First 2022 12 Week Year In the Bag
As I come to the end of my first 12 Week Year of 2022, I want to take a look back on how the last three months have gone. I find myself always wanting to review and learn from the past, but never actually taking the time to do it. For this blog post, I want to use it as a way to force me to really do the proper 13th week review that I need to do in order to set myself up for a successful new 12 Week Year.
If you remember from my previous posts about the 12 Week Year framework for productivity and goal management, the plan is to spend 12 weeks working hard toward your goals (like you would at the end of a full year) and then the 13th week is meant for reflection and planning. I love this week, but it always seems to slip by me without actually doing any planning and reviewing. With this post, I’ll go over some of my successes from the last 12 weeks and then a few “areas of opportunity”.
One of my biggest successes for this first 12 Week Year of 2022 was my blog posting. In the last few years I have been VERY inconsistent with my blog posts, disappearing for months or even almost a year just to return, write a few more posts, and then stop again. At the end of 2021, I decided it was time to go all in or not write this blog at all. To set myself up for success, I started writing blog posts in advance, so that when it came time to post a blog update, I already had the post ready. I did this very successfully during the first 12 weeks of the year. Even more amazing, I travelled for 10 days with family and I had everything prepped and ready so that all I had to do was push “publish” and it was all posted. I have NEVER been that prepared before outside of work, so that felt great.
Another area of success for my 12 Week Year was my workouts and nutrition. I am two days away from completing one of my favorite 13-week workout programs and I plan to start another 13-week program on Monday. Also, I finally started counting macros, which is something I have always wanted to try since seeing the results others have had. Counting macros really opened my eyes to the fact that I was rarely (if ever) hitting my protein goals. Once I focused on hitting the protein levels I was looking for, I finally started seeing the changes I wanted to see. Even more, I found out that I REALLY love salads (with yogurt ranch, some cheddar, pepitas, and lots of veggies) so I started eating one every night with dinner (even when we have breakfast for dinner!) I am addicted to that flavor of the ranch and cheddar and YUM. Finally, I stopped being so restrictive with my intermittent fasting and allowing myself to eat earlier if I feel hungry. All of these changes have increased my energy and I’m feeling much better than I did last fall.
A final big success I had during this 12 Week Year was sticking to my cleaning and decluttering plan. Although I did fall off somewhat leading up to vacation (hello packing, packing and more packing), I found myself knocking out all of my cleaning and decluttering tasks most weeks. To think that on a Saturday night (the last day of my week to finish that week’s tasks) I sometimes found myself dusting and decluttering a kitchen drawer was not usual for me, to say the least! One of my biggest takeaways was that I tend to build tasks up in my head and think they will take me all night, when really, once I do the task it ends up being only five minutes! I have many five minutes to spare, so It’s important that I just get started.
Now, on to the “opportunities for improvement”. Although I did keep up with blog prepping during the 12 weeks, I already find myself slipping a little bit this month. I don’t have the number of posts outlined and prepped that I normally do at the end of a month, and that causes me to worry that I’m going to fall back into my old ways. Plus, there were many other blog-related tasks that I wanted to accomplish during this 12 Week Year that I didn’t get to at all. That tells me it’s either not a priority, or I added too many items to my plate and I need to back off.
Another opportunity for improvement with the next 12 Week Year is my side projects. I have three coding projects that I’ve been wanting to finish now for many, many years. One of them involves using Unity and the other two will most likely be mobile apps. For some reason, I just can’t find the time or energy to work on them. The one project using Unity is hard for me to get back into because I haven’t used Unity for a while. I first started the project without any training but lost interest since I didn’t understand a lot of things. Then, when the pandemic started, I went through some tutorials and trainings and started working on the project again. However, the summer was busy and I feel like I lost any gains I made. Ugh. My other two projects have never really gotten off the ground. I keep adding them to my 12 Week Year plan every time, and they never move forward. It’s time to really make some decisions, my least favorite thing.
Overall, I think it was an okay first 12 weeks of the year. I know myself and I know I always go into a new year all hyped up and ready to doamillionthings and besuperproductiveeverydayweee, and then reality shows me what’s really up. For this next 12 Week Year, I think I can keep the same number of tactics in my planning spreadsheet, but I need to focus on making the “pieces” smaller. I really need to break some of my bigger tactics down into very small tasks so that I can literally complete something in 5 minutes or less and call it a win. I think for my blog prep, if I know exactly what I need to do next, five minutes here and there can be enough to add to an outline or write a few paragraphs. For my side coding projects, I really lack a project plan. When I do find time to sit down and work on them, I don’t even know where to start or what to do, and then my time is up and I’m chasing kids again. If I had a well-thought-out plan, I could sit down, look at the next task on my list, and work on it.
In closing, I really can’t wait for this next 12 weeks. I plan to keep up my nutrition by revisiting macro counting (maybe just focusing on the weekdays), start a new workout program that I haven’t done before, start running outside again in preparation for a few 5Ks I want to run, plan out my side projects and blog work very detailed so I’m more ready when I do find some time, and to keep up with my decluttering and cleaning tasks. Here’s to a great April, May and June!
What are your goals for the next few months? I’d love to hear them below!
