Back in January, I made the goal to read 30 books in 2018.

Well, it's mid-April and I am in the middle of books number SIX and SEVEN.

Book number six is The 7 Experiment (Jen Hatmaker).

And book number seven is The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact (Michael Fullan).

I will post a completed list at year-end, but for today, I would love to talk to you about the book I finished just last week, The 12-Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Get Done in 12 Months (Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington).

I immediately downloaded it and started listening to it that night.

Wow.

The concepts in the book were so obvious and yet, I needed to hear them so badly.

How many of us wake up on January 1st every single year with so many hopes and dreams for the year?

We make goals (New Years' Resolutions, if you will), whether on paper or in our heads.

There are so many things we want to accomplish by December 31st, and yet by the time February hits, adequate progress towards most of our goals has not been made.

We don't have to work too hard in January and February because December is still SO...FAR...AWAY.

We push through March and April, making excuses as to why we are not moving towards our goals.

It's so cold.

When it warms up, I will get to work on those goals.  I promise!

When the school year ends, I'll have so much more time to focus on my plans.

There's still PLENTY of time to meet my goals before the end of the year!  We're not even halfway through the year!

May, June, and July come and go.

The summer is just so busy.  When school starts, I'll be able to focus more.

It's too hot!

Summer is for rest and relaxation.

By the time we hit August and September, we are ready to get the kids back into the routine of school and get to work on those "New Years' resolutions"!

But it's just crazy when everyone is trying to get back into the grind of school.

On October 1st, it hits us...we only have three more months to reach our goals.

We start to get a glimpse of the urgency that is needed if we're going to hit our goals before January 1st, but by this point...it feels like it's too late.

We'll try again next year.

With all of the changes coming in our life over the next six months, I knew that I needed to get it together.

I'll be starting a new job on August 1st and life will be different at the farmhouse at that time if we don't start to mark some things off of our giant to-do list.

The basic premise of the 12-week year is that we get rid of our "annualized" thinking when it comes to goal-setting and working towards making our vision for our life a reality.

We start to think of each 12-week section of time as a year.

Instead of putting off tasks until the end of the year when the urgency starts to take over, we keep that sense of urgency year-round, while setting realistic goals and focusing on the execution of daily tasks to help us reach our desired result.

"If you want to know what your future holds, look at your current daily actions. Those are the best predictor of your future.  Not your hopes and dreams and visions. Your daily action. Because daily action is what moves a person forward."

We can have the most well thought-out vision and the most wonderful plan in the world.

However, if we don't execute well...none of that matters.

So remember as you think about your vision, your goals, and your plan that we need to also think about the effectiveness of our execution.

We have to DO the hard work every stinking day.  Even when we don't feel like it.

We are in Week 2 of our first 12-week year and we are LOVING the results we are seeing.

I'm going to take you through the process of how Mr. Farmhouse and I ​set up our first 12 weeks.

This is, in no way, a substitution for you reading the actual book and following the plan. 

​But I'm hoping it can at least inspire you to get started!

1. Write out your personal vision for your life 10 or 15 years down the road.

Be specific!  Close your eyes and picture the life you've always dreamed about!  There's no goal too lofty.  Just write it all down!

2. Based on that vision, think about what parts of that vision you could work towards for the next three years.

We are zooming in at this point.  

We're taking that lifelong vision and breaking it into more measurable and attainable chunks.  ​

We went through our vision and wrote some attainable goals.

I'm not going to share every single part of our personal family vision because your vision should be your own.

However, on our long-term vision, we wrote that we want to be completely debt-free in ten years.

So for our three-year plan, we want to work towards having everything paid off except for the farmhouse and my student loans.

3. Based on your three-year goals, set goals for the next 12 weeks.

We are zooming in even farther at this point.

What can we do to move ourselves closer to meeting that long-term vision and that three-year goal in the next three months?

At this point, we broke down our 12-week plan into fourteen very specific, small, and attainable goals.

It includes blogging goals, a plan to get my classroom completely cleaned out before I move into an office next year, and a plan for our first garden here at the farmhouse.

On this step, be specific. 
Be detailed. 
And be realistic.

4. Create a weekly plan including activity that needs to be completed every week to help you reach your goals.

We did this on the Sunday evening before we started into our first week.

These are very specific tasks that will move you toward your 12-week goals.

Here's an example of this from our 12-week year.

We want to finish the wall and closet for the fourth bedroom.

During week 1, we needed to measure the closet and wall space and make a materials list.  We needed to order the supplies from Sutherland's.  These are the only two tasks for that goal that we could realistically finish in Week 1.

But we finished those two tasks and moved farther along in the process than we have in the last six weeks.

We aren't putting that task it off any longer because now it seems manageable. 
It seems attainable.

We can do this!

5. Every single week, check your progress from the previous week and plan the next week.

This part is crucial to the success of the 12-week year.

What daily action did you carry out regarding each goal?
How much progress did you make towards your goals?
Were you diligent in doing the hard work every single day?

If not...OWN IT and vow to do better this week!

After checking your progress, make a new weekly plan!

In the book, Moran talks about three different blocks of time we need to religiously schedule each week.

Strategic Blocks - 3 hours of protected time early in the week where you knock out a lot of your weekly activity work  (1 time per week)
Buffer Blocks - 30 minutes to one hour blocks of time where you do those mundane yet necessary daily tasks like checking emails and social media (1-2 times per day)
Breakout Blocks - 3 hours of time later in the week where you BREAKOUT of the work cycle and focus on pouring back into yourself (1 time per week)

I tried this schedule this week and could not believe how much more I was able to accomplish during that first strategic block when I wasn't distracted by emails, my phone, or other daily (sometimes meaningless) tasks that I spend so much time on each week.

Week 13 in the 12-week year is for reflection and celebration!

Because you're not thinking about the annual goals that are looming over you, you are able to be more focused on a few attainable goals and the tasks that will get you to the end result you desire.

I would encourage you to grab the book or at the very least, try to plan your own 12-week year soon.

You won't be sorry.

Happy Windy Saturday from the farmhouse, friends.

Week 2...here we come!

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When we moved into the farmhouse, the upstairs consisted of one bedroom and an open loft area.

The whole upstairs is in a plus-sign shape, so there was the potential for three smaller "rooms".

We needed one more bedroom to give the girls each their own rooms, so we will finally build a wall in the next few weeks to give Harlee some privacy. We also added a bathroom, so the girls could have their own bathroom up there.

The leftover loft space became our farmhouse playroom.

And now....the moment you've all been waiting for...the Room Reveal for our Farmhouse Playroom.

To be quite honest, this room has already evolved a bit since we moved in last July. 

We had originally planned to have the Barbies and doll clothes housed upstairs, but with the older two girls having bedrooms up there and our three-year-old downstairs, that setup just didn't make sense anymore.

So we moved the Barbie house downstairs to Mattie's bedroom and made the playroom a little more functional for the preteens.

For nine years at the old house, we tried to carve out a place for the girls to relax that was "their own".

First, we had a nursery in one bedroom and a playroom in the other.

When we brought Baby #2 home, the playroom got changed into a "big girl bedroom" for Baby #1 and the toys stayed in there.

We put the girls together eventually and moved the playroom to where the nursery had originally been.

When Baby #3 came home, the playroom became a nursery/playroom combo.

Before we moved out here to the farmhouse, we even tried to put all three girls in one room to sleep and have the toys and desks in the other.

It just never worked out quite like we had pictured.

Until now.

The farmhouse playroom is all I had ever hoped for.

It sits opposite the new bathroom, with the older girls' bedrooms on either side.

When Harlee's wall is complete and the new bathroom has a door, I will do a walk-through of the whole upstairs.

Can't wait to share it with you SOON!

Happy Sunny Saturday from the Farmhouse, friends!

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I've got some new readers, so I thought I might take the opportunity to introduce myself a little more formally and give a little background on life as we know it.

My name is Hannah and this is my blog...Farmhouse654.

I've been married to Mr. Farmhouse for almost 14 years.  We started out life in an adorable two-bedroom home in town and stayed there for over two years, before moving to a ranch-style home on four acres outside of town.  We did lots of updates to that home and property and absolutely loved every minute there.  We were completely content, except for the fact that our three girls shared two bedrooms and it was getting just a little bit tight as they continued to grow.

We had so many great memories in that house. 

We brought all three of our daughters home there. 
We raised bottle-calves, pigs, and chickens there. 
We spent 10 Christmas mornings there.

We made updates to the house, added a few outbuildings, and even survived a tornado that picked up one of our barns and threw it to the other side of the property.

Our second home was such a special part of our journey.

However, in May of 2017, an opportunity presented itself for us to sell that home and buy a farmhouse on ten acres.

So in July of last year (after some bumps in the road), we made the farmhouse our home.

And that was the start of Farmhouse654.

Now...a little background on the wife & mom of the family who lives here.

Mr. Farmhouse and I grew up right here in this town. 

We are hometown kids and I can't imagine raising our girls anywhere else.

Our girls are eleven, (almost) nine, and three.

They are so alike and so different in so many ways.

We love Jesus and love our church.

We believe that God's calling for us is to love Him and to love people.

We try hard to do this, but fail miserably a lot of the time.  We're thankful for grace!

I've been a teacher for the last twelve years and will be leaving the classroom in May to move into the position of the Director of Special Services in the district where I currently teach.  I run a photography business on the side and work for my parents, who own group homes for adults with disabilities.

We are busy and blessed.

The girls are involved in our church, play sports, take dance classes, and enjoy piano & guitar lessons once a week.  

We love to be outdoors and spend time often just sitting around in lawn chairs in the back yard watching the girls play basketball or shoot skeet.

When I have some free time, I like to document our journey through this blog.

So there you have it.

Some of where we've been and where we are now.

Someday I'll tell you all about where we're headed...our goals and dreams for the farmhouse.

But for today, I'll just go rock our sweet Mattie-girl while we watch another Barbie movie.

Make it a great Monday, friends.

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