12-Minute and Your Career (Revisited)

The 12-Minute Series was originally posted in 2012.

We’ve decided to republish it integrally because we believe it can still help as everyone aspires to make things better.

Let’s hope it stirs up the discussion and stimulates you to change the world 12-Minute at a time!

This article was originally posted on November 12, 2012

The 12-Minute Approach offers you a multitude of techniques to improve your job and career.

Here are some ideas we hope will inspire you on the way to becoming real happy and efficient professionals in your respective fields.

Achieve A Little More Each Day

A quick and easy way to start improving right away is to take 12-Minute to accomplish one simple extra action each day.

Try to evolve by taking one different action that really counts. This single additional task is pretty simple to implement.

It should slowly but surely spread improvement around you without disturbing you too much. After a while, you’ll be able to incorporate another new action in your routine. And so on…Little by little, you will adapt and things will get better without disrupting your routine excessively.

In the long haul, this simplistic approach can have a huge impact.

Let’s hope this simple but effective method encourages you go the extra mile!   

Another great way to accomplish a little more during your day is to break down your schedule into 12-Minute Periods instead of the classic 15-minute ones.

Every hour, you’ll now have 5 Periods instead of only 4, allowing you to do more. You may even find time to squeeze an extra action here and there.

After a while, this 12-Minute Technique will also free up some time to take more breaks, relieving stress and becoming even more productive. 

Organize Your Day

Speaking of organizing yourself, a nice trick to be better organized is to begin every morning by taking 12-Minute to plan you day. It shouldn’t take too long to stop and do this; an efficient 12-Minute Period every day is plenty to stay well organized.

Some people prefer to schedule this «organize your day» action just before they leave at night. This way, by sleeping over it, their brain may subconsciously start working on tomorrow’s problems.

It’s not important whether your do it to begin or end your day, just do it when it better suits you.

To remain happy and efficient, you should plan to complete an average of 12 significant tasks every day.

This can be an adequate way to measure if you had a good day. You know you’re on the right track when you completed about 12 relevant actions in your workday.

But if you accomplished much less than 12 meaningful tasks in your day, maybe you could have done a bit more. By opposition, if you completed much more than 12 tasks, maybe you did too much and should ease it a little to ensure you can maintain pace in the long run.

As we discussed several time before, to stay efficient and happy in the long haul, you should aim to evenly balance time spent between your needs and activities.

Thus, on average, you should invest about 12 hours per day taking care of your needs (eat, sleep, dress, rest…) and 12 hours realizing your activities (work, study, read, play…).     

Use Projects and Goals to Boost Your Career

An effective system to motivate yourself is to establish goals, to plan and realize projects along your journey.

Make a habit of breaking down each project to an average of 12 main steps. That way, when you take a quick glance at it, your brain will be able to process it adequately.

If you present more than 12 steps at once, maybe some of them could be grouped together to simplify the overall scope of the project.

If you originally have much less than 12 main steps for a project, maybe it’s not detailed enough or it doesn’t add up the a meaningful project after all. Smaller projects could simply be treated as tasks or incorporated with other projects to amount to a significant one.

In the same matter, each step of a project should include an average of 12 tasks. And so on and so forth…Again, use sub-tasks or regroup tasks if necessary.

This 12-Unit Approach may not be compelling at first but it constitutes a very powerful way to maximize project management. It will be especially useful and effective when you present projects to others or when you have to choose the next action to take place.  

Be sure to establish intermediate goals, they may be easier to attain and they will surely motivate you to continue progressing.

We will leave you today with something to reflect on: a list that summarizes everything to us. Hope it inspires you to evolve in your great career in a happy and effective 12-Minute Way! 

• 12 Tasks each Day…
• 12 Days to start noticing Improvement…
• 12 Monthly Intermediate Goals…
• 12 Weeks for Proper Training…
• 12 Weeks to complete a Meaningful Project…
• 12 Months to implement a Significant Change…
• 12 Important Goals in a Year…
• 12 Years to master a Domain…
• 12 Main Life or Career Goals…

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