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With this new, more results-based strategy that is more action-focused, 2023 can be your best year yet.
Most likely, we all take the same approach to annual planning for the upcoming year. The process is as follows:
Think back on the present year.
Identify places for development
Decide what to concentrate on.
Write your 2023 annual goals based on that.
I've had some success with this strategy over the past few years. This, however, required some thought and iteration, just like any other procedure.
I conducted an introspection before beginning my 2023 planning for this reason. I came to the realization that I had had a few recurring issues over the previous few years.
The majority of these issues come down to these:
Instead of making the goals clear and actionable, make them "too broad" or "generic."
Always put things off till later in the year because "the year is not done yet"
Under the mistaken impression that I have "many more months" to complete the tasks.
Rather than examining results all year long, only do it at the conclusion.
Instead of consistently throughout the year, the majority of development is accomplished at the end of the year.
That's where the new strategy steps in. I will be attempting it for the first time this year, so I cannot tell for sure that it will be successful. However, if you experience some of the issues I listed above, I'd encourage you to give this a try as well.
. . .
10,000-Foot View
A "12 Week Planning Approach" is based on a fairly straightforward idea:
Make plans for 12 weeks (or 1 quarter) rather than the entire year.
When it comes to finishing work, 3 months (or 12 weeks) is somewhat of a Goldilocks Zone. You have enough time to make noticeable progress in most of your endeavours.
However, it is brief enough for you to evaluate your success and make changes without wasting the entire year.
You can alter your next quarter's plan and improve it based on how the current quarter is progressing.
Now that you understand the fundamental concept, allow me to outline some advantages that I think this strategy offers over more traditional full-year planning.
. . .
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Benefit from Parkinson's Law
On the basis of Parkinson's Law:
The amount of time needed to complete the work grows the work.
That implies that if you give yourself a year to complete anything, it will likely take you the entire year. Even though the activity or project might be completed in three months, it will take the entire twelve months.
Instead, you are more likely to do something quickly if you give it less time. You must, of course, base your estimates on reality.
It's preferable to divide a task into smaller portions and give each one a brief window of time to be completed.
In keeping with our 12-week planning schedule, if you give yourself a fourth of that time instead of a full year, you'll probably finish it sooner. You will still receive some useful feedback even if you don't finish it sooner rather than later.
If not, you will simply have to wait until the entire year is over before you can consider why it took so long or why you weren't able to accomplish it.
. . .
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Avoid The Planning Fallacy's Trap
In line with the planning fallacy theory:
The planning fallacy describes our tendency to underestimate the time, expenses, and risks necessary to execute a task, even when those estimates conflict with our past experiences.
You are more likely to fall into the planning fallacy trap the more general and ambiguous your plan is.
Let's look at how a 12-week planning strategy can assist you avoid this now.
Let's say losing 30 pounds is one of your 2023 objectives.
The goal of your plan, if you are still utilizing the traditional 12-month (or 1-year) planning method, will be "to lose 30 pounds over the next 12 months."
You do not account for all the peaks and valleys you might experience over the year. You simply "feel" that losing 30 pounds in a year should be doable. As each month passes, you take a peek at the calendar and, regardless of the advancement you have made, you assume that it is still feasible because there are X months left. Everything seems conceivable.
With this strategy, it's extremely possible that you will fall well short of your objective at the end of the year.
Instead, let's apply the 12-week strategy in this case.
Your objective should be to lose 7.5 pounds every 12 weeks. As a result, your time horizon is less and your aim goal is more modest.
This manner, your plan is more specific. You may divide it up into smaller tasks, such as losing .5 pounds per week.
You can do a retrospective after the 12 weeks are over to assess your progress. If you don't meet your target by the end of the quarter, you may either adjust your overall aim to be more realistic or develop a plan that is more aggressive for the next 12 weeks.
Shorter planning cycles increase the likelihood of producing definite plans with doable tasks. By doing this, you have a better chance of avoiding the planning fallacy.
. . .
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Reduced Feedback Cycle
Feedback is the key ingredient in the improvement recipe.
You improve more quickly the more input you absorb.
If you make yearly plans, it's likely that you won't see any results until the end of the year. That entails a significantly longer feedback cycle for your life's routines and processes as well as your goals.
With a 12-week planning cycle, you should receive feedback within the next three months. With that information, you can adjust your goals or improve your life's procedures to accomplish them more quickly in the next quarter.
You will have gone through four planning cycles by the end of the year, which is four times the amount of feedback you would have normally gotten.
Regular check-ins also help you be honest and practical about your objectives.
. . .
Bias Towards Actionable Projects
Compared to 52 weeks, 12 weeks is a considerably shorter period of time.
A 12-week approach will increase the likelihood that the tasks you develop will be actionable and result-focused compared to a 52-week approach.
A one-year project is more likely to be undefined and unfinished. It won't be sufficiently concentrated.
Projects that are shorter are more likely to be measurable and objective. You have a better chance of finishing them. Giving yourself a whole year makes you more vulnerable to Parkinson's Law and the planning fallacy, as was previously discussed.
. . .
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No, you won't have to turn into a superhero.
Nothing is wrong with having faith, however, we all have too much faith in our future selves. That is the main reason we put things off.
For some reason, we tend to believe that our future selves will handle tasks that our present selves are currently unable to complete. We believe that we will have superpowers in the future that we do not.
This plays perfectly into the hands of a 52-week planning approach.
We will continue to put off what we need to accomplish now in the hopes that we will figure it out closer to the end of the year because we have such a large time horizon in mind.
However, if you use a 12-week strategy, you are less inclined to put things off and more likely to complete them right away. If the future you are looking at is only a few weeks from now, your future self won't look as heroic.
. . .
I sincerely hope you learned something from this and now feel inspired to use what you learned in your great lives.
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Piece by Tanya Gordon, author of over 15 eBooks. She is Certified in NLP (how we operate), Hypnotherapy (unconscious communication) and Timeline Therapy (recognizing your beliefs about mindset and sales (money) – and recognizing that of your customer). She has studied the psychology of human behaviour and has proven absolute authority and a true expert on mindset and sales techniques. She has ‘walked the walk‘ so her content and programs are highly practical and focused on results.
THE REAL eSTATE ™ PLAYGROUND IS A MINDSET AND SALES COACHING FOR FEMALE REAL ESTATE AGENTS.
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