Hello guys,
I've read The 12 Week Year and most of it wasn't new. But 3 ideas in it are worth stealing, especially if you have ADHD - and one of them is doing something the authors never name.

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1. Set a 12-week goal, not a yearly one

A reward loses its pull the further away it sits. Everyone works this way; but in ADHD the drop-off is much steeper. A goal 12 months out has almost no motivational weight left by the time it reaches you on a Tuesday. But 12 weeks is close enough to still pull.

2. Pick one goal. Not three.

The book says one to three. That’s a reasonable rule of thumb, not a finding (i.e., there is no research behind this number) so I’m ignoring the top end :) If you have ADHD you probably already know the pattern - nothing at all, or complete obsession. So choose the obsession deliberately, and give it 3 months.

3. Break it into a weekly target.

This is the part the book doesn’t emphasise enough. If you only hold the 12-week version, you’ll do it all in week 11, or you’ll postpone the start until the quarter is gone. A weekly target is the smallest unit that still has a deadline attached.

4. Attach a reward to the week, not the quarter.

Same reason as point one. If the only payoff is 12 weeks out, it’s already been discounted to nothing. Bring the payoff close enough to be worth something.

5. Write down why you care - and put it where you can see it.

This is the one that decides whether the rest works. When starting gets uncomfortable, the immediate cost of acting feels bigger than the eventual benefit - so you need something with emotional weight on the other side of the scale. Not “be more consistent.” The actual feeling. Mine is that I want evidence it’s possible, so I can stop asking.

6. Frame the whole thing as an experiment, not a habit.

A habit is indefinite, vague, and based on someone else’s evidence that it works. An experiment has a set duration, one clear action, and produces data about you. It runs on curiosity rather than discipline - which, if you have ADHD, is the better fuel.

My experiment: film one long-form video a week, from 13 September to 29 November. Film, not publish - that distinction matters. Twelve weeks, then I evaluate against batching.

I’ll report back with the actual numbers, including if it goes badly :)

P.S. Today is week 6 of the experiment. So far, I’ve stuck to the agreement, and I can feel filming getting easier as I become more consistent. But I can also feel the complete lack of a real routine ;/ I’m only doing it because I said I would, and right now it feels like I’ll go back to my randomness once it’s over. I hope I’m wrong.

Evie

EvieRan MSc in Psychology · University-trained coach · Author