There’s an old saying that goes something like this:
If you chase two rabbits, you’ll catch neither.
I’m not sure how often any of us are literally chasing rabbits these days, but the principle feels quite relevant as we’ve now entered the final stretch of the year.
Because most of us aren’t chasing two.
We’re chasing twelve.
There’s the goals we set at the beginning of the year. The projects we started somewhere around spring. The things we meant to sort out over summer. The habits we’re trying to establish. The work that needs doing. The life admin quietly accumulating in the background. And then there’s all the new ideas that have appeared along the way.
By October, it can feel as though we’re dragging an increasingly long string of half-finished intentions behind us.
And that’s when the temptation kicks in:
There are only a few months left. I need to get moving on ALL OF IT.
But experience has taught me that the answer is not to do more.
It’s to decide what matters most.
The difference between movement and progress
One of the most useful questions I’ve been asking myself lately is not How much have I done this year? but:
What have I actually moved forward?
They aren’t necessarily the same thing.
It’s perfectly possible to spend months being incredibly busy while making surprisingly little meaningful progress. Perfectly possible because this is another trap I’ve fallen into myself many a time!
You work on one thing for a while, switch to another, remember something else you’ve neglected, start tackling that, have a new idea, add it to the mix … and somehow everything moves forward by about three centimetres.
There’s plenty of movement.
But not much momentum.
Scattered energy is exhausting because every open project asks something of us. Even when we’re not actively working on it, it occupies a little space in our minds.
I really need to get back to that.
I haven’t done anything about this lately.
I should probably be further along with that by now.
The more things we try to carry at once, the heavier they all seem to become.
Focused energy feels different.
Instead of pushing ten things forward slightly, you choose one or two things that deserve your best attention and allow yourself to make meaningful progress on them.
Not forever … just for now, in this season.
But what about everything else?
This is where prioritising can quickly become uncomfortable.
Because choosing one thing seems to imply not choosing something else.
If I make this my focus, what happens to everything else?
Will I fall behind?
Will those other goals languish?
Am I giving up on them?
Maybe we simply need to remind ourselves what a priority actually is.
A priority doesn’t have to mean:
This is the only thing that matters.
It can simply mean:
This is the thing that gets my best energy in this season.
Life obviously doesn’t stop because we’ve chosen a focus.
We still work, cook dinner, exercise, see people we love, answer emails, look after our homes and deal with whatever unexpected things life throws at us.
And we might also continue making progress on several goals at once.
But they don’t all need equal billing.
Imagine having one major focus for the next 12 weeks.
Something you genuinely want to move forward before the year ends.
Other things can still happen around it. Some will be maintained rather than actively developed. Some can move slowly. Others can be deliberately parked until another season.
Nothing has gone wrong.
You’ve simply decided what gets to go first.
Why I love thinking and acting in 12 week seasons
This is one of the reasons I’ve become such a fan of working in 12 week cycles.
A year is useful for direction, but it’s a very long time for action.
January goals can feel urgent and exciting. By March they’re slightly less shiny. By June, some have quietly disappeared behind everyday life. And by October, we suddenly remember that the end of the year is approaching and start trying to resurrect everything at once.
Twelve weeks, however, feels quite different.
It’s long enough to make meaningful progress, but short enough to create focus.
More importantly, it gives us permission to think in seasons.
Not everything needs to happen now.
One 12 week season might be about growing a business.
Another might be about improving your health.
Another might be about getting your finances organised, writing something, completing a qualification, sorting out your home or simply creating a bit more breathing room in your life.
Your other priorities don’t disappear.
They just don’t all need to be in growth mode at the same time.
Over the course of this year, I’ve got into the habit of saying:
Yes, this matters to me and needs doing – but it doesn’t have to be my focus right now.
Intentional living isn’t about squeezing everything into every season.
It’s about choosing what this season is for.
3 ways to be more intentional with the final 12 weeks
If you want to make the most of the remaining weeks of the year, I don’t think you need to try and tick everything off your to-do list.
You might need the opposite.
- Decide what would make this season feel meaningful
Forget everything you could accomplish before the end of the year for a moment.
Instead, ask yourself:
If I reached the end of December having made real progress in just one area, what would I most want that to be?
Not what would look impressive to you or anyone else.
Not what you think you should choose.
What would genuinely make a difference to your life?
Maybe there’s one project you’ve been circling all year. Maybe there’s something that would make next year easier. Or maybe this season needs to be less about achieving and more about restoring, simplifying or creating stability.
Choose intentionally rather than automatically carrying every unfinished January goal into October.
- Separate your focus from your maintenance
Not everything needs to become a project.
Some areas of life simply need to be maintained while your best energy goes elsewhere.
You might decide that your business is your major focus while your health stays in maintenance mode through a few simple but effective habits.
Or maybe health is your focus, while another project moves forward slowly in the background.
This removes the pressure I always used to feel to make dramatic progress everywhere at once.
Ask yourself:
What am I actively moving forward?
What am I simply maintaining?
What can wait?
Using these three categories alone has helped me to create an enormous amount of clarity – and sleep better at night without my never ending to-do list swirling around my head!
- Protect your attention
Choosing a priority is only the beginning.
The harder part is continuing to choose it.
New ideas will appear. Other people will have requests. Something suddenly interesting will present itself on a random Wednesday morning.
And this is where intentionality becomes less about making the perfect plan and more about returning to what you decided mattered in this season.
Before adding something new, ask:
Does this support what I said this season was about?
If yes, great.
If not, it doesn’t necessarily mean no.
It might simply mean not yet.
Keep somewhere to capture those ideas so you don’t feel you have to act on them immediately. They can become possibilities for another season rather than distractions from this one.
What is this season for?
There’s still plenty of year left.
Enough time to make meaningful progress on something that really matters to you.
But probably not enough time to do everything we once imagined we might do this year!
And perhaps that’s okay.
We don’t need to arrive at 31 December having completed every goal, perfected every habit and cleared every lingering item from our lives.
After all, if you’re anything like me, I tend to grossly over estimate what I can realistically achieve in one year.
Maybe a better measure of the final stretch of the year is simpler:
Did I spend my time and energy on what mattered most?
You can still have many ambitions care about many areas of your life.
You can still have a long list of things you want to create, change, experience and achieve.
You just don’t have to chase them all at once!
So as you step into the final 12 weeks of the year, reframe the usual question:
How much can I fit in before December?
to:
What deserves my best attention now?
Choose your rabbit.
The others will still be there next season!