This summer, I tried a 6 week + 2 week work cycle for the first time. And I loved it enough that I’m doing it again.
Here’s what is it: make plans and goals for a 6 week time frame, and give yourself 2 weeks of buffer afterward to tie up loose ends, rest, and plan for your next cycle. I first heard about this approach to short-term planning on Jocelyn K. Glei’s podcast Hurry Slowly and was inspired to try it out when my friend Nicole Roccas made a detailed how-to guide and template for the cycle.
Here’s what I loved about the 6 week + 2 week work cycle:
1. It gave me a starting line and a finish line.
I love a fresh start because it signals a time to think about my work and the overall shape of my life. Am I doing what is important to me? Am I creating a life that fully reflects my values?
While I take stock of my big picture around the first of the year and try to reevaluate every quarter, those milestones are far apart from each other. But refocusing every 8 weeks is more manageable. The recent past and the near future are close enough to keep my priorities in mind and prevent important but not pressing things (like book writing) from sliding out of view.
2. It gave me a midpoint and a buffer zone.
Until reading Daniel H. Pink’s new book When this summer, I didn’t think of a midpoint as a important part of a project or timeline. But a midpoint is a great time to gauge where you are in a project, reevaluate if needed, and reenergize yourself as you move toward the finish line.
~Check out the 5 books I loved this summer here!~
Besides gaining a chronological midpoint to my cycle, I also gained a 2 week buffer zone. In those weeks, I wrapped up loose ends like finishing projects I didn’t want lingering into a new cycle. And just as importantly, I took time to rest and think about my next cycle.
3. It forced me to break big projects into manageable pieces.
I have many big/long-term projects in my work life and home life—writing a book, managing the arch of a program year in my church’s music program, producing a 30-episode podcast season, just to name a few (oh, and I moved in May and the dust has barely settled). Of course, none of those are 6-week projects. But within the big projects are a myriad of smaller ones. For my cycle, I planned legs of the trip that take me closer to my long-term destination.
4. It forced me to articulate my priorities.
When I discovered that I would need to spend a large chunk of time moving and reorganizing the choir room at my new church, I decided to drop some of my other projects from my cycle. Having an organized musical space and filing systems are pretty foundational to a successful music program, so I needed to put that toward the top of my priorities (and postpone other things to do so).
Because I had all my goals for the cycle written down, I also kept tabs on what I didn’t do. Rather than having an amorphous “I’ll get to it eventually” goal, a 6 week timeline forced me to reckon the things I didn’t get to. (Were they not really important? If they are really important, what barriers are in the way and how can I remove them?)
5. I could postpone less pressing to-dos without forgetting about them.
In the past, I had a hard time letting go of things that needed to happen in the near future but not immediately. Because they needed to happen in a few weeks, they felt like they needed to be on my active to-do list. But now I have a running list of “do next cycle” items. I won’t forget about them, but they aren’t cluttering up my active mental space either.
