2022 truly felt like the year I let get away from me. I’m not sure if anyone else was feeling this, but between travel and events picking up and more of a sense of normalcy in 2022, there was a lot of “catching up” to do. 

Catching up with friends.

Catching up with your favorite bands. 

Catching up by trying all the new restaurants that opened up.

You get the idea. We missed out for a couple of years and then when the opportunity came to return to normal, it became excess. I closed out 2022 feeling burnt out, stressed, and unable to take a break.

And that’s why my focus in 2023 is on being intentional with my time and making sure that where I spend my time, money, and energy is only on the MOST important things to me. 

But, when I was brainstorming all that 2023 had to offer and what I wanted to do, I found myself getting overwhelmed. And that’s when I realized I was setting myself up for the same problems, building my schedule around others or wanting to do too many things all at once. 

Enter the 12-week year. 

In the 12-week year, you have 12 weeks to focus on your top three priorities. After 12 weeks you can change it up, keep it the same, or scrap the entire program if it isn’t serving you.

After I decided on my top three goals for these next 12 weeks I made a master list that I will be using every day for the next 12 weeks.

I listed out what daily tasks I needed to do, and what bigger weekly tasks I need to focus on. Having these guidelines helps me be intentional with my time by making it clear what needs to get done, without constantly adding new things and burning out. At the end of each week, I try to review and reflect on how the week went, and make sure to adjust where needed. 

By selecting my top three goals it makes it easier to decide how I want to spend my time and money and energy to support them. So if a travel opportunity, event, or purchase doesn’t support these three goals then it’s a little easier to turn it down. Or if my time is being taken away by something else I have listed as low importance (time spent scrolling) I know it’s time for a check-in to figure out how to re-prioritize. 

It’s just a nice reminder that I see daily. Because the reality is that there are so many distractions in our day-to-day lives that it’s no wonder we don’t read the books we want to read or bake the cake recipe that’s intimidating, or whatever it is that’s been put on the back burner. 

There are probably a few different ways to structure your 12-week year but I used a simple pre-made template. I modified it, built my own rules, and have found it really simple to update.

You can download the template I use here, and I highly recommend following the creator of this template. She shares amazing notion tutorials!

Disclaimer: I am posting this only 2 weeks into my 12-week year program and am still liking it! I think the key here is having weekly check-ins to set up your daily to-dos and weekly goals AND putting less on your list than you think (tiny changes = big results).