Have you ever tried to start a project at work in November or December? Even if you haven’t tried, you probably know this is one of the worst times to start anything. Everyone in your life—your colleagues, your family, your partner—is running around trying to finish what they set out to do earlier that year or that quarter. Over 40% of Americans report increased stress levels between November and January as the year draws to a close. 

Why is this? One factor is urgency. After twelve months of procrastinating on a project, people often find themselves rushing to complete what they set out to do at the beginning of the year. We often know how to achieve our goals. If, at the beginning of January, you decide you want to be in a relationship by the end of the year, you know you need to go out on dates and introduce yourself to new people. If you want to hit a specific number of sales by the end of the year, you know you need to make sales calls and reach out to a certain number of past clients. Yet, it’s not uncommon to put off these tasks until we feel a sense of urgency. Urgency is a huge motivator. It may be the one thing that encourages us to revisit our goals from months prior and finally do the work to check those goals off our list. 

One of the reasons many people fail to reach their goals is because the time ahead of them stretches on. A year is a long time. Even two or three months is a long time if you are doing something and not seeing any progress. If you have a five-year or ten-year goal, you have even more opportunities to procrastinate, lose motivation, and drop your goal completely.

What if you could complete your goal within three months? What if you didn’t have to work for an entire year to reach your yearly goal? 

This is the idea behind Qeap. 

What Is Qeap? 

Qeap is a thirteen-week bias-for-action program that rewires your brain and timeline so you can achieve more, faster. By condensing your year into a thirteen-week Qeap and following Qeap’s seven principles, you will accelerate toward your goals.

Thirteen weeks is one-quarter of a 52-week year. If you want to start your first Qeap the week of January 1, you can fit four Qeaps into a full calendar year. That being said, you can start your Qeap at any time. You don’t have to wait until the beginning of Q1, Q2, Q3, or Q4. As long as you allocate one week for planning and 12 weeks for taking action, you can complete your Qeap. 

You can work toward any outcome with Qeap, no matter how concrete it may be. If you want to: 

• Build a better relationship with your mother
• Lose ten pounds 
• Close more client deals 
• Drink more water
• Make more money 

…you can do it with Qeap. 

The Value of Qeap 

Qeap is a mind shift.

The United States has an obesity problem. Even though everyone knows how to lose weight—eat healthier foods and be more active—not everyone does the work. We sometimes get caught up in the planning and forget to actually do the things that help us reach our goals. 

The first of Qeap’s seven principles is “bias for action.” Starting tasks promptly is of utmost importance. After all, it is the determining factor of whether you get results. You will not achieve your goal if you do not act! With this shift in mindset, you will find yourself “doing” more than just thinking about doing. 

Qeap builds motivation and a sense of urgency. 

Have you ever noticed that people always rush to get things done before the holidays? Once October and November hit, people begin to answer your emails faster and frequently ask about your progress on certain projects. They feel a sense of urgency to check things off their list that they may not feel in April, May, or July. 

Qeap condenses the year into four Qeaps. With only one week of planning and twelve weeks of action to complete what you would normally complete in twelve months, you feel that end-of-year sense of urgency as soon as the new year begins. You do not have to wait until November or December to feel that sense of urgency, encouraging you to act on tasks and goals more often than you would if you had the whole year ahead of you. 

Qeap gives you three extra chances to reach your goal.

Maybe you do not reach your “New Year’s Resolution” by the end of your Qeap. That’s okay. You have three more chances to fulfill it. 

With four Qeaps a year, you have four opportunities to reach your goal. More importantly, you have four opportunities to reflect on the previous Qeap. If you did not reach your goal, you can try again with the knowledge of the previous Qeap. 

Qeap teaches you to prioritize ruthlessly. 

How can you fit a year’s worth of action and achievement into three months? You prioritize ruthlessly. 

Many experts believe that strategy requires you to say “no” more than it requires you to say “yes.” Qeap is not about working harder. It is about working smarter. If you only have twelve weeks to achieve something, you are going to have to make some tough decisions and narrow your focus on the things that will bring you toward your goal.

Steve Jobs might agree. At a Worldwide Developers Conference in 1997, he said this: 

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundreds of other good ideas that exist. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

You have to say “no” to the good things to say “yes” to the great things. Qeap will help you do this. 

How to Prioritize Ruthlessly

At the beginning of the summer, I asked my son what he was going to achieve during his time off of school. He told me he was going to:

• Get his license 
• Get a job
• Build a game 
• Work out more 

I told him that this was a lot to achieve in just over two months. Didn’t he want to narrow things down to one or two items? He said no. We went back and forth for a while, but ultimately he chose to pursue all four goals. 

The summer is now over. He did get his license, and he finished most of the game, but that’s about it. Based on his initial goals, he didn’t get a lot done. But from my perspective, I know how much he did. He’s a hard worker. He’s motivated. He wasn’t lazy this summer, he just put too much time into other goals that he ultimately wasn’t going to achieve. 

When you prioritize ruthlessly, you put your effort into one or two big goals to increase your likelihood of achieving them throughout the Qeap. 

How You Qeap 

The Language of Qeap

To complete a Qeap, first you have to speak its language. This is the language of Qeap, starting from the most broad terms to the most specific. 

What Is An Outcome? 

Let’s say you want to feel more connected to your partner. This is an outcome that you want to achieve. When you follow Qeap, your outcome is your goal. If you succeed, your outcome will result in what you want to see in your life. 

You cannot always control outcomes. In this example, your partner plays a big role in how you ultimately feel at the end of the Qeap. This is why Qeap ruthlessly prioritizes action. Throughout the Qeap, you will do what you can to get closer to your goal. 

What Is an Action?

How do you become more connected to your partner? Well, you could spend an hour with them tomorrow. Or, if your goal is to close a sales deal, you could follow up with ten old clients and propose a new deal. These are actions that you can achieve. They are completely within your control. When you are following Qeap, you would consider these to be the actions you take to achieve your goal. 

These actions will change and adjust as you go through the Qeap. 

Week 0 (Happy New Qeap!)

The first week of the Qeap is actually “Week 0.” During this time, you plan for the Qeap, reflect on the previous Qeap (if you just completed one), and begin identifying your actions and outcomes.

Yes, Qeap has a bias for action. It is important to prioritize action over planning. But by dedicating this initial week to planning, you can identify your goals and start moving in the right direction on the first day of Week 1. As philosopher Alfred Montapert once said, “Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.” 

Think of it this way: if you start driving with no destination, you will certainly go somewhere, but it may not be the right place. Take the time to “put your destination in Google Maps” (set your goals) and review your directions (identify your actions) before you start driving. 

If you just completed a Qeap, this is the time to ask yourself: 

• What did my action scores look like each week? 
• What was the average action score of the previous Qeap?
• What went well?
• What didn’t go well?
• Was I successful? 
• How am I going to change?
• What actions should I continue pursuing, and what new ones can I try? 
• Do I need to find more time to complete my actions? 
• What can I delegate? 

It is important to anchor yourself in the Qeap you have just entered and look at what you are going to do to be able to make progress during the Qeap or in the long term. 

This is a flexible system. In Week 0, you can plan every week of your twelve-week Qeap. Let’s say you know you want to consistently make twenty sales calls a week. You can break up your tasks so you make those twenty sales calls each week. Or, if you have a job or lifestyle that prevents you from planning ahead, you can set aside time to plan each week. 

Don’t forget to take this time to celebrate the previous Qeap or the beginning of your new journey! 

Week 1-12 

Over the following twelve weeks, you execute your goals. Day in and day out, you act. Qeap’s “bias for action” principle encourages you to spend more time doing and less time planning. 

You are not a failure if you do not complete all of your actions. Qeap is not just a to-do list. Qeap keeps track of the most important actions—the ones that will contribute to your goal. At the end of each week, as you calculate your “action score,” you will see what tasks are being completed and which ones are being left to the wayside. 

If you are not reaching an ideal action score, you have opportunities at the end of each week, and the end of each Qeap, to adjust. 

Your Action Score

Every week (besides Week 0), you will be writing down a list of actions that get you closer to your outcome. Qeap prioritizes completing these actions over anything else. So how do you know you are succeeding?

You calculate your action score. 

At the end of each week, you take the number of actions you completed and divide it by the number of total actions you set for the week. For example, if you set out to complete 15 tasks during the week, but only completed 10, you would divide 10 by 15 and end up with .667. Your action score is 67%. 

If you are following Qeap, you should aim for an action score of 95% or above. However, this isn’t always possible. A consistent action score of 80% should be good enough to move you toward your outcomes (provided that your actions are appropriate.) As the weeks of the Qeap go on, your score will fluctuate. If you find yourself failing to meet an 80% action score week after week, you will have to make some changes to your actions or rethink how you are approaching your actions as the week goes on. 

Mid-Qeap Checkpoint 

During Week 6, you should take extra time to evaluate the first half of the Qeap and what you can change. 

Here’s what this might look like if you want to close more deals.

At the beginning of a Qeap, you decide you want to take action by calling 20 clients a week. After Week 1, you call 15 clients and have an action score of 75%. The next week, you call 20 clients and have an action score of 100%. During Week 3-5, your action score consistently stays over 80%. 

In Week 6, you should feel very good about your scores. If you find that these calls are leading you to close more clients, you should continue with this Qeap. If, instead, these calls are not converting and you’re no closer to your outcome than you were at the beginning of the Qeap, this is a good week to adjust your actions. 

If, during Week 6, you look back and your action scores are all below 80%, you know that you should adjust your actions or the way you are approaching them. You may ask questions like: 

• Do you need to call fewer clients? 
• Do you need to set aside time in your day specifically for calling clients? 
• Do you need to delegate someone on your team to take on different tasks so you have more time to call clients? 

Qeap will give you the opportunity to stay true to yourself and your outcomes. With so many opportunities to reflect, experiment, and celebrate, it empowers you to adjust as you go and find the best path to your outcomes sooner.

The Next Qeap 

This cycle repeats four times each year. At four points of the year, you have the opportunity to “set” and achieve your New Year’s Resolution. 

As humans, we tend to underestimate the complexity of the things we never do and overestimate our strength and ability to do them. Some refer to this as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Others just understand this as a fact of life. This effect is often why so many people abandon the gym by March or put off achieving their New Year’s Resolution until they are no longer motivated to work on it. 

Qeap offers the opportunity to start doing and to see for ourselves how strong we can be, and how much we can achieve. If you want to achieve something this year, or this “Qeap,” you can do it.