so that's that's the idea
82. 00:05:52 follow up to the follow-up I guess would be
83. 00:05:55 That I actually researched my strengths a little bit more and then also Rachel takes the
84. 00:06:01 Assessment and then we talk about our similarities and differences
85. 00:06:05 and how we can become a better team of
86. 00:06:09 family team
87. 00:06:12 Knowing what we know about how each other each other works
88. 00:06:17 So you don't have to put all of that for follow-up
89. 00:06:21 Next time know that I am moving forward on this one
90. 00:06:27 The second one to I'm moving forward on this one, but this one doesn't even have a definition of done from
91. 00:06:33 If you're following the agile scrum methodology, you'd be very very angry when you see my follow-up for this one
92. 00:06:39 Which is just take responsibility for relationships
93. 00:06:41 But I have noticed that as I have
94. 00:06:46 Emphasized this when there is friction in a real in a
95. 00:06:50 relationship and in the past maybe I would have because I tend to see things very black and white it's either right or it's wrong and
96. 00:06:58 So kind of what I've learned here along with some other things that I've read and some other experiences that I've had is that?
97. 00:07:05 Sometimes the right thing is being willing to say that you were wrong
98. 00:07:10 Even if you don't really feel that you were wrong
99. 00:07:13 Because there's always two sides to every story and the relationship or the person is more important
100. 00:07:19 than you being right all the time and
101. 00:07:23 So I've taken that approach a couple times
102. 00:07:25 And I think there's been a couple situations where if I would not have remembered this
103. 00:07:30 That would have changed how I responded in those situations and I would have gotten the same
104. 00:07:35 friction that I have always gotten but I was able to avoid some of that because I
105. 00:07:41 Took this approach and it's not gonna happen all the time
106. 00:07:45 I'm gonna make mistakes there's gonna be times where even though I've said this now publicly on a podcast and
107. 00:07:50 There's a bunch of people who can take me to task for this when they see me mess up
108. 00:07:55 including my wife who listens
109. 00:07:57 I do believe that there is gonna be
110. 00:08:01 I've already seen it and I believe is gonna continue to be
111. 00:08:04 Progress in this direction as long as as I I keep this
112. 00:08:09 Keep this in front of me. I guess if that makes sense
113. 00:08:13 I had a wise mentor at one point that I had a great conversation with but he
114. 00:08:20 He made the point because I was talking about some relationships that I was struggling with and there were there
115. 00:08:25 Was some things that the other person had done that made things quite difficult and he told me is like you know what?
116. 00:08:31 You go through that relationship and there might be some strain there
117. 00:08:35 It may not be your fault, but you can be responsible like it may not be your you may not be the one who caused it
118. 00:08:41 You're not the one at fault there
119. 00:08:43 But you can make a decision on what you're gonna do with it
120. 00:08:46 That's something I've struggled with for a long time, but it's something that always comes to mind whenever I talk about or hear someone talk about
121. 00:08:52 relationships and responsibility with them, but it just seems to me that there's a big difference between you know
122. 00:08:58 Who is the one who actually caused the issue?
123. 00:09:00 Versus who's the one who's gonna take responsibility for doing something about it?
124. 00:09:05 Do you get the difference between those two? Yeah, absolutely and I love the way that you described that way better than when I did it
125. 00:09:10 I've had a couple years to marinate on that one. Yeah, that makes the makes perfect sense and
126. 00:09:15 That's something that I've seen played out in Asian efficiency and one of the things that I really like about the company is they take that approach
127. 00:09:22 It doesn't matter who
128. 00:09:24 caused the issue
129. 00:09:25 Let's just figure out how to fix it right then like you're saying with the responsibility
130. 00:09:30 What you're saying is not taking responsibility for yes, I did this thing wrong so I can be punished but
131. 00:09:37 Being willing to jump in and help be a part of the solution
132. 00:09:42 And I think so much of taking responsibility and making decisions on what you do
133. 00:09:48 Can tie in quite well with the book that we read for today's podcast?
134. 00:09:53 Which how'd you like that segue?
135. 00:09:56 nicely done
136. 00:09:59 So this was your choice, so I'll let you introduce it
137. 00:10:02 All right, so yeah, we read the 12 week year and you know, I don't have a book in front of me
138. 00:10:08 So I don't have the author. Why do you do that?
139. 00:10:10 I'm sorry gosh Mike. Oh
140. 00:10:13 You know what this is my my brain being sick. I can just go to the notes that I took for this yes Brian Moran and
141. 00:10:23 Michael
142. 00:10:25 Lenington
143. 00:10:29 Yes, okay
144. 00:10:30 so
145. 00:10:32 Yeah, and most of the books that I pick they've been things that I've
146. 00:10:37 Have heard about for a long time and the authors. I'm pretty well familiar with them
147. 00:10:43 This one I was not this was one that actually I've seen a lot of people talk about inside the Asian efficiency dojo
148. 00:10:50 in fact, there's a lot of people who
149. 00:10:52 publicly post
150. 00:10:53 Their 12 week year progress inside the dojo said other dojo members can hold them accountable for what they are actually getting done
151. 00:11:01 But I had no idea really what to expect with this
152. 00:11:05 other than I've heard lots and lots of good things from the community about this and
153. 00:11:11 Decided that I should probably
154. 00:11:13 Find out what the all the buzz was about
155. 00:11:17 So what better way to do that than to drag you into it with me Joe?
156. 00:11:21 Well, I'm glad you did
157. 00:11:23 And I should point out I did this book a little differently Mike
158. 00:11:28 I
159. 00:11:29 Because typically when I read these I finish it like the day or two before
160. 00:11:34 we're gonna record and
161. 00:11:37 given
162. 00:11:39 The last one we did managing oneself
163. 00:11:41 That one was so short and I was able to read it so quick that I actually read this one
164. 00:11:45 before I read that one and
165. 00:11:48 Part of the reason I did that is because I knew there's a lot of people to get super excited about this and
166. 00:11:55 A lot of people have their methods of putting it in place and I see a lot of the reports
167. 00:12:00 Cuz I do some stuff in the dojo as well and it's it's a fun community
168. 00:12:05 But I see those posts and I was curious what they were so I was kind of anxious to get to this book
169. 00:12:10 So I think if you hadn't picked it I might have
170. 00:12:12 at some point and
171. 00:12:15 So anyway, what I'm getting at is that I finished reading this one about three weeks ago
172. 00:12:20 Instead of two or three days ago and part of the reason I wanted to do that it was intentional
173. 00:12:25 It wasn't just because I had some extra time
174. 00:12:28 But it was because I wanted to make an attempt
175. 00:12:30 I knew ahead of time I was gonna try to put this in place and
176. 00:12:32 I wanted to get a little bit of familiarity with working the actual system
177. 00:12:38 Before we had a chance to talk about it. Maybe that'll ruin my opinion on it
178. 00:12:43 Maybe not, but it was at least something I did a little different. I wanted to pose that before we jumped in
179. 00:12:49 Nice. Yeah, so I mean you've taken it farther than I have then I finished reading this book actually last week
180. 00:12:56 When I was traveling to the well at the time that we're recording this
181. 00:13:02 Last week I had attended the Sean West conference and the Sean West conference was awesome
182. 00:13:08 the whole idea was think bigger and I met a lot of people there a lot of very interesting people who are doing a lot of very interesting things and
183. 00:13:17 Sean West or Sean McCabe is the guy behind it. He has really built a really
184. 00:13:22 really solid and very encouraging
185. 00:13:25 Community there as well. So it was kind of cool to be it was a small conference is only like a hundred people
186. 00:13:31 but a bunch of people that were in the same space and
187. 00:13:34 As I'm attending that conference thinking bigger. I'm reading at the same time finishing reading at the same time this
188. 00:13:39 12-week year and a lot of synergy between those two a lot of the same
189. 00:13:45 approaches and even some of the messaging so
190. 00:13:48 Little bit different approach than yours because I haven't implemented it yet
191. 00:13:53 but I'm super excited about this and I
192. 00:13:56 Definitely I'm going to we'll get to our takeaways. I guess at the end
193. 00:14:00 But definitely gonna apply at least parts of this
194. 00:14:02 So let me let me start here
195. 00:14:04 I know you put the thing about the vision
196. 00:14:07 but I want to just share this quote from page three which I thought was awesome and
197. 00:14:12 This should be really at the beginning of every single one of these books that we read or something like this
198. 00:14:17 It says one of our clients is a large insurance agency with more than 2,000 agents within the company
199. 00:14:22 There is one agent who is a perennial top producer year in and year out as you might expect over the years other agents
200. 00:14:28 Have asked if he would share his approach with them without hesitation the top producer would take time out of his busy schedule and walk them
201. 00:14:35 Through exactly what he did to create his success. Do you know how many people replicated his success?
202. 00:14:40 You guessed it zero. He now refuses to share his secret because no one follows through with what he teaches them
203. 00:14:47 My response to that was amen brother
204. 00:14:50 It really set the tone for the whole book that we're gonna share this with you
205. 00:14:58 And that's I think this is cool in in book format. This is I
206. 00:15:01 Mean there's there's different avenues that this information can take you can learn stuff by listening to a podcast
207. 00:15:07 You can learn stuff by reading a book you can learn stuff by going to a conference
208. 00:15:10 You can learn stuff by taking a video course and this I thought was very appropriate
209. 00:15:14 It's right at the beginning and he's basically saying look
210. 00:15:17 We could do this one-on-one with you and teach you all this stuff because we've done that with other people and we know that this works
211. 00:15:25 But if it doesn't work, it's because you're not doing anything with it not because that something wrong with the method
212. 00:15:31 So it's like are you gonna take this seriously or not?
213. 00:15:35 You know if you want results, then you've got to follow through
214. 00:15:40 Which really is the principle behind?
215. 00:15:43 any of the books I'd say that we've read so far and I think maybe
216. 00:15:48 slightly
217. 00:15:51 Under the surface of bookworm. That's kind of what we're doing with the podcast at least you and I participating in it anyway
218. 00:15:58 For us, it's it's more of okay
219. 00:16:01 Here's a book I've read and then let's talk about it and then make a plan on what we're gonna do with it as opposed to just
220. 00:16:06 Something new to know more information to store into our brains like do something about it, right?
221. 00:16:13 Yep, absolutely. I think I put it as synthesize what I'm learning. Yeah. Yeah, so to kind of
222. 00:16:22 Help people understand 12-week year and what that is
223. 00:16:25 it's a process of
224. 00:16:28 obviously 12 weeks and
225. 00:16:30 in this book Brian and Michael take us through the process of understanding how a 12 week period so three months is
226. 00:16:41 better as a planning
227. 00:16:45 time segment as
228. 00:16:49 opposed to a full 12 month year
229. 00:16:51 so if you get the translation there 12 months down into 12 weeks and the premise is that you can get four times as much stuff done in a
230. 00:16:58 year if you take an entire year and condense it down into
231. 00:17:02 12 weeks and
232. 00:17:04 Part of the rationale that they give for being able to do that is that?
233. 00:17:08 so many
234. 00:17:10 Organizations and corporations and groups in general
235. 00:17:13 Everybody wants to put goals at 12 years. We like to use the calendar year
236. 00:17:18 It never works like I've been through I don't know how many times I've put these things together at different companies or even for myself and
237. 00:17:27 Most of the work ends up getting done
238. 00:17:29 October and November December because you see the end of the year coming at old crud now
239. 00:17:35 I got to get this done and
240. 00:17:37 That sense of urgency is what they're trying to take advantage of and duplicate four times over in a year as opposed to just that last
241. 00:17:44 12 week period in the year
242. 00:17:47 Yeah, the key phrase is do away with annualized thinking and replace it with periodization and
243. 00:17:55 The idea behind that is that periodization like you were talking about is a short enough time frame where it's still
244. 00:18:02 It's still elicits action
245. 00:18:05 You can't afford to put things off for a week or two
246. 00:18:08 Because if you view it as a 12 week segment, that's like one sixth of your time now that you've wasted
247. 00:18:15 Whereas if you were taking the whole calendar year a week or two on no big deal
248. 00:18:20 I've still got 11 months to accomplish this so breaking it down into those smaller
249. 00:18:25 sprints if you will it's kind of like in between
250. 00:18:28 Personal application of the scrum project management philosophy if you want to think of it that way where it's not like every two weeks or anything like that
251. 00:18:38 But definitely some of the same principles apply where you don't want to just take a look at the big picture
252. 00:18:43 Because if you do it that way like you said you're gonna put it put things off and you're not going to
253. 00:18:47 Take action on them and he talks about the reason why this is on page four. He says we don't have a knowledge problem
254. 00:18:53 We have an execution problem
255. 00:18:55 It's not what you know. It's not even who you know
256. 00:18:57 It's what you implement that counts and a lot of people he says in the book know what to do
257. 00:19:03 They just don't do it. Yeah. Yeah, and I think this is a lot of what
258. 00:19:08 Corporations try to do so coming from that corporate background. We did the annual goals and
259. 00:19:15 In one case I was setting my annual goals that needed to be done by December
260. 00:19:22 but I was setting them in I think it was September is when I was setting them and
261. 00:19:26 That was just luck of how I shifted positions and everything else and I still hit my goals even though they were
262. 00:19:34 They were probably a full 12 month worth of goals
263. 00:19:38 But I still managed to do them in three and a half months. So it's like okay that all that'll make you stop and think about
264. 00:19:44 if I can pull that off then
265. 00:19:49 What happens the other six seven months out of the year like what am I doing that amount of time?
266. 00:19:54 It just seems like so many times people try to put together, you know, New Year's resolutions and you get the the full-on
267. 00:20:01 Mission for the year. It just seems like most of the time they fail
268. 00:20:05 I don't know why I've got that sense. It just seems like whenever that stuff comes up. It just doesn't it doesn't stick
269. 00:20:12 No, you're right
270. 00:20:13 I mean at Asian efficiency we we teach rituals and that's because habits have a
271. 00:20:19 somewhat negative connotation because they don't stick and
272. 00:20:23 Especially like New Year's resolutions
273. 00:20:26 Come January 1st the gym will be full with all the people who made resolutions that they're gonna work out
274. 00:20:32 And they're gonna be healthy this year, but within three weeks
275. 00:20:35 It's dwindled by 80% and it's back to the the regulars and that's because
276. 00:20:42 you don't create the
277. 00:20:44 Consistency that you need to keep moving forward with these things and that's what that's the main thrust of this book is you're gonna
278. 00:20:53 You're gonna work backwards
279. 00:20:54 You're gonna talk of from what you really want to accomplish over this 12 week period
280. 00:20:59 And then you're gonna identify what you want to accomplish each of those weeks
281. 00:21:02 But then really what it comes down to is are you going to create the space on your calendar because all of the things you have to do
282. 00:21:08 Are gonna take place within this context of time
283. 00:21:11 So if it's not on your calendar, it really doesn't exist. You're not going to do it
284. 00:21:15 You're going to have an intention to do it
285. 00:21:17 But you're not gonna follow through and just like those people who leave the gym at the end of January
286. 00:21:21 You know you're not gonna actually get your butt
287. 00:21:24 To the place where you can actually put in the work, right?
288. 00:21:27 So I really liked that approach and I think if you take that approach it really isn't that hard
289. 00:21:32 It's just you have to build a build up that routine that ritual of consistently doing those little things that are gonna produce the results
290. 00:21:39 And then that's where the compound effect kicks in because if you do those little things over and over and over again
291. 00:21:45 You will see the results
292. 00:21:47 Jumping back a little bit if you go to the beginning of this book and we see this in a lot of the books
293. 00:21:55 We've read Mike and this is why I wrote it down. It seems like a
294. 00:21:59 very large percentage of these books that we've read talk about
295. 00:22:03 Developing your mission finding your vision in life or developing your life goals like
296. 00:22:10 Okay, let's let's notice the theme here across all these books. What's the recurring thread?
297. 00:22:15 you have to know why you exist and I think if you look at the sheer volume of times that we've run across us even in the
298. 00:22:24 Short period that we've been doing this podcast the number of books that we've gone through which really isn't that many?
299. 00:22:30 I mean compared to what some people read in a year or what probably what most people read in here
300. 00:22:35 It's pretty significant, but in the grand scheme of things. This is what number 14. It's like it's really not 14 books
301. 00:22:42 It's really not that many books and even in that
302. 00:22:45 They're calling out how important this life mission is which would make you think this is quite important
303. 00:22:52 Maybe I should finally figure this out
304. 00:22:54 Right. Yeah, he says on
305. 00:22:57 page 21 that a passion crisis is really a vision crisis that you've lost your why and
306. 00:23:04 the whole the whole thrust of the conference that I went to
307. 00:23:07 Was I mean that the theme of the conference was think bigger and one of the things that Sean McCabe said during his
308. 00:23:14 During his session is that you have to normalize your vision?
309. 00:23:18 You want a goal which is as big as it can be instill inspire action, but then you have to
310. 00:23:24 Verbally state this goal over and over and over again. So one of the things it's kind of like a not an inside joke
311. 00:23:30 But it's something that like him and his team will will do is they'll just casually say a million dollars is not a lot of money
312. 00:23:37 Because they want to get to the point where they believe that a million dollars is not a lot of money because their vision is so much bigger than that
313. 00:23:43 But if you don't have that vision or your vision isn't big enough
314. 00:23:48 then
315. 00:23:50 It's not going to inspire you to to take action on it and
316. 00:23:54 They talked a lot about maybe we'll add this to the list at some point the the 10x rule
317. 00:24:00 by Grant Cardone and basically the premise
318. 00:24:04 There and then what Sean was saying from the stages
319. 00:24:07 whatever your goal is
320. 00:24:09 10x it
321. 00:24:10 Make it really really big because the sky is the limit when it comes to what you are capable of like you were talking about you accomplished a year's worth of
322. 00:24:19 Projects or objectives in three months
323. 00:24:21 That is sustainable, but you have to set up the framework and that's what the 12 week year comes in to help you do that
324. 00:24:28 And it's the vision that's going to keep you driving towards the point where you actually accomplish that I
325. 00:24:34 Think if you go into
326. 00:24:38 The details of the 12 week year
327. 00:24:40 So if we just kind of walk through that process because I think it'll the rest of this will make a lot more sense because most of our notes are around
328. 00:24:46 How to actually accomplish this as opposed to what it is
329. 00:24:49 so I think
330. 00:24:51 going through the actual process
331. 00:24:54 the way I interpreted it Mike and and all the listeners is that
332. 00:24:58 What you need to do is figure out what your goals are going to be for the 12 weeks
333. 00:25:03 So you've set aside when you're gonna start you go through all of your areas in your life
334. 00:25:10 So we've talked about like areas of responsibility and life hotspots in the past
335. 00:25:14 You go through those
336. 00:25:16 Determine what your life goal is for those areas and then based on those
337. 00:25:22 set goals for the next 12 weeks and
338. 00:25:25 Don't just stop there actually plan out what needs to happen each week to get you there
339. 00:25:31 And if you do that whole process and then each week review what it is you need to do that week in order to hit those goals
340. 00:25:38 You profit like there's the end of it like that's the whole process and something I wrote down here is that
341. 00:25:44 the
342. 00:25:46 12 week year to me seems to translate extremely well to
343. 00:25:50 The horizon three if you go to getting things done transfer over other systems
344. 00:25:55 The horizon three process within GTD in theory is if I'm recalling correctly
345. 00:26:03 It's roughly your one year
346. 00:26:05 Like I've heard David Allen say I think in the past like nine months to like 14 15 month
347. 00:26:11 goals
348. 00:26:13 But to me it seems like if you translate that down to 12 weeks and work with it from there
349. 00:26:19 It seems to work really well at least in my experience over the last three weeks
350. 00:26:23 Just using it for that process. It was a pretty easy and seamless
351. 00:26:30 Transition for me anyway, but that's okay. I've been rambling here for a little bit
352. 00:26:34 But to me, that's how that whole 12 week year process works and how it can translate into like my current system
353. 00:26:42 Which I'm pretty heavy on GTD
354. 00:26:46 Yeah, I don't make sense. Yes, that makes a lot of sense
355. 00:26:49 And I think really though that you could apply the 12 week year concept to whatever
356. 00:26:53 However far you want to go whichever horizon you want to use and then you can can work backwards from there
357. 00:27:00 So it just seems like so many of the the
358. 00:27:03 Systems and the methodologies out there they talk a lot about the day-to-day
359. 00:27:07 That seems like most of what they're taught like here are the tips and tricks on how to get your day in place
360. 00:27:13 But this is bigger than that. It's this I think this is the first real true
361. 00:27:17 real true the real
362. 00:27:21 base
363. 00:27:22 System I've ever seen that's specifically geared towards something beyond today
364. 00:27:28 I think
365. 00:27:31 Yeah, that's that's interesting. I didn't I didn't
366. 00:27:34 Really see that when I read through it, but I can I could see where that would that would make sense
367. 00:27:41 Really though what I think the benefit of the 12 week year is I mean
368. 00:27:46 So if you were to read the book what you're gonna see is some some stuff that you can implement in how you plan your week
369. 00:27:53 Things that you can add to your calendar explicitly that will help you
370. 00:27:58 accomplish
371. 00:28:00 What you want to accomplish by the end of the 12 week period?
372. 00:28:03 And there's a lot of details there, but essentially that's what it is and then that 12 week period
373. 00:28:11 Really what you want to do is you want to consistently stack
374. 00:28:14 successful 12 week periods on top of one another and
375. 00:28:18 You could extend that out as far as you want you could extend that out nine months you go extend that out 14 months
376. 00:28:24 You could extend that out a lot further. I think one of the things that I
377. 00:28:28 heard
378. 00:28:30 recently was
379. 00:28:32 Picture yourself in 20 years, but not just at a broad
380. 00:28:37 general sense, but
381. 00:28:40 20 years from now what does successful Joe Buleg do when he wakes up in the morning?
382. 00:28:46 What does his daily routine look like where does he live? What kind of card is he drive?
383. 00:28:51 What sort of marriage does he have like really picture the details and?
384. 00:28:56 create that vivid picture of where you want to get to in the future and
385. 00:29:02 I think 20 years is is great like that's far enough out there where you can really apply some
386. 00:29:09 Of that some of those big goals like you could you could say well in six months
387. 00:29:13 I want to be able to do this, but that's not realistic
388. 00:29:15 So 20 20 years is as far enough out there where you can really think big but then when it comes to implementation to get there
389. 00:29:21 All you've got to do then is you've got to follow through and you've got to work the system
390. 00:29:26 And you've got to consistently do the right things like that is not only plausible. It is probable like you want to get to the point where?
391. 00:29:34 That goal is not something. That's just way out there
392. 00:29:39 One of the things this is from later on in the book
393. 00:29:41 but
394. 00:29:43 There's a process that he he talks about you go through when you have these these these big goals
395. 00:29:49 I think it's from page 81. He says first. It's impossible then it's possible then it's probable then it's a given
396. 00:29:56 So you don't ask how but you ask what if and then next you ask how might I?
397. 00:30:02 So you don't want to start asking that too soon
398. 00:30:07 But you want to frame it in a way where this is not just some wild pipe dream where yeah
399. 00:30:13 Be great if I won the lottery sort of a thing
400. 00:30:14 but you have to really get to the point where you believe that this is possible and
401. 00:30:19 from the context of this book it's the 12-week year if you implement this and
402. 00:30:23 Ultimately that the devil's in the details like will you actually follow through with this because if you follow through with it
403. 00:30:30 You will get the results. It's it's simple, but it's not easy like all you have to do is
404. 00:30:37 Do what you know you're supposed to do and if you do that consistently
405. 00:30:40 But most people won't then you will get the results and the 12-week year kind of gives you the framework that you need
406. 00:30:46 To to create the space to do that
407. 00:30:48 I think that's something I struggle with
408. 00:30:51 Okay, I wrote this plan down am I gonna stick to it like I make a commitment with
409. 00:30:56 Somebody else it's on my calendar and it'll happen period like that's it's not a negotiable
410. 00:31:02 I will do whatever I can in order to make sure that that happens if I make a commitment and involve somebody else
411. 00:31:07 That's just the way it works if I do the same thing for myself
412. 00:31:11 For some reason it's okay to alter that or just not do it and
413. 00:31:17 Convincing myself to follow through on it
414. 00:31:20 That's a lot of the tricks and the tips that I always try to figure out is okay
415. 00:31:25 How can I force myself to do what I've planned because if I follow the plan I'm good, but I don't always stick
416. 00:31:32 True to it like I always seem to want to
417. 00:31:34 float with it
418. 00:31:36 Right, but if you if you do follow through with it
419. 00:31:39 Then once you once you do do it then that gives you confidence that you can do it again
420. 00:31:43 Right, that's where the neuroplasticity thing that I wrote down
421. 00:31:47 Comes in on page 23. He defines the neuroplasticity as our brains ability to change and it does so based on how you use it
422. 00:31:55 So that's why the 12 week concept is so important because you have to stretch yourself and push yourself for those 12 weeks
423. 00:32:03 But at the end of those 12 weeks once you get there you are now in a better position to do that again
424. 00:32:11 So if you consistently do that you are consistently pushing what your brain and your body is capable of doing
425. 00:32:19 You will see growth and this will become easier and easier
426. 00:32:24 It's interesting that you brought up the neuroplasticity thing because then
427. 00:32:28 We'll talk about this later the book that we're reading following this
428. 00:32:32 I've started getting into that and it covers that quite a bit
429. 00:32:36 It's interesting
430. 00:32:38 Yeah, I haven't haven't started that one yet, but I've seen this play out at least I believe I have in in my own life where
431. 00:32:46 Like I've told my story before where I started getting up at 5 a.m. To start writing
432. 00:32:52 and then I would go into the office and then I would go to a coffee shop and it works some more and
433. 00:32:56 Sometimes I get the response like well, how could you do that?
434. 00:33:02 Like I don't believe that I could physically put in that much time
435. 00:33:06 every day and
436. 00:33:08 It wasn't that I just all of a sudden decided okay. I'm going to I'm gonna put in this huge amount of effort
437. 00:33:15 First of all like you were talking about the beginning. I had a vision
438. 00:33:18 I knew that I wanted a future where I could work remote and I could have a flexible schedule
439. 00:33:23 And if I decided that on this given day
440. 00:33:25 I wanted to go on a field trip with my boys because we homeschool that I could decide that
441. 00:33:30 That was really important to me that that was the driving force behind everything is I pictured the time and the day the situation
442. 00:33:38 Where I had that flexibility
443. 00:33:41 But then it was doing just a little bit more and a little bit beyond what I
444. 00:33:47 Had been capable of previously so for anyone who knew me in college getting up at 5 a.m. That was
445. 00:33:55 Not something that I was capable of
446. 00:33:57 Bedtime not a time right I was definitely a night owl and so the fact that like I became a morning person that
447. 00:34:05 blew some people's minds
448. 00:34:08 but
449. 00:34:09 That's it's the vision that that drove that and then it's just getting up five minutes earlier five minutes earlier five minutes earlier
450. 00:34:15 And then you consistently get up five minutes earlier pretty soon getting up at 5 a.m. Is easy and then
451. 00:34:21 once you
452. 00:34:22 Start going to the to the coffee shop in my case to write for an hour
453. 00:34:26 You know you get done first time you're like wow that really was hard
454. 00:34:30 I can't believe that I wrote for a whole hour, you know a couple weeks later
455. 00:34:34 You're like oh man the hours up already. I wish I could write for two more hours because I'm in the zone
456. 00:34:38 you know, so
457. 00:34:41 I've seen where like just for me personally and
458. 00:34:45 The type of creative work that I'm involved in
459. 00:34:48 I believe that I've seen that in my own life the neuroplasticity and my ability to produce not only
460. 00:34:55 At a consistent level for a long period
461. 00:34:59 But also kind of going back to like the whole deep work conversation like the journalistic approach kind of on demand
462. 00:35:05 And I really don't know how to explain this but I know that I'm not the only person who is able to do that
463. 00:35:12 I think it was
464. 00:35:13 Stephen King
465. 00:35:15 Who talked about maybe from like the War of Art by Stephen Pressfield is like
466. 00:35:20 The of an amateur rights when they feel inspired a professional rights regardless or something like that
467. 00:35:27 I'm messing up the boat, but like you just show up and you do it and it gets easier I
468. 00:35:32 Think it was Drew Kaufman at one point he had an article that he wrote about how he
469. 00:35:42 Goes to a coffee shop in the morning grabs an espresso and he writes and then the next day
470. 00:35:47 He goes to a coffee shop he grabs an espresso and he writes and doing that every single day
471. 00:35:52 meant that eventually his mind just
472. 00:35:56 Followed the pattern and if he had an espresso he immediately started thinking in writing mode
473. 00:36:01 It just starts to work that way and it's interesting how our brains adapt to things like that
474. 00:36:07 I think is extremely helpful obviously
475. 00:36:09 It's something that can help us to develop a habit that's good if we're willing to let it
476. 00:36:15 But it can also go the negative way of course
477. 00:36:17 You get into some infinity apps that just go on and on and on and you got this really bad habit and you end up
478. 00:36:23 Losing a lot of time
479. 00:36:25 But I think if you're able to leverage the power of that you end up
480. 00:36:29 Being able to do is like what you're talking about building these habits where your mind just takes over and it just it
481. 00:36:34 This is what comes next and this is what I do and that's what
482. 00:36:39 Brian and Michael talk a little bit about this with time blocking
483. 00:36:43 They brought it's hard to go through a book like this and them not talk about time management in any capacity
484. 00:36:50 I don't think we've been through a book yet that doesn't at least touch it in some way
485. 00:36:53 But they go through and they spell out three different ways of or three different types of time blocks
486. 00:36:59 one of which he calls it
487. 00:37:02 strategic blocks which I translated to a deep work session
488. 00:37:06 Because he in the book he calls it as a three-hour block of uninterrupted time that is scheduled into each week
489. 00:37:12 To me, it's like okay if you get three hours within a week, that's fine
490. 00:37:15 But there are other ways to do these deep work sessions
491. 00:37:19 You know I do smaller ones every single day because that works out better for me
492. 00:37:22 And I think that's probably the way you are too. That's why the the daily thing works out
493. 00:37:27 Well because he ended up just building in the habit
494. 00:37:29 Yeah, I think you're you're probably writing that's how I read it at first too was that that strategic block is a
495. 00:37:36 deep work block I
496. 00:37:38 started
497. 00:37:39 Thinking about that a little bit more though and
498. 00:37:42 I'm thinking that as I implement this in my own calendar
499. 00:37:46 I want to try because most of my day is built up into those deep work blocks
500. 00:37:51 They're maybe not three hours at length
501. 00:37:53 But I want to try to squeeze in a three-hour quote-unquote strategic block
502. 00:37:57 Where I am literally just thinking big picture about all the things
503. 00:38:02 because I tend to get
504. 00:38:05 nose to the grindstone I've got my task list. I know what needs to get done and
505. 00:38:09 I don't do a very good job a lot of times of taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture
506. 00:38:16 And I think if you're gonna develop a big vision
507. 00:38:18 You need time and space to do that you need time and space to connect the
508. 00:38:23 the dots in that that way where
509. 00:38:27 Sometimes at least in my own life. I don't I don't actually do that
510. 00:38:32 So I'm gonna try and implement that strategic block as literally strategy
511. 00:38:36 Thinking about what is the big picture goal for this area of my life look like
512. 00:38:42 See that's interesting because I'm sitting here reading that paragraph again and just to make sure I understand it and he spells out that the
513. 00:38:51 purpose is to focus all of your energy on pre-planned
514. 00:38:55 task
515. 00:38:57 So strategic and money-making activities
516. 00:39:00 So I think by definition you're right, but I like the idea
517. 00:39:04 Yeah, I think big block basically if you would have been that way
518. 00:39:08 No, I follow that. I think why I'm not seeing it that way is because I do that
519. 00:39:14 high-level
520. 00:39:17 Processing during my weekly review every Friday. So we're recording this on a Friday. I just did it here four or five hours ago and
521. 00:39:25 That's something that I do
522. 00:39:28 once a week every week already
523. 00:39:30 So I probably didn't think about it that way because to me it would be something completely different
524. 00:39:35 It's like oh, I already do that part. I'm gonna do something completely separate from that
525. 00:39:40 So how long does it take you to do your your weekly review?
526. 00:39:43 It's about an hour and a half
527. 00:39:46 Okay, so you probably have a little bit more time than the average person. I think who would yeah
528. 00:39:52 I've talked to I think it's about 30 45 minutes for most
529. 00:39:56 Right and so that's really the the thing for me that makes it not fit into that
530. 00:40:02 That period is that my weekly reviews will tend to be like an hour at the most
531. 00:40:07 And I do think that there is a lot of value in just
532. 00:40:12 Giving yourself space to think big
533. 00:40:16 one of the things that Sean McCabe does is he has
534. 00:40:20 what he calls a
535. 00:40:22 Badical and he started doing this and he's implemented it now where everybody on his team does the same thing
536. 00:40:29 Where they will work for six weeks and every seventh week they'll take the entire week off
537. 00:40:35 And he said that the first time that he did it
538. 00:40:38 It felt like a vacation the second time that he did it felt like it came way too soon and
539. 00:40:45 Didn't want to do it because he had more work to do
540. 00:40:48 And then the third time that he did it was kind of when it clicked and he said that everybody on the team is kind of
541. 00:40:52 Experienced the same thing and really the reason behind the sabbatical is that you have a whole week in this case
542. 00:41:00 To just think and that's where a lot of the good ideas come from that drive the business forward
543. 00:41:06 I completely agree with you. I think I just have a completely different way of coming at it
544. 00:41:14 That because part of what I have within my weekly review is
545. 00:41:19 specific actions and and in this case someday maybe lists
546. 00:41:24 along with some other meta lists that are
547. 00:41:27 Designed to call that out like that's the point of those is to say okay. Here are all the things I'm doing in my business
548. 00:41:34 awesome
549. 00:41:37 Are those the right things?
550. 00:41:39 in some cases no in some cases yes and
551. 00:41:43 It forces me to make some of those decisions
552. 00:41:46 But some of what you're referring to like the creative piece
553. 00:41:50 That's another one of the time blocks that he tells us to put in as these breakout blocks
554. 00:41:54 To make time to let your mind wander is kind of how I
555. 00:41:58 Correlated it
556. 00:42:00 The other one that he calls out is buffer blocks
557. 00:42:02 Which I translated to our maintenance day that we were talking about from the productivity project
558. 00:42:08 Of having that time set out to just keep everything you know clear everything to neutral to use those terms
559. 00:42:13 But I think between those two and I get what you're saying for the strategic thinking process
560. 00:42:19 I think I just incorporate that elsewhere and I want to use
561. 00:42:22 What I'm calling these strategic blocks or in this to me there are a deep work session to focus on the work that I've planned for
562. 00:42:30 the 12 week goals
563. 00:42:32 That's how I'm seeing them and I think that's only because
564. 00:42:36 Some of those other pieces I've already got in place
565. 00:42:39 Sure, that makes sense and honestly, I think the breakout block you defined it as mind wandering
566. 00:42:46 That is probably
567. 00:42:49 Your your breakout block is probably similar to my
568. 00:42:52 strategic block in that sense
569. 00:42:54 But I want to use my breakout block specifically one of my previous action items was find more time to play
570. 00:43:00 I have to force myself
571. 00:43:03 Sometimes it is we all do this well
572. 00:43:07 And it's hard because like the work that I do I do
573. 00:43:12 Honestly enjoy so
574. 00:43:15 It's hard like
575. 00:43:18 It sounds really lame to say that my work is fun, but it really is
576. 00:43:23 Well, yeah, when was this this is probably been two months ago or something at this point my wife was gone on
577. 00:43:29 A retreat so what did I do when she was gone at night? I was writing code. It's what I do all day long
578. 00:43:34 I was writing code so I could rebuild the theme on my own website. It's like really Joe really right so my breakout block is
579. 00:43:42 When I say play like something that I can do for fun that it is a complete break from
580. 00:43:50 My day-to-day work
581. 00:43:52 So three hours doing something
582. 00:43:56 Other than work during normal business hours is how YouTube
583. 00:44:00 Right well, I'd I guess I mean for me maybe YouTube would be good because I'd never go on there
584. 00:44:05 but so that's that's how I'm the finding the breakout block and I guess just for
585. 00:44:10 listeners who maybe aren't familiar with how like this gets implemented basically he says do a strategic block
586. 00:44:16 Which is three hours of uninterrupted time very important distinction here no calls no emails
587. 00:44:21 So if you have your email open you are not in a strategic block because you will get interrupted exactly
588. 00:44:27 So that's a three hour block that happens once a week the buffer blocks are one hour blocks that
589. 00:44:32 Happened twice a day. I've found this to be really intriguing
590. 00:44:38 We launched an email course recently at Asian efficiency where we made the outrageous claim that will help you process
591. 00:44:46 Solve your email in 30 minutes a day or less, which I do honestly believe is doable no matter
592. 00:44:51 How much email you get if you have the right systems in place you can get it down to that
593. 00:44:55 timeframe
594. 00:44:57 And I've gotten pretty good at managing email in a short period of time
595. 00:45:00 But there's lots of other things like emptying my other inboxes consistently
596. 00:45:05 That I forget about or I neglect and so these buffer blocks are a great idea in my opinion
597. 00:45:13 To make sure that I follow through with all the administrative stuff that I have to do at any given day because if I don't build these in
598. 00:45:20 My tendency is going to be to just continue to work on the business building tasks
599. 00:45:25 But these admin type tests are important and so the buffer blocks and I've put them at the beginning at the end of my day
600. 00:45:32 Those are gonna I believe really helped me follow through and all the maintenance stuff and then the last one the breakout block
601. 00:45:38 This is a three hour spent on something other than work during normal business hours
602. 00:45:43 So interpret that how you will but that's a three hour block that happens once a week as well
603. 00:45:48 And out of all of that the thing that I caught was that Mike doesn't clear his inbox is daily
604. 00:45:53 Nope, I clear my email inbox daily, but I have a draft inbox and an IVL inbox where I will
605. 00:46:02 I'll capture things and I do not go through and process those
606. 00:46:08 All the time well when I capture them usually I'll capture them there and then a
607. 00:46:13 Lot of times what'll happen is oh, I know what this is so now that I've captured it here muscle memory
608. 00:46:18 I'm gonna send this to the appropriate bucket, but then what do I do with that stuff like I let it sit there and
609. 00:46:23 It's not very often that I go through and I clear out my envy alt because they're just text files
610. 00:46:29 They don't take up any room and and Valt I can search and find things really fast
611. 00:46:32 And really what I just need is the ability to open it and capture something really quickly so it serves its purpose
612. 00:46:38 but the
613. 00:46:41 I don't know like there's something
614. 00:46:44 Something OCD in me that likes to have clean inboxes all the time even though these ones
615. 00:46:50 I'm not really looking at I just open them up when I need to capture something
616. 00:46:54 I really like the thought of having everything in there
617. 00:46:58 cleaned out and reset and there's just a little bit of
618. 00:47:02 I don't want to say anxiety, but look if I go into giraffes and I see that there's 120 things in there
619. 00:47:08 My initial reaction is did I take care of everything?
620. 00:47:11 So I tried to periodically I was asking cuz I clear mine out twice a day
621. 00:47:16 Yeah, I can't I can't leave them because then I'm if I don't keep them clear
622. 00:47:22 I can't know for sure that
623. 00:47:25 There's not something I've missed
624. 00:47:29 Like I have to make sure that I keep things cleaned out
625. 00:47:32 Otherwise, there's a chance that whenever I'm going through and I'm doing my work I
626. 00:47:37 Should be doing something else, but I haven't processed it correctly
627. 00:47:41 Right and it depends what you use those for I mean a lot of times the stuff that I capture there is
628. 00:47:46 Ideas for things that I want to do sometime maybe in the future or there's a book that I want to read at some point
629. 00:47:53 You know there's a podcast that I want to listen to they're not generally time sensitive things if they are tasked
630. 00:47:59 Then I'll send them an Omni focus right away
631. 00:48:01 But I do like to go through and clean those out
632. 00:48:05 Thing is I do that whenever I get a chance to which is more like once a week as opposed to every day
633. 00:48:12 I think there's a benefit to doing it every day. I just don't create the time to do that because
634. 00:48:17 When I am when I am a nose down and in my work
635. 00:48:21 It seems to me at that specific moment that it is more valuable
636. 00:48:26 That I make a little bit more progress on whatever project I'm working on
637. 00:48:29 Then I take the 15 minutes to go through my envy all or drafts inbox if that makes sense
638. 00:48:35 Yeah, okay, so two points here one I only spend ten minutes on this a day
639. 00:48:40 So five minutes in the morning and five at the end of my day, so it's not like it's a huge
640. 00:48:43 time
641. 00:48:46 commitment to pull that off and
642. 00:48:48 Two I think part of that is that like part of the reason is because a lot of like the ideas and just
643. 00:48:54 snippets of this would work well for this project like all of those types of little bits of information I tend to
644. 00:49:01 Have systems in place through specifically through drafts
645. 00:49:05 So that whenever I collect those they end up where they belong. So there's not there's really not any processing for those
646. 00:49:13 To me like they just go exactly where they need to go and I'm done that might be why
647. 00:49:18 I'm because I think maybe I should go look
648. 00:49:21 I think I've only got five inboxes that I clear twice a day and it's like Omni focus dropbox I
649. 00:49:27 Can't even think of them right now because it's checklist. I don't think about it. Let's go through the checklist Mike
650. 00:49:32 Right
651. 00:49:34 Well, here's here's really the idea behind this
652. 00:49:37 from the 12 week year on
653. 00:49:39 Page 55 he talks about failing in our focus. I
654. 00:49:44 Tend to know that maybe I take the same approach to envy Elton drafts that other people take to email
655. 00:49:51 But because what I put in there is not other people oriented
656. 00:49:55 I feel like it's not a big deal if I don't get to those right away, but
657. 00:49:59 And page 55 he talks about feeling the focus and he says in an effort to not miss anything
658. 00:50:04 We miss everything. So I don't want to go through and think about all of those random ideas that I had
659. 00:50:13 Every single day. I would rather focus on getting this specific video done for the email course or whatever
660. 00:50:18 that
661. 00:50:20 I don't want to be distracted by all of those little things. So
662. 00:50:23 That's probably another piece to it is that I consciously choose not to go through all those things all the time
663. 00:50:29 But like I said, I really do believe that there is some value to going through it regularly
664. 00:50:34 And I think the big thing for me is that I've never created the time to do that and so the buffer blocks
665. 00:50:39 That's a real logical one that I could build that in
666. 00:50:42 Email is another one that fits inside of those buffer blocks
667. 00:50:46 Social media account management would fall under there too if you use that for any sort of business purpose as opposed to just killing time on Facebook
668. 00:50:54 Yeah, I I really have to think through some of the other buffer block activities
669. 00:51:00 But I really do like the idea of having a block at the beginning and the end of my day where I can
670. 00:51:05 Make sure that all the details are taken care of and then also if I get
671. 00:51:11 If I get stuck in a project and I'm and I want that to bleed over a little bit
672. 00:51:16 I've got a little bit more of a margin at the end of my day where I could I could get that done as opposed to I'm gonna work till
673. 00:51:22 Five, you know, I'm gonna work till four and then from four to five
674. 00:51:25 I've got this buffer or margin where I can either go in and clear out the email inbox
675. 00:51:31 Envy alt drafts, whatever I can make some progress on those things or if I need that extra hour to continue to work on this project
676. 00:51:37 Because I absolutely need to get it done. I have a little bit of time built in where I can do that and that whole idea of margin I think is
677. 00:51:44 uh, really really important
678. 00:51:46 Oh, yeah, easy
679. 00:51:47 Especially if you schedule a little bit of that around like the strategic blocks or deep work sessions or whatever you want to call those times in the day
680. 00:51:54 uh with
681. 00:51:57 Those buffer zones one specifically that I've put in place and I did this
682. 00:52:01 It was before I read this book. It's probably been a month and a half ago now
683. 00:52:05 It's because of one of these books we've read at this point, but it wasn't tied. I think to one
684. 00:52:09 In particular, I think it was kind of a combination of them
685. 00:52:13 But uh, we had the the one about the shutdown ritual
686. 00:52:16 At one point and I did put that in place, but I put it in place at four in the afternoon
687. 00:52:21 And I get off work at five. Well, it only takes
688. 00:52:24 You know 15 minutes or so to shut everything down and that does include my inbox processing mic
689. 00:52:30 Uh, but I do shut down there at four o'clock. Well, that means that
690. 00:52:35 You know easy. I'm done with that by four 30. So then I've got 30 minutes after I've
691. 00:52:40 Quote unquote shut down
692. 00:52:43 To do pretty much whatever and that just becomes a buffer zone and I've just treated it as well if I get done early
693. 00:52:50 That's time to read and it's kind of free time. It just lets me float or you know get buffer
694. 00:52:55 Sure, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense
695. 00:52:59 I mean the whole idea of margin you can implement this a lot of different ways and in fact later on in the book
696. 00:53:04 He talks about well, what do you do with the other four weeks of the year?
697. 00:53:08 What do you do with the 13th week?
698. 00:53:10 Because if you were to really boil it down in those 52 weeks in a year if you do the 12 week year or four times
699. 00:53:15 You've got four extra weeks there. So he says use the 13th week as a margin
700. 00:53:20 Where if you don't get everything
701. 00:53:23 Done in those 12 weeks that you had planned you've got extra space
702. 00:53:28 Where that stuff can overlap a little bit and you can actually dot the eyes across the teas and get that done
703. 00:53:33 I think that that is a really key principle and actually that's another book that maybe we could cover on the podcast at some time
704. 00:53:39 Sometimes but one that I read that was really influential was it's actually titled margin by Richard swenson
705. 00:53:46 He's a psychology professor
706. 00:53:48 And the whole idea is that people are
707. 00:53:51 Overcommitted they they
708. 00:53:53 They overestimate
709. 00:53:55 How efficient they are with their time and then when they overcommit themselves
710. 00:53:58 Like they just they get stuck in the emergency scan modality that david elan talks about like that's the root cause of it
711. 00:54:05 Is that we try to schedule every single minute of every single day and we give ourselves no margin for when things don't go exactly
712. 00:54:13 According to plan and that is when the crap hits the fans so to speak
713. 00:54:17 Yeah, I prefer to think of the 13th week as vacation
714. 00:54:21 That's what I would like it's like I saw that they were talking about the 13th week. I was like oh, yeah
715. 00:54:27 I hadn't done the math
716. 00:54:29 on 12 12 weeks time for
717. 00:54:31 Uh, it's like oh, yeah, there is an extra week in there. What do I get to do during that week?
718. 00:54:35 Uh catch up or go have fun one of those two
719. 00:54:38 Right. Yeah, exactly
720. 00:54:41 Both of those are important
721. 00:54:43 Yeah, I take the first half of it to catch up and take the last three or four days to
722. 00:54:48 You know go play
723. 00:54:51 right
724. 00:54:52 Uh one thing that he talks about they talk about in
725. 00:54:56 Uh the process of developing what you're going to do each week is the concept of lead and lag
726. 00:55:04 Measures and keeping score
727. 00:55:09 This is one that I immediately was drawn to because one we like to collect data and I've got a
728. 00:55:16 Past data analysis person in me. So I've been in that world
729. 00:55:22 So coming from that I was naturally drawn to this idea of keeping score
730. 00:55:27 And there's been a couple books that have talked about that
731. 00:55:29 I know that it came up in deep work at one point but
732. 00:55:31 with the concept the concept here is that you are able to keep track of not only
733. 00:55:38 the outcomes at the end of this and did you hit your goal or not but also keep track of
734. 00:55:43 the lead measures so the process of getting into it
735. 00:55:47 If you take you know exercising for example, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds
736. 00:55:52 Uh if you've ever met me, I should not lose 10 pounds just saying
737. 00:55:56 But say say I did if i'm going to lose 10 pounds then
738. 00:56:01 The lead measures
739. 00:56:04 Would be get to the gym, you know go for a run
740. 00:56:07 You know those types of things and being able to keep score on what you're doing at the beginning of it versus
741. 00:56:12 Did I actually lose 10 pounds or not at the end?
742. 00:56:15 So there's the lead versus the lag is it leading you into the goal or is it after the goal?
743. 00:56:21 And that's the concept of keeping scores
744. 00:56:23 Making sure that you're able to keep track of the process
745. 00:56:25 Both at the beginning and at the end because if you're cheating track at the beginning that can be a motivation to keep you going
746. 00:56:31 And keep moving forward. So it's just this idea of how do you get the data on this?
747. 00:56:37 To support are you making progress or not?
748. 00:56:40 Right and that may be the best resource that i've found for identifying lead versus lag measures is
749. 00:56:48 um, the four disciplines of execution by not steven covey. I forget his son
750. 00:56:54 His son is the one who wrote it though
751. 00:56:57 Uh, but the important difference there as it comes to keeping score is that everybody talks about the lead measures
752. 00:57:05 The things that you do to get the results, but when it comes to keeping score you have to measure your score by those lag measures
753. 00:57:12 So let's use me as an example because I could afford to lose 10 pounds
754. 00:57:17 All right, the lead measures for me are
755. 00:57:21 Getting to the gym five times a week for example and the lag measures how i'm going to keep score is
756. 00:57:27 What do i weigh at the end of the 12 weeks how we're going to apply?
757. 00:57:31 Exercise to uh to the 12 week year concept
758. 00:57:35 And the lead measures are where the 12 week year stuff comes in like you're you're going to plan this stuff out
759. 00:57:41 You're going to create the time on your calendar to do these things that you believe are going to lead you towards your goals
760. 00:57:46 And then at the end of the 12 week period you're going to look at the lag measures
761. 00:57:49 And that's how you're going to keep score
762. 00:57:52 So very important distinction here when it comes to planning out your day
763. 00:57:57 You have to make sure that it's the little things that you're going to do that are going to produce those compound results
764. 00:58:03 And that's where the whole idea of work life balance comes in for a lot of people
765. 00:58:09 And there's a quote in here that I really really liked by jack welch
766. 00:58:12 He says there's no such thing as work life balance
767. 00:58:15 There are work life choices and you make them and they have consequences
768. 00:58:20 So the work life choices that you make as you're planning out your 12 week year
769. 00:58:25 Are going to have consequences and those consequences are going to be the lag measures that you'll be able to tell
770. 00:58:30 Yes, it's moving me towards my goals. No, this is not
771. 00:58:33 Um, and on page 62 they talk about how life balance so work life balance if you want to think of it that way, but again
772. 00:58:40 I don't really like
773. 00:58:41 that
774. 00:58:42 that distinction because
775. 00:58:44 In terms of your time, there is no work versus life. There's just your life
776. 00:58:48 Like you have to work within the time that you have given for your life
777. 00:58:51 But it's up to you to make sure that everything is is balanced and there's enough attention being given to all the things
778. 00:58:56 So he says on page 62 that life balance is about intentional
779. 00:59:01 Imbalance
780. 00:59:03 It's about consciously making choices and saying no to certain things that you're determining
781. 00:59:08 Are not as important as some of those other things
782. 00:59:12 And really you have to take the time to identify those things that are the right things
783. 00:59:18 That's why he talks at the very beginning of the book about
784. 00:59:21 the mission the vision the life goals
785. 00:59:23 On page 5080 says each and every one of us has the god given ability to be great
786. 00:59:28 What makes a champion is the discipline to do the extra things even when especially when
787. 00:59:32 You don't feel like it
788. 00:59:35 So this book I really like because I believe that it gives you the tools that you need
789. 00:59:41 To 12 weeks at a time identify the things that you're going to say yes to identify the things that you're going to say no to
790. 00:59:48 And then gives you the structure and the framework the the plan that you need to actually accomplish that
791. 00:59:53 And then once again, obviously the results are going to vary
792. 00:59:56 But it's only going to vary based on whether you follow through and you've identified the the right things
793. 01:00:01 So I've been at this for about three weeks now
794. 01:00:06 And going through the process now what I did Mike because I'm an omni-focused nerd
795. 01:00:11 Is I just went through and replaced what I had in my
796. 01:00:15 horizon three
797. 01:00:17 project for
798. 01:00:19 my getting things done process ended up just replacing that with
799. 01:00:23 A list of the goals that I wanted to hit for the next 12 weeks
800. 01:00:27 And then underneath of that I tend to use weak numbers on a lot of things
801. 01:00:32 I don't know why so, you know, what week of the year are we into I think right now we're on 45
802. 01:00:37 So there you go
803. 01:00:40 If you if you follow those what I typically do is it's like, okay
804. 01:00:44 I just spelled out for each of the goals that I have for the next 12 weeks
805. 01:00:48 Here's what I need to hit each week in order to accomplish that goal
806. 01:00:52 And part of the reason I did that was because it allows me to keep score
807. 01:00:56 Because I can see very easily that I get these checked off or not
808. 01:01:00 And at the same time I've got ways that I can use omni-focused to show me what each week I need to do
809. 01:01:06 So I can easily get a list of what I need to do each week
810. 01:01:09 so I've been at that for
811. 01:01:11 at least three weeks now and
812. 01:01:14 It's really odd how
813. 01:01:16 Something as simple as putting together that goal for the next 12 weeks and then spelling out how to get there
814. 01:01:21 It has this natural motivation that can come with it because you can see the little bits that you do
815. 01:01:27 Each day and you can see the little bits that you accomplish each week
816. 01:01:31 And then once a week going through or in my case, I end up looking at it daily
817. 01:01:35 Just seeing how that relates back to my overall goals
818. 01:01:39 Just naturally that's got a lot of power in it and it ends up compounding on itself
819. 01:01:45 And you end up
820. 01:01:48 Time it's all said and done
821. 01:01:50 accomplishing a lot more so crazy enough even within the last three weeks
822. 01:01:53 I can honestly say that just from pure numbers of things I've checked off in
823. 01:01:59 My system. It's dramatically higher than what it has been or what it was the previous three weeks. So
824. 01:02:05 If there's a testament to it
825. 01:02:08 There you go. Now you may be an outlier because you've been applying a lot of these principles for a while
826. 01:02:14 I wondered about that. Yeah
827. 01:02:16 So I could totally anticipate somebody listening to this podcast saying oh, this sounds awesome
828. 01:02:21 I'm going to implement this and going through
829. 01:02:23 What they describe on page 72 is the emotional cycle of change
830. 01:02:28 Which is kind of an inverse
831. 01:02:30 bell curve if I'm remembering it right where there's five different steps
832. 01:02:35 Number one is uninformed optimism and if you are just listening to the podcast now
833. 01:02:40 You're like, yeah, this sounds great. I'm going to accomplish all this awesome stuff in the next 12 weeks
834. 01:02:44 That's where you are
835. 01:02:46 And then once you start going you stuff will become a little bit better defined and then you go into stage two
836. 01:02:51 Which is informed pessimism?
837. 01:02:53 Yep, so I know a little bit more it doesn't look like I'm in a
838. 01:02:57 Look at the chart. It's a pretty steep fall too. Yes, very quick
839. 01:03:01 And then the third step is the value of despair. This is where many people quit
840. 01:03:07 Right bottom
841. 01:03:08 They get to that point where they're just like I don't know how I'm going to
842. 01:03:12 accomplish this
843. 01:03:14 But if you push through that value of despair the next stage
844. 01:03:18 Is informed optimism? So it's like same same concept like you're informed now you understand the details
845. 01:03:25 But oh, hey now it looks like because I didn't quit
846. 01:03:28 I might actually achieve this and then the last one is number five success and fulfillment
847. 01:03:33 so
848. 01:03:35 a word of encouragement to anybody who's going to listen to this and
849. 01:03:39 Start implementing it. Hopefully you listen to this again in about six weeks
850. 01:03:44 And you hear the same words like don't quit when you're in the valley of despair
851. 01:03:47 Don't quit when things look bleak continue to trust the system and don't abandon the plan just because you're not seeing
852. 01:03:55 the the results
853. 01:03:57 They talk a lot about that about how you don't want to give up on the plan
854. 01:04:02 You only want to give up on the plan when it's when it's the plan's fault
855. 01:04:07 But sometimes you're not going to see the results and it's not the plan's fault
856. 01:04:10 Sometimes the lack of results are your own fault
857. 01:04:12 And so in that instance what you want to do is you want to keep going you do not want to
858. 01:04:17 Give up on page 166 he calls it he talks about the difference between
859. 01:04:23 Follier they call it and failure where you are going to fall you are going to
860. 01:04:28 Mess up you are going to be in a position where it doesn't look like you're going to be able to achieve this
861. 01:04:33 But he defines the difference fall your as falling and failure as letting go that's giving up in the valley of despair
862. 01:04:41 There's a lot in there
863. 01:04:44 Processing that this is an absolute lot and I think you're right. I've been at some of these tactics
864. 01:04:51 like the the concept of scheduling different blocks of time and he there's there's a whole bunch that they go through
865. 01:04:57 prior to the concept of the 12-week year and then again after that that
866. 01:05:04 To be honest, I glossed over a lot of it. I didn't mean to it just kind of worked out that way
867. 01:05:10 But the reason was that it's a lot of you know rinse and repeat for a lot of these other books and principles that we've talked about
868. 01:05:19 Which which makes it hard to read for me, but it's still
869. 01:05:22 Valuable if you've not been through that so I understand why it's there
870. 01:05:26 It was just a part that you know if we weren't reading it for the show I probably would have skipped
871. 01:05:31 Probably threw four chapters there, but you know all of that said the principles that they're talking about are highly valuable
872. 01:05:38 And going through the process of the 12-week year itself
873. 01:05:42 If you have some of these other
874. 01:05:44 You know what your mission is you know how to develop your goals like I sat down
875. 01:05:48 And in 20 minutes had cranked out what I thought my life goal for each of my areas of responsibility was going to be like it was pretty quick
876. 01:05:55 and very easy for me to do that and
877. 01:05:58 Doing that process is what made it possible for me to
878. 01:06:01 Go ahead and put together some goals for the next 12 weeks and then develop what they were going to be
879. 01:06:06 So I spent maybe an hour
880. 01:06:08 Putting this whole thing together
881. 01:06:10 And was able to just slip it right into the rest of how I do things
882. 01:06:14 And get off to the races with it
883. 01:06:16 So it was pretty easy for me to just drop it in and go
884. 01:06:18 But I can easily see if you're not if you don't have that base structure in place
885. 01:06:23 There's a lot of work to do just to get going
886. 01:06:27 Whereas it took an hour for me. I could easily see it take a couple days just of working with it and thinking it through
887. 01:06:33 To get going with it. Is that fair?
888. 01:06:35 Yeah, definitely and there's going to be some trial and error
889. 01:06:38 I think if you've never really done this before like i'm page 95 he talks about the five criteria of good plans
890. 01:06:45 And so this is stuff that if you're from the if you're immersed in the productivity space
891. 01:06:49 You've probably heard all of this stuff previously
892. 01:06:52 But he lays it out or they lay it out rather succinctly number one
893. 01:06:56 Make your plans specific and measurable you have to be able to measure whether they're successful
894. 01:07:01 Number two state them positively. So this is a really important step for example
895. 01:07:07 If you're a golfer and you're teeing off and you see a water hazard and you're thinking to yourself
896. 01:07:13 Don't hit it in the water. Don't hit it in the water
897. 01:07:15 Psychologically, it's proven you're probably going to hit it in the water because your brain can't differentiate between positive and negative
898. 01:07:20 It's just seeing that the water is the thing that you're focusing on
899. 01:07:24 So instead of saying like don't do this
900. 01:07:26 You want to state your plans as positive
901. 01:07:29 Number three ensure that they are a realistic stretch
902. 01:07:33 So you want them to be able to be accomplished, but you also want them to not be easy
903. 01:07:38 You want to be able to you want them you want to be able to have to push in order to accomplish that
904. 01:07:44 Number four assign accountability and then number five be time-bound if you're looking at a 12 week
905. 01:07:49 Period that one's pretty easy, but even if you've heard this stuff before there's some stuff like I gleaned
906. 01:07:56 On page one on one there was a detail here that I never really
907. 01:07:59 Caught before he says if you take the time to plan before you engage with the with a complex task
908. 01:08:05 You reduce the overall time required to complete the task by as much as 20 percent
909. 01:08:09 Which I thought was really really interesting
910. 01:08:12 Number one because I'm kind of a data nerd I guess where we've talked before in the podcast
911. 01:08:18 I like the ones like the willpower instinct where they have all the research studies to support what they're saying
912. 01:08:22 So this is a quantifiable
913. 01:08:25 Number that's attached to this where it's saying yes
914. 01:08:27 You do want to plan this stuff before not because it seems like the right thing to do
915. 01:08:31 But because it is statistically proven that it will be it will take 20 percent less time
916. 01:08:37 If you follow through beforehand and you identify everything that needs to be done
917. 01:08:41 so for the
918. 01:08:44 For listeners who are wanting to get into programming or you are in
919. 01:08:48 coding in some form pay attention to what what you're saying there because
920. 01:08:54 This is something I do very regularly and it's something that I'm learning is
921. 01:09:00 very particular and specific to quality programmers
922. 01:09:03 Is that you will often take some time to think through
923. 01:09:08 The functions and the methods that you're going to write
924. 01:09:12 before you do it
925. 01:09:14 Instead of just jumping in and writing something to see if it'll work
926. 01:09:17 Because it seems like nine times out of ten if you stop and think about it
927. 01:09:21 Before you jump into it, you actually come up with a better solution
928. 01:09:24 That's one more optimized so it runs faster and cleaner
929. 01:09:30 and two is less buggy and
930. 01:09:32 You know, those are two
931. 01:09:34 Gold standards that you shoot for as a programmer
932. 01:09:37 so
933. 01:09:39 If you take the time to step back and review something you're going to do before you jump into it
934. 01:09:44 You save yourself a lot of headaches later on
935. 01:09:47 Right. Yeah, definitely
936. 01:09:50 and
937. 01:09:52 I really like the whole emphasis of this in this whole book
938. 01:09:56 on
939. 01:09:57 You determining your own future and you can apply that to any arena you want whether it's
940. 01:10:03 code or writing
941. 01:10:06 or
942. 01:10:07 Cranking widgets at a factory like literally
943. 01:10:09 They place the onus on you
944. 01:10:13 Over the next 12 weeks like if you want a different future
945. 01:10:16 You can go ahead and you can create it in fact on page 138
946. 01:10:20 It says that the future that you're going to live is the one that you are creating right now
947. 01:10:23 at this very moment
948. 01:10:25 Another thing to say is that a victim allows his success to be limited by external circumstances people or events
949. 01:10:31 So i'll just use this example and I mean nothing negative by it
950. 01:10:36 But it seems like there's a lot of people that I've met
951. 01:10:39 Who are working a quote-unquote regular job and they they see what I do and they say oh, that's great
952. 01:10:45 I would love the opportunity to do that, but it's just not going to happen for me
953. 01:10:49 Like I I don't see how that could happen
954. 01:10:51 And I would challenge them
955. 01:10:54 I challenge you if you're listening to the podcast and that's you
956. 01:10:56 Like what you've got to do if you want to change your situation is you have to start doing those little things for me
957. 01:11:04 It was having a vision where I wanted to go and then what that looked like in terms of the day-to-day was
958. 01:11:10 Making the choice to become a morning person
959. 01:11:13 overcoming my natural
960. 01:11:16 Adversity to waking up early and creating the space to do the writing
961. 01:11:20 Which has led me to a point where I never thought that I would be I mean I never considered myself
962. 01:11:26 A writer, but every opportunity I've gotten over the last couple of years
963. 01:11:30 Has to do with things that I've written
964. 01:11:34 so
965. 01:11:36 Really the key here is that you can continue to do the things that you have always done
966. 01:11:40 But you will continue to get the same results if that is the case
967. 01:11:44 If you want a different future you have to change the things that you do day-to-day
968. 01:11:49 And the 12-week year is a great way to do that on page 139
969. 01:11:52 He says people earning a million dollars per year aren't working 10 times harder than people earning a hundred thousand dollars
970. 01:11:58 In fact, they are sometimes working less, but they are working differently
971. 01:12:01 So if you're not happy with the results that you've gotten
972. 01:12:05 Change the process change the things that you are doing
973. 01:12:10 And I think the 12-week year is a great way to start working differently if you want to see some different results
974. 01:12:17 Ready for action items. Let's do it. So I have one
975. 01:12:21 Try the 12-week year
976. 01:12:24 Yeah, I think that
977. 01:12:27 I mean you could break it down a little bit more, I guess
978. 01:12:31 I that's kind of what I did like I've already implemented some of the time blocks
979. 01:12:34 Right, I have not taken the whole 12-week period
980. 01:12:38 I will though I will do it at January 1 or by January 1
981. 01:12:42 I'm going to have my plan for the next 12 weeks
982. 01:12:45 And it makes so much sense my wife and I did something similar to this a couple years ago where we had
983. 01:12:52 A yearly goals then we broke it down into quarterly goals
984. 01:12:56 And then even monthly goals from there
985. 01:12:58 But this makes more sense to me than
986. 01:13:02 Trying to have three separate sets of goals and making sure that they're lining up
987. 01:13:06 Right. So yes, absolutely. I guess if you were to boil a ton to one thing it would definitely would be implement the 12-week year
988. 01:13:12 Yeah, because it's really not that hard like
989. 01:13:15 a lot of this book is the
990. 01:13:17 Reasonings behind the principles that they're teaching and why things are going to work if you apply this
991. 01:13:23 But the actual method is not that hard
992. 01:13:27 Yeah, it was only I think maybe three chapters out of the entire book is the actual process the rest of it was
993. 01:13:33 One explaining why you should do it and two explaining some of the mindsets and principles on how to get yourself to do work
994. 01:13:40 like that
995. 01:13:42 that seemed to be how it all panned out because
996. 01:13:45 You know, I could write some things down of how to put
997. 01:13:48 When am I going to do a strategic block of time?
998. 01:13:50 When am I going to put in buffer and breakout blocks?
999. 01:13:52 I already do a lot of that like that's that would be
1000. 01:13:55 cop-out I think because it's not
1001. 01:13:58 It's not anything different than what I'm already doing and that's why I think just implement the 12-week year
1002. 01:14:04 Oddly enough the way I timed it and part of the reason I was
1003. 01:14:07 Itching to get into it is because I knew
1004. 01:14:11 The base on the timing that if I jumped into it when I did it worked out to where the end of my 12 year
1005. 01:14:17 uh 12 week year
1006. 01:14:20 equated to the end of the calendar year
1007. 01:14:23 That's why I jumped in when I did
1008. 01:14:26 Uh, so that means that at the end of december my 12 week year is up
1009. 01:14:30 So that's why I jumped in early partially just because pure math and I'm weird and I'm type a like that and I like it to be clean
1010. 01:14:38 so
1011. 01:14:40 That would have made sense if I would have realized that a few weeks earlier, but yeah
1012. 01:14:44 Math is something I've always enjoyed in in college. I took advanced calculus based physics. Yep weird. I know
1013. 01:14:54 Uh sports economics
1014. 01:14:58 There you go
1015. 01:15:02 So I thought this is pretty easy to read. I mean it's an easy book for I think just about anybody to pick up and go through
1016. 01:15:06 They explain things quite simply and in a way that's easy to comprehend
1017. 01:15:12 So I thought it was a simple they've got a good style
1018. 01:15:14 Yeah, I I really like the the style the only thing I would say is I was a little bit distracted sometimes
1019. 01:15:22 Um, I don't feel that this one is as well written as so many other books that we've read
1020. 01:15:28 Which really has nothing to do with the takeaways that you will get from this
1021. 01:15:32 But it was a little bit distracting for me because sometimes I'd read sentences and be like, well wait that
1022. 01:15:36 That's not grammatically correct. Yes. I did notice that in a few cases. So it's like oh you guys
1023. 01:15:42 What you have here is good, but I feel like you've not been a writer for long
1024. 01:15:47 Yeah, which again like I am not a writer
1025. 01:15:52 Maybe I am now I guess since i've been doing it for a little while, but i've never
1026. 01:15:55 Never considered myself a writer like I really can't hold that against them
1027. 01:16:00 But just being like completely transparent. That's the only thing I saw in this book is that sometimes
1028. 01:16:05 I would lose track of what they were saying because of how they said it
1029. 01:16:08 Yeah, I'm not a part of the grammar police force. So I'm not one to
1030. 01:16:12 Like I don't really get upset when I see things like that. I just chalk it up to
1031. 01:16:17 Their learning
1032. 01:16:20 Right. Oh, and and it's encouraging to me because I notice it's like oh, yeah, that's not like you don't use a semicolon like that
1033. 01:16:26 That doesn't work like I'll notice those, but it's like, oh, yeah, I know how that works
1034. 01:16:32 Right
1035. 01:16:33 Yeah, but overall I would say it's a really really good book. It's very very actionable
1036. 01:16:38 It is not hard to read at all
1037. 01:16:41 And I think it's applicable to just about anybody
1038. 01:16:44 So unless like you've heard about the 12 week year concept before and are already applying it
1039. 01:16:50 I would say this is definitely worth your time
1040. 01:16:53 It's not
1041. 01:16:55 Again the concepts are great
1042. 01:16:58 But it's not like the best book that we've ever read so for that reason alone. I'm gonna say 4.5
1043. 01:17:04 Yeah, I'm gonna give it a four
1044. 01:17:07 Just because there's a lot of things that I feel like could have been
1045. 01:17:10 Written better or a little more in depth. It's a kind of it's a fairly short book
1046. 01:17:15 and
1047. 01:17:17 It seemed like they were trying to stretch to put it into a book at times
1048. 01:17:21 so
1049. 01:17:23 I just
1050. 01:17:24 There's some things that just don't quite feel right with it, but that's that's where I landed
1051. 01:17:28 So you got a four and a half. I got a four oh
1052. 01:17:31 It's a four and a quarter
1053. 01:17:34 overall
1054. 01:17:37 So upcoming books
1055. 01:17:39 I
1056. 01:17:40 So my choice coming next I picked brain chains. This is one that's been recommended a handful of times
1057. 01:17:44 Uh, people have been itching to get us to go through this and I have started reading this
1058. 01:17:49 Uh, I'm excited to talk about this one
1059. 01:17:52 There's gonna be a lot to talk about for this one Mike
1060. 01:17:54 Nice. Yeah, I I've had this one honestly this one was gifted to me a while ago and uh
1061. 01:18:00 I've been meaning to dig into it, but haven't yet
1062. 01:18:04 So I'm excited about this one as well, but I believe that this one is going to be one of the more meatier books that we've we've yeah
1063. 01:18:10 Yes, I agree
1064. 01:18:13 This one I won't be like I've gotten to where I read books in about a week
1065. 01:18:17 This one will not be done in a week guarantee
1066. 01:18:21 Right. Yeah, this one looks pretty substantial
1067. 01:18:24 Um, and then the one after that
1068. 01:18:26 It I saw this on the recommended list and this was actually one that I had bought a while back
1069. 01:18:31 uh, I was in
1070. 01:18:34 Or near the chicago area for a wedding one time and I saw this bookstore across the street
1071. 01:18:39 So naturally I had to go and they sold books by the pound
1072. 01:18:44 So yeah, it's this cool little little bookshop
1073. 01:18:48 uh near the
1074. 01:18:50 Northwest university campus
1075. 01:18:52 And yeah, like you could go and you could pick out as many books as you want and then like it was so much per pound
1076. 01:18:57 It was like a fish market for books
1077. 01:18:59 That's crazy. I know
1078. 01:19:01 Wow, I you need 11. Oh, that sounds like fun. I know our library sells books by the bag
1079. 01:19:06 I think it's like four dollars a bag or something like that. Okay
1080. 01:19:10 But it's like grocery sack type
1081. 01:19:12 But anyway, yeah, so one of the ones that I picked up there because I could buy books by the pound
1082. 01:19:17 Was the checklist manifesto?
1083. 01:19:19 Just because I thought the concept sounded a lot of sounded uh, very interesting
1084. 01:19:24 When was this?
1085. 01:19:25 Uh, this was maybe
1086. 01:19:27 Four or five months ago. Okay. I was thinking maybe you're gonna say four or five years ago
1087. 01:19:32 And I was thinking well, did you get it before you got into productivity? I was curious
1088. 01:19:37 No, but I bought it because I just bought everything that that looked interesting at the at the store
1089. 01:19:44 It's like a good one by the pound
1090. 01:19:46 And uh, it's been on my shelf for a while and uh, I keep I keep looking at it
1091. 01:19:50 I'm like, oh, I need to need to read that because I've heard a little bit of stuff in the broactivity space about
1092. 01:19:54 The power of making lists and checking things off
1093. 01:19:57 And I've not really been able to articulate it really well to some of the other people in my life where I'm kind of like preaching the
1094. 01:20:04 uh preaching the the the benefits of omni focus and stuff like that people
1095. 01:20:08 Well, why should I do that? Like I think this book is gonna have the reasoning behind
1096. 01:20:13 Mm-hmm. All of the whole approach that that I use
1097. 01:20:16 in validation for things that I've done and then also maybe it'll tweak some of the
1098. 01:20:20 Some of the processes and the day-to-day stuff and how I implement it. So
1099. 01:20:24 Um, yeah, I'm looking forward to this and it's by a tool go one day
1100. 01:20:28 Is that how you say it? That's about as close as I could get with it. Okay. Sorry if I mispronounce your your name mr. Go one day
1101. 01:20:36 I'm excited about that one as well. I've been a list maker for a long time
1102. 01:20:40 And I'm getting more and more into checklists. So I'm kind of curious to see
1103. 01:20:44 See if I could do it better or what the I guess I don't think I could fully comprehend or well
1104. 01:20:50 Maybe I can comprehend but I can't articulate how
1105. 01:20:53 Not like what the value is behind it. But this is uh, this is kind of an odd case here, Mike
1106. 01:20:57 We've got these two books are both ones that were recommended to us
1107. 01:21:00 So that's that's kind of fun. It's fun that we can start to pick up some of these that other folks are interested in
1108. 01:21:05 So, you know for the listeners
1109. 01:21:07 If there's one that you want us to get into that we haven't jumped into yet the way that we got those
1110. 01:21:11 Recommendations is through the website. So bookworm.fm
1111. 01:21:15 You can go there in the sidebar
1112. 01:21:16 There's a link for recommend a book or if you want bookworm.fm/recommend so that's how you can get there
1113. 01:21:22 And if you want to see the ones that we have had recommended or the ones we've finished some of them that we're planning
1114. 01:21:27 To get through same place
1115. 01:21:30 Slash list you can see the book list
1116. 01:21:33 On our website as well. So both of those are out there and that's where we're keeping track of all the books in our queue
1117. 01:21:39 And if you enjoy bookworm and you would be willing to do us a small favor
1118. 01:21:45 We would really appreciate it
1119. 01:21:47 If you would go over to itunes and leave us a review because that will help more people
1120. 01:21:53 Find out about the show and hopefully more people can can benefit
1121. 01:21:57 from
1122. 01:21:59 from going through the podcast book club together
1123. 01:22:02 So
1124. 01:22:03 Awesome. So again, the next book up is brain chains
1125. 01:22:06 If you're into a heady
1126. 01:22:09 Long read and you can keep up with us in two weeks. This one will I think it's
1127. 01:22:13 460 some pages long so it's a long one
1128. 01:22:17 So if you want to follow along with us you can pick that one up or if you want to skip this one
1129. 01:22:20 The next one up is the checklist manifesto, but coming up next is brain chain
1130. 01:22:25 So if you want to read along
1131. 01:22:26 We'll jump into that one and we will talk with you next time