What is the 12-Week Year?

The 12-Week Year (Brian Moran & Michael Lennington) is a productivity system that replaces the traditional 12-month planning cycle with a 12-week execution cycle. Instead of setting annual goals and losing momentum partway through the year, you treat every 12 weeks as a “year” with its own vision, goals, weekly tactics, and performance reviews.

The benefits:

• A shorter cycle creates urgency and focus.

• Progress is easier to track with clear weekly milestones.

• You achieve more by executing consistently rather than waiting for long-term results.

Griply is a great fit for this approach, because it connects your vision, goals, subgoals, tasks, and habits into one system, exactly what the 12-Week Year calls for.

Step 1: Start with your vision

In the 12-Week Year, vision is the foundation. It’s about creating a compelling picture of your future: who you want to be, what you want to achieve, and why it matters. This vision drives motivation and gives meaning to your short-term goals.

In Griply, you can capture this by creating a Vision inside each Life Area. For example:

• Work & Career → “I lead a thriving design agency with a remote-first culture.”

• Health & Fitness → “I am strong, energetic, and able to run long distances with ease.”

Pro tip: Keep your vision aspirational, not tactical. Your 12-week goals are the tactical steps, your vision is the “why.”

Step 2: Define your 12-week goals

The book recommends setting 2–4 goals for each 12-week cycle. These should be specific, measurable, and directly linked to your vision.

In Griply, create a new Goal for each of your chosen outcomes, and set the due date 12 weeks out.

Examples:

• “Run a half marathon in under 2 hours” (Health & Fitness)

• “Grow consulting revenue to $15k/month” (Work & Career)

• “Declutter and organize home office” (Personal Development)

Griply supports measurable progress by letting you add a goal metric. These typically map to the book’s lag measures (results you’re aiming for).

Step 3: Translate into lead and lag indicators

The 12-Week Year distinguishes between:

• Lag measures → outcomes (e.g. revenue, race time, weight loss).

• Lead measures → controllable actions that drive results (e.g. sales calls, workouts, calories tracked).

In Griply, you can structure this inside each goal:

• Create a section for Lead Indicators → use tasks or habits here.

• Create a section for Lag Indicators → use a measurable goal metric or milestone tasks.

Pro tip: Always ask: “What actions (lead indicators) will predictably move my lag results?” This is the heart of the 12WY system.

Step 4: Break obstacles and solutions into the plan

The book emphasizes anticipating obstacles, because execution always meets resistance.

In Griply, add a section called Obstacles & Solutions under each goal. List the challenges you expect, and directly note how you’ll handle them.

Example:

• Obstacle: “I might skip runs if work gets busy.”

• Solution: “Run first thing in the morning before checking email.”

Step 5: Identify tactics (weekly actions)

In the 12-Week Year, tactics are the weekly activities you commit to. They’re not vague intentions, but specific repeatable actions.

In Griply, capture tactics as:

• Habits → e.g. “Run 5x per week,” “Daily journaling,” “Reach out to 3 leads.”

• Recurring tasks → e.g. “Weekly long run,” “Sunday review,” “Send client report.”

These are your lead indicators in action.

Step 6: Break down into subgoals (weekly milestones)

To keep momentum, the 12-Week Year suggests dividing your goal into smaller weekly deliverables.

In Griply, you can use Subgoals to represent these milestones.

Example for a half marathon goal:

• Week 01 → Create workout plan

• Week 04 → Run a 10k practice race

• Week 08 → Complete two 18km runs

• Week 12 → Half marathon

Pro tip: Prefix subgoals with “Week 01,” “Week 02,” etc., so they stay in order and support your weekly execution.

Step 7: Plan your week

Every week, the 12-Week Year calls for a Weekly Plan: intentionally scheduling your tactics and prioritizing what matters.

In Griply, you can do this using the Calendar View and Daily Planner:

1. Drag your weekly tasks into specific days.

2. Add your habits so they appear on the right days.

3. Balance against your Google/Outlook Calendar events (via integration).

Step 8: Review weekly & score execution

The 12-Week Year recommends a Weekly Review where you track your execution score. The idea: success comes more from consistent action (lead indicators) than waiting for results (lag indicators).

In Griply, you can:

• Check your Insights Dashboard to see trends.

• Reflect on wins and lessons each week.

• Score yourself weekly (execution %).

Pro tip: Many users create a Weekly Review habit in Griply so it’s never skipped.

Summary

The 12-Week Year shifts focus from planning to execution. Instead of long annual goals, you create a clear vision, define 2–4 measurable 12-week goals, commit to weekly tactics, and review execution relentlessly.

Griply makes this practical by letting you:

• Write down your Vision inside Life Areas.

• Create 12-week goals with measurable metrics.

• Add sections for lead/lag indicators, obstacles, and tactics.

• Use subgoals for weekly milestones.

• Plan your week with the calendar and daily planner.

• Review progress with insights and reflection.

With this setup, you can run effective 12-week cycles inside Griply, staying aligned with the book while using the app’s structure.