12 ms·

Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

161 points by pravj 6y ago

kthejoker2 6y ago
I think writing down your objectives and results you'd like to achieve are good. Writing them down is itself a form of positive thinking and self-help; they're "just" words, and there's no limit to what you can write. And then review your progress at some velocity that makes sense (weekly for some, monthly for others, quarterly or thereabouts for the rest) to see if you're on track, if your objectives have changed, etc. But the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath kind of opened my eyes to the danger of "SMART goals" / self-motivation. They talk about the "rider" (your rational, critical inner voice) and the "elephant" (your emotional id-like creature) and how you have to get both working, and OKRs and the like satisfy the rider but don't reach the elephant. They recommend for example drawing up a "concept poster" or postcard (similar to Amazon's "future newsletter" touting the success of a proposed initiative) to really get alignment on what will get you excited to do the good things you want - health, wealth, family, community, planet, whatever - without having to prescribe it to a chart or metric.
Jd 6y ago
I have a pretty extensive personal system partially based on OKRs but I find the key element is doing the exercise as a group and having accountability partners.
- tonymet 6y ago
  I’d like to see this added to the system. At my company, every goal has a “POC” – point of contact aka “owner” or “partner”. I think you should add a partner to each goal – a person who will rate you on the objective. The objectives are what matter. e.g. if you hit 6 hrs time with gf, but she still thinks you are rubbish , you haven’t made any progress on the “strengthen relationships with gf” objective.
  - lljk_kennedy 6y ago
    Exactly. Outcome > Output.
WJW 6y ago
What I like about OKRs is that it really focuses on providing ways to clearly specify your goals and measure whether you are achieving them. This is also its biggest weakness, since "Key Results" that cannot be expressed as continuous, clearly measurable values will suffer. This leads to cold-seeming Initiatives like the "Connect to the girlfriend for at least six hour-long sessions." from the blog post. Well meaning no doubt, but relationship quality just doesn't lend itself to quantisation like that. That said, I'm actually a fan of OKRs for achieving personal goals as long as you can be honest to yourself about what your Objectives actually are. (ie, if you don't really value being fit but put it on the list because you feel it is compulsory then no framework is going to provide enough motivation) In corporate settings, the incentives are typically not aligned at all and that tends to break implementation very badly. But for personal settings where you are both goal-setter and implementer it can work quite well.
- pravj 6y ago
  Agree that a quality-sensitive metric can't be modelled fully in the structure. This is something I'm even observing in the work-environment also. Do you have any learnings to make such initiatives work?
- Jugurtha 6y ago
  >Well meaning no doubt, but relationship quality just doesn't lend itself to quantisation like that. Granted, but sometimes you can find proxies and variables that increase the likelihood of success if you hit them consistently. For example, what's "successfully land an aircraft"? It's a sequence of hitting certain parameters within certain time windows that, when you do that, result in a smooth, successful, landing. Successful landing is a "lagging indicator". There are many things, even in "artistic performance", that are a sequence of consistently hitting a target within a certain tolerance, at a specific time, etc. In the workplace, you may have the problem of having a quality relationship with your colleagues or "reports". You may not be able to "quantify" that easily, but you can have regular one on ones in a relaxed enough setting that lead to candid conversations that unearth problems early enough that you can effectively solve them. The relationship quality is a lagging indicator, if you will, of what has been done upstream. What do you think?
javajosh 6y ago
I really like this but some of your objectives don't have a timeline attached. For example, "Write 10 reviews on twitter". I would have liked to see a parenthetical "(1 per week for 10 straight weeks)" or "(within 60 days)". Without this its hard to put concrete tasks on a calendar. BTW I like your goals, too. They seem quite wholesome and achievable, and reasonable (granted I don't know your BMI now, for example, but waking up before 8:30am is a good one.)
- pravj 6y ago
  Glad you liked the structure/goals. All of them are for January-February-March 2021. Does that cover the time-bound aspect you're talking about?
  - javajosh 6y ago
    Sure does! Okay, so there's a "default time bound" on your list. Makes sense.
aftergibson 6y ago
I’m doing the same this quarter and looks like a very similar setup. However, I don’t think I could handle managing that many objectives and try to keep it to at most three. That way I spend time really reflecting on what actually matters.
tonymet 6y ago
First off, I like the exercise. I think it’s healthy as a form of journaling and more people should be introspective in this way. But I’d like to ask what problem is this trying to solve? In a large org, the OKRs are driving alignment and accountability. But for an individual, i think the bigger challenge is motivation, discipline, dedication, commitment. So what I mean is, I don’t think individuals have a problem knowing what to do: we all know we need to lose weight and reduce BMI. The devil is building the habits (eating less, exercising more, avoiding temptation, being more disciplined, being around people with likewise habits) to achieve the OKR. I’m not saying that the OKRs are a bad idea – just that they are a map of a terrain that leaves out all the devilish hills that really need climbing.
- logshipper 6y ago
  > But for an individual, i think the bigger challenge is motivation, discipline, dedication, commitment. I definitely agree with the above. I found my way around this by doing weekly check-ins where I report on progress and accordingly formulate strategies for achieving said goals. Those reports are meant for no one but me, but they allow me to: a) Measure my progress b) See what's working and what's not c) Most importantly, hold myself accountable Such reports are a version of looking myself in the mirror and talking about the week that was, my habits, and the progress (or lack thereof) I made. Furthermore, at least for me, the mere act of writing allows me to crystallize my thoughts on a topic, lends clarity and ultimately provides an infusion of motivation to keep working toward my goals. Of course, what works for me might not work for someone else, and we all need a different framework based on our individuality, but I hope I was able to add to your point surrounding accountability. edit: Formatting
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  It's just a variation on stuff like "making SMART goals". It's a framework for breaking down your goal into identifiable steps and finding ways to check your progress early, instead of saying "this year I'll lose weight" and checking back on December 30.
  - ghaff 6y ago
3gg 6y ago
Sounds like the corporate brainwash really worked here.
dwb 6y ago
I cannot imagine structuring my (non-work) life like this. Nothing would suck the joy/play/freedom out of my leisure time faster. Happy for you if it works for you though.
- m463 6y ago
  remember, this is the time period in every year where people set up exercise plans and decide to lose weight and save money and ... you know. :)
supercanuck 6y ago
What is your morning workout routine?
- pravj 6y ago
  It includes: - 50 jumping jacks [3 sets] - 25 knee-highs [3 sets] - 30 mountain climbers [2 sets] - 25 pushups - 1 minute plank I stopped doing it after I was able to meet my weight loss milestone, need to restart.
systematical 6y ago
This is how I've decided to do my goals for the year. I split mine into 4 categories: personal, professional, physical, and reading. And then do monthly goals for each and track what I do per day. I don't have to do something in each category every day or even have to do anything any day. It's just helpful for me to see if I am slacking in an area over a stretch of days. The idea is to keep the goals fairly easy to accomplish and not plan more than a month out so I can pivot.
- gen_greyface 6y ago
  Any reason you have reading as a separate category? Cant it be merged into the personal and professional categories?
  - systematical 6y ago
    Its an area that I've neglected a lot in my adult life. I started off the year saying I am going to at least read one book (any book) per month. Currently reading One World by Wendell Willkie FWIW. I don't mind if there is cross-over and if there is that's even better! All about easy goals and progress.
wcarss 6y ago
With regard to your juggling KR, I learned by a method of breaking it down that I found very helpful and learned from a book that I can't remember the title of, and would like to relate here. I learned in ~3 hours of low effort while watching TV during a single day, told a friend about it, and they subsequently did the same thing that same day. Afterward we both said things to each other like "wow, I had no idea it was this easy!" A quick disclaimer: this is for 3-ball juggling. 4-ball is a bit different, and I have heard it is a better foundation for 5,6,7+, but I never learned how to do it well. First, get your three balls or similar. Hacky sacks, tennis balls, bean bags, rubik's cubes, whatever you've got. Second, sit somewhere comfy and safe, with your arms down and your hands roughly near your knees if they were crossed. Hold just one ball. Practice tossing that one ball from one hand to the other hand, tossing it to about eye level on each throw. Your goal here is to keep your hands mostly down and apart and to get used to the feel of what power of throw you need and where your hand needs to be to catch the ball, without spending too much attention watching your hands. Practice left to right repeatedly, and right to left repeatedly, and then also practice back and forth. This should take somewhere between 5 minutes and an hour total -- but try to make this easy. If a later step is hard, do this first step more. Make sure the ball gets right to about eye level on each throw, in a neat little arc. Third, once you feel good about the above, sit in the same position, with one ball in each hand. Throw one and when it hits the peak, around eye level, throw the other, and then catch them both. That's it. Now practice this, again repeating first a left-hand throw and then first a right-hand throw, and then a little back and forth, and try to keep that consistency where each just gets to about eye level in a nice little arc. This teaches the real "trick" of juggling: knowing when to throw. This should also take somewhere between 5 minutes and an hour to get comfortable with. Fourth, sit now with two balls in one hand and one in the other. Throw with the hand that has 2 first, and just do what you did above, but this time, at the point the second ball thrown is in the air at peak, instead of waiting and just catching both, throw the third ball. You can still just catch them all from here. Practice each direction, another 5 minutes to an hour here, but you might slip into the next step naturally. Fifth, and finally: rather than just catching at the end there, try to just continue the pattern. You have all of the skills required at this point and you will be "juggling" each time. Once you've thrown all 3 starting from each direction, it likely won't be hard to do a 4th or a 5th throw, which feels amazing to get to, and then it's just smoothing things out and finding consistency. At that point, try to hit 10 throws, then 30, 100, etc. Getting a string of 30+ might take a day or two to actually get, but it'll likely be addictive and you'll want to just keep trying, and it's easy to do most of these steps while you do other low-hands-use things like watching TV, having a conversation, or listening to a podcast. This comment may get lost, but maybe it'll also help someone! Juggling is a wonderful little skill to have, and it sticks around for life. I learned a little over a decade ago while in school and actively played with it for about a year, but can still easily resume it today.
noarchy 6y ago
Maybe I'm too cynical with regard to today's corporate practices, but what would be next? Maybe weekly tasks can be filed as Jira tickets? Burndown charts for how one's week went? If it works for you, great, but this seems like something I would never want to import into my personal life.
- tonymet 6y ago
  can we ask what you are doing instead?
  - dkdk8283 6y ago
    I agree with parent and I’ll provide my own answer: I live in the moment. A simple but powerful lesson I learned from my pets.
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      How do you manage or work towards long term goals?
      - dkdk8283 6y ago
        I don’t have any.
  - noarchy 6y ago
    Good question. I wish I had a more sophisticated answer, but everything I do is fairly low-tech. First, memory: this works for nearly everything in my case. Second, a whiteboard for grocery items, which I update as needed. Third, just keeping momentum going for my goals. For what I might term "loftier" aspirations (diet, fitness, etc), I just make sure I am being consistent. Those things have to be built into your lifestyle, or at least, that is the only way I can get it to work. There was a time, for instance, when I did track my nutrition with a spreadsheet. But after a few months I realized I could manage it all within my head: I had gauged my daily macro needs, and could largely judge by eye, and it has worked for years since. I have tried todo-style apps, as an example of where I have tried a more explicit approach. I find that they are just procrastination and delay lists for me. If I am not actively doing it already, with exceptions, it probably won't be done at all.
lxe 6y ago
OKR is probably one of the worst fads to happen to project management and software engineering. Just set normal realistic goals and plans, or even just a general direction. Don't use numbers where it doesn't make sense -- not everything needs to be a piece of data -- not everything has a completion percentage. Hope it goes away soon, along with "Agile", "Extreme Programming" and "Open Office Layout"
- archsurface 6y ago
  I completely agree. At work they never work out because there are inevitably so many detours. OKRs do nothing but reveal that management know nothing about the environment they're managing. Unfortunately, when the fad does pass, you know some other nonsense fad is going to arrive on the scene. If only people would stop with fadding.
- wpietri 6y ago
  All of those things have worked fine for me. I suspect it depends on how you use them.
fermienrico 6y ago
Live a little. Put the business bullshit away.
jvanderbot 6y ago
I've used OKR for 7 years, on a quarterly basis. I had simple markdown files at first, then vnl-log files, and now R notebooks (https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog) to read / plot. It may seem like overhead, and there's some snark in this thread about how it's project / team management without the project and team. I completely disagree. If you set up your KR's so they are 1) quantitative, 2) daily measurable, 3) simple to log ( a few keystrokes while journalling) and 4) completely under your control to achieve. At the end of the day, I mark down my progress on all my OKRs. I can quickly plot them, look back at progress, and look back at goals and concerns by seeing the types of objectives I had. It's a 10,000 foot journal that I otherwise wouldn't have. There's more to this than simply quantifying yourself. We like #'s because they are representations of complex systems. The self and your personal history are absolutely a complex system worth tracking. Looking back at my OKRs when I was dating my (now) wife, comparing the ways I put effort into our relationship and our changing priorities. Seeing over time my running distances, weight lifting activity, meditation record, and seeing how I consistently attempt to over-achieve by setting KR values too high ... Having those points of reference has made today more enjoyable, and been a constant reminder that progress comes slowly and missing on any particular attempt at something is irrelevant. It's so completely a part of my life now that I can't imagine setting goals or daily priorities without it. Think of it like quantitative journalling.
- sh_123 6y ago
  Can you share more about your process? I'm very interested in learning more. How do you track your daily data points?
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    There are a lot of these comments on HN, that baldly ask for more information without contributing anything or providing any context. So many that I suspect a bot.
  - jvanderbot 6y ago
    I have a text file in a known location. It's backed up on git. I can open and edit that file quickly using bash. From within VIM I can quickly commit to reduce the # keystrokes. More details: https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog#git-integration https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog#git-integration (Really though, you can just save as an environment variable your file location) The text file is structured with space-delimited text, like this: https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog My current structure for tracking a contribution to an OKR item (e.g. "meditate") by date (e.g., 2020-01-15) and amount (e.g., "1") is simply: "# date item amount" Easy to open, easy to plop down today's date and the item / amount. Save multiple date/item entries and add them inscripts ... Easy to save. Done. The work came in building stuff to plot it: I have other files that link "items" to goals or other metadata like categories, etc. Like a relational database, but easily edited in text. For example, to make a link from daily items to Key Results "# item okr" The OKR categories are usually Fighting (I box), Tech, Mental health, and Social, but YMMV Another example is "workout-mapping.vnl" with structure: "# item muscle-group factor" etc etc. vnlog has nice vnl-join commands that quickly build the table and all linked metadata and output formatted text (one command). Then reading that in R is easy ... ``` data <- read.table('../2020-Q4-OKR.vnl',skip=2,stringsAsFactors = FALSE) ``` Aggregating by date is easy: ``` data.agg<- aggregate(x=data$Amount,by=list(data$Date),FUN=sum) ``` Then plot using ggplot2. Examples from 2020 Q4 (just ran the numbers yesterday!) https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/okr.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/okr.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/workouts.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/workouts.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/mood.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/mood.png
nbzso 6y ago
Wow, just wow. Someone contributed to OKR getting a wife. I am blown away. I will never quantize some parts of my life. Work is work. Learning is learning. There are a lot of methodologies for GTD, but in my experience balancing order with improvised chaos is healthy practice :) PS. Joke aside there is a proven correlation between high achievement and habit of tracking and measuring a goal. I am not sure about OKR but may be the choice of which methodology to use is personal or psychology driven.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- wortelefant 6y ago
  the main benefits of OKRs might be transparency and alignment, not having a quantifiable goals. I am dating without much success for more than one and a half years now, and I have yet to meet someone who might be open to build something together. I regularly spend money on platforms like tinder, veggly, okcupid with a hope that despite corona, it might contribute to such a development. Still I did not put much effort in my activities there, as I wantee to keep it playful and not follow up on it as I would with a "real goal". I feel unhappy about my lack of progress in this area and I hope that for this new year, acknowledging it as a committment will help move this forward.
  - nbzso 6y ago
    On this topic I will share my humble observation. Women are mythical creatures, they come and they go. One big lesson in life that I have learned, the only winning strategy is never to overestimate yourself and move quickly when they give you a signal.:) There is one problem in making this a commitment - the outcome is not in your control. There is a limit in projection when other peoples are involved. Note: Don’t use dating apps or services. They are really dangerous. Find other ways to connect.
    - swat535 6y ago
      Women are not "mythical creatures" they are humans with their own aspirations, personalities and dreams. You can't lump them in a single category..so perhaps it's my misunderstanding but I'm not sure what you are trying to convey here? Also, can you elaborate on "overestimate yourself" ? I would really appreciate it if you could expand on these points. As for the commitment, I think the point isn't the control the outcome but more keep an eye on your progress, I see it more of a checks and balances.
dmje 6y ago
This may be an unpopular opinion on HN, but I just don't get it. The whole notion of setting personal goals, working out tasks and sub tasks and strategies and charts - like, you deal with all that stuff in your work life. Give it a rest. Be with your family. Look at a sunset. Read a book or two. Paint or play the piano. Eat well, go for a run. Do things that are good for you and other people. Spend less time on your phone. Be a nicer person. None of this needs a chart or a strategy or a plan. It's just common sense humanity. Don't worry if you "fail", it's the journey that counts. You don't need to be grade VIII on the piano or the best artist in your social circle - just enjoy doing whatever it is. Find stuff with flow. Live life. Don't spend your time measuring it. Just my halfpence.
- hungryforcodes 6y ago
  Making To Do lists I will never follow a one of my greatest Joy's in life.
- SN76477 6y ago
  I am paraphrasing a bit but I recall David Allen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Allen_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Allen_(author) Saying something to the effect of goals are not there to be done in the future, they are there to orient your present. I love this because if I have a goal of spending more time with my son then taking an after run is a bad idea. They help guide your decisions which speaks to me.
- bonniemuffin 6y ago
  My cool-headed long-term-thinking self wants to "eat well, go for a run", but my saturday morning self just wants to sleep in and have a donut. Some of us need some form of accountability structure to help our rational selves prevail over our self-sabotaging hedonist selves.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    Habit forming works better. That’s why you don’t need a teeth brushing OKR. Or a dog walking OKR. Check out tiny habits. I find performance metrics tiresome these days, especially at work. As a programmer you are doing creative and fairly reactive work, yet you are trying to please some performance metric written 2 months ago for the quarter, which with new information is BS so now you need to negotiate to ignore the metric. I probably have metric fatigue.
mhd 6y ago
I'm all for self-improvement (no to self-optimization, though), but I find phrasing this in corporate productivity terms to be somewhat problematic. Six Sigma Your Life?
loteck 6y ago
Appreciate the spirit of the post and wish the author success. Well-meaning comments here ridicule the idea of structuring personal goals, either in this way specifically, or entirely. They ask, why not just live your life? That perspective may misunderstand those who are engaged in a multitude of activities that are all extremely worthwhile, which does include relaxation and self-care, but may also include nurturing a marriage and developing oneself, or developing a child. There is finite time & opportunity in the author's day, and he is perhaps acutely aware he must choose his time expenditures wisely. It is good to step back, admit this, and install structure to support your true and prioritized goals. Otherwise, we may easily find ourselves neglecting activities that are dearly important to us, like connecting with a spouse. To those that say: "just do less," I would say: there is a time where that suggestion will become natural law for each of us. Enjoy your abilities while you can.
kyle_martin1 6y ago
This is doing “it” wrong. Set up SMART goals and follow through. It’s painfully simple.
dboreham 6y ago
The Viv Savage OKR.
jacksonkmarley 6y ago
Pretty interested in whether people are getting more mileage out of specific, SMART-type goals (like the ones in the article), or more open ended ones as described here [0]. Personally I've found that with a good tool to measure and track progress (I'm using the Hacker's diet logging which produces a nice graph [1]), my weight loss is coming along nicely without a set endpoint. [0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-31/new-years-resolution-goals-should-be-open-not-specific/13017290 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-31/new-years-resolution-... [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/#Comptools https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/#Comptools
sircastor 6y ago
I’m amused by the contrary positions a lot of folks seem to be taking here. Either people agree with the author, and think personal goal setting and measurement helps actually accomplish tasks, or people are astonished that someone would live so structurally. On both sides it seems like there’s bewilderment at the other - what kind of monster would live like this? It reminds me how different people are, and how much we need empathy even with something like how people set personal goals.
Cybergenik 6y ago
Leave it to an engineer to automate self improvement by building a complicated system instead of just spending that time doing the improvement. Just how I like it.

161 points by pravj 6y ago

I think writing down your objectives and results you'd like to achieve are good. Writing them down is itself a form of positive thinking and self-help; they're "just" words, and there's no limit to what you can write. And then review your progress at some velocity that makes sense (weekly for some, monthly for others, quarterly or thereabouts for the rest) to see if you're on track, if your objectives have changed, etc. But the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath kind of opened my eyes to the danger of "SMART goals" / self-motivation. They talk about the "rider" (your rational, critical inner voice) and the "elephant" (your emotional id-like creature) and how you have to get both working, and OKRs and the like satisfy the rider but don't reach the elephant. They recommend for example drawing up a "concept poster" or postcard (similar to Amazon's "future newsletter" touting the success of a proposed initiative) to really get alignment on what will get you excited to do the good things you want - health, wealth, family, community, planet, whatever - without having to prescribe it to a chart or metric.

Jd 6y ago

I have a pretty extensive personal system partially based on OKRs but I find the key element is doing the exercise as a group and having accountability partners.

tonymet 6y ago
I’d like to see this added to the system. At my company, every goal has a “POC” – point of contact aka “owner” or “partner”. I think you should add a partner to each goal – a person who will rate you on the objective. The objectives are what matter. e.g. if you hit 6 hrs time with gf, but she still thinks you are rubbish , you haven’t made any progress on the “strengthen relationships with gf” objective.
- lljk_kennedy 6y ago
  Exactly. Outcome > Output.

WJW 6y ago

What I like about OKRs is that it really focuses on providing ways to clearly specify your goals and measure whether you are achieving them. This is also its biggest weakness, since "Key Results" that cannot be expressed as continuous, clearly measurable values will suffer. This leads to cold-seeming Initiatives like the "Connect to the girlfriend for at least six hour-long sessions." from the blog post. Well meaning no doubt, but relationship quality just doesn't lend itself to quantisation like that. That said, I'm actually a fan of OKRs for achieving personal goals as long as you can be honest to yourself about what your Objectives actually are. (ie, if you don't really value being fit but put it on the list because you feel it is compulsory then no framework is going to provide enough motivation) In corporate settings, the incentives are typically not aligned at all and that tends to break implementation very badly. But for personal settings where you are both goal-setter and implementer it can work quite well.

pravj 6y ago
Agree that a quality-sensitive metric can't be modelled fully in the structure. This is something I'm even observing in the work-environment also. Do you have any learnings to make such initiatives work?
Jugurtha 6y ago
>Well meaning no doubt, but relationship quality just doesn't lend itself to quantisation like that. Granted, but sometimes you can find proxies and variables that increase the likelihood of success if you hit them consistently. For example, what's "successfully land an aircraft"? It's a sequence of hitting certain parameters within certain time windows that, when you do that, result in a smooth, successful, landing. Successful landing is a "lagging indicator". There are many things, even in "artistic performance", that are a sequence of consistently hitting a target within a certain tolerance, at a specific time, etc. In the workplace, you may have the problem of having a quality relationship with your colleagues or "reports". You may not be able to "quantify" that easily, but you can have regular one on ones in a relaxed enough setting that lead to candid conversations that unearth problems early enough that you can effectively solve them. The relationship quality is a lagging indicator, if you will, of what has been done upstream. What do you think?

javajosh 6y ago

I really like this but some of your objectives don't have a timeline attached. For example, "Write 10 reviews on twitter". I would have liked to see a parenthetical "(1 per week for 10 straight weeks)" or "(within 60 days)". Without this its hard to put concrete tasks on a calendar. BTW I like your goals, too. They seem quite wholesome and achievable, and reasonable (granted I don't know your BMI now, for example, but waking up before 8:30am is a good one.)

pravj 6y ago
Glad you liked the structure/goals. All of them are for January-February-March 2021. Does that cover the time-bound aspect you're talking about?
- javajosh 6y ago
  Sure does! Okay, so there's a "default time bound" on your list. Makes sense.

aftergibson 6y ago

I’m doing the same this quarter and looks like a very similar setup. However, I don’t think I could handle managing that many objectives and try to keep it to at most three. That way I spend time really reflecting on what actually matters.

tonymet 6y ago

First off, I like the exercise. I think it’s healthy as a form of journaling and more people should be introspective in this way. But I’d like to ask what problem is this trying to solve? In a large org, the OKRs are driving alignment and accountability. But for an individual, i think the bigger challenge is motivation, discipline, dedication, commitment. So what I mean is, I don’t think individuals have a problem knowing what to do: we all know we need to lose weight and reduce BMI. The devil is building the habits (eating less, exercising more, avoiding temptation, being more disciplined, being around people with likewise habits) to achieve the OKR. I’m not saying that the OKRs are a bad idea – just that they are a map of a terrain that leaves out all the devilish hills that really need climbing.

logshipper 6y ago
> But for an individual, i think the bigger challenge is motivation, discipline, dedication, commitment. I definitely agree with the above. I found my way around this by doing weekly check-ins where I report on progress and accordingly formulate strategies for achieving said goals. Those reports are meant for no one but me, but they allow me to: a) Measure my progress b) See what's working and what's not c) Most importantly, hold myself accountable Such reports are a version of looking myself in the mirror and talking about the week that was, my habits, and the progress (or lack thereof) I made. Furthermore, at least for me, the mere act of writing allows me to crystallize my thoughts on a topic, lends clarity and ultimately provides an infusion of motivation to keep working toward my goals. Of course, what works for me might not work for someone else, and we all need a different framework based on our individuality, but I hope I was able to add to your point surrounding accountability. edit: Formatting
lazyasciiart 6y ago
It's just a variation on stuff like "making SMART goals". It's a framework for breaking down your goal into identifiable steps and finding ways to check your progress early, instead of saying "this year I'll lose weight" and checking back on December 30.
- ghaff 6y ago

3gg 6y ago

Sounds like the corporate brainwash really worked here.

dwb 6y ago

I cannot imagine structuring my (non-work) life like this. Nothing would suck the joy/play/freedom out of my leisure time faster. Happy for you if it works for you though.

m463 6y ago
remember, this is the time period in every year where people set up exercise plans and decide to lose weight and save money and ... you know. :)

supercanuck 6y ago

What is your morning workout routine?

pravj 6y ago
It includes: - 50 jumping jacks [3 sets] - 25 knee-highs [3 sets] - 30 mountain climbers [2 sets] - 25 pushups - 1 minute plank I stopped doing it after I was able to meet my weight loss milestone, need to restart.

systematical 6y ago

This is how I've decided to do my goals for the year. I split mine into 4 categories: personal, professional, physical, and reading. And then do monthly goals for each and track what I do per day. I don't have to do something in each category every day or even have to do anything any day. It's just helpful for me to see if I am slacking in an area over a stretch of days. The idea is to keep the goals fairly easy to accomplish and not plan more than a month out so I can pivot.

gen_greyface 6y ago
Any reason you have reading as a separate category? Cant it be merged into the personal and professional categories?
- systematical 6y ago
  Its an area that I've neglected a lot in my adult life. I started off the year saying I am going to at least read one book (any book) per month. Currently reading One World by Wendell Willkie FWIW. I don't mind if there is cross-over and if there is that's even better! All about easy goals and progress.

wcarss 6y ago

With regard to your juggling KR, I learned by a method of breaking it down that I found very helpful and learned from a book that I can't remember the title of, and would like to relate here. I learned in ~3 hours of low effort while watching TV during a single day, told a friend about it, and they subsequently did the same thing that same day. Afterward we both said things to each other like "wow, I had no idea it was this easy!" A quick disclaimer: this is for 3-ball juggling. 4-ball is a bit different, and I have heard it is a better foundation for 5,6,7+, but I never learned how to do it well. First, get your three balls or similar. Hacky sacks, tennis balls, bean bags, rubik's cubes, whatever you've got. Second, sit somewhere comfy and safe, with your arms down and your hands roughly near your knees if they were crossed. Hold just one ball. Practice tossing that one ball from one hand to the other hand, tossing it to about eye level on each throw. Your goal here is to keep your hands mostly down and apart and to get used to the feel of what power of throw you need and where your hand needs to be to catch the ball, without spending too much attention watching your hands. Practice left to right repeatedly, and right to left repeatedly, and then also practice back and forth. This should take somewhere between 5 minutes and an hour total -- but try to make this easy. If a later step is hard, do this first step more. Make sure the ball gets right to about eye level on each throw, in a neat little arc. Third, once you feel good about the above, sit in the same position, with one ball in each hand. Throw one and when it hits the peak, around eye level, throw the other, and then catch them both. That's it. Now practice this, again repeating first a left-hand throw and then first a right-hand throw, and then a little back and forth, and try to keep that consistency where each just gets to about eye level in a nice little arc. This teaches the real "trick" of juggling: knowing when to throw. This should also take somewhere between 5 minutes and an hour to get comfortable with. Fourth, sit now with two balls in one hand and one in the other. Throw with the hand that has 2 first, and just do what you did above, but this time, at the point the second ball thrown is in the air at peak, instead of waiting and just catching both, throw the third ball. You can still just catch them all from here. Practice each direction, another 5 minutes to an hour here, but you might slip into the next step naturally. Fifth, and finally: rather than just catching at the end there, try to just continue the pattern. You have all of the skills required at this point and you will be "juggling" each time. Once you've thrown all 3 starting from each direction, it likely won't be hard to do a 4th or a 5th throw, which feels amazing to get to, and then it's just smoothing things out and finding consistency. At that point, try to hit 10 throws, then 30, 100, etc. Getting a string of 30+ might take a day or two to actually get, but it'll likely be addictive and you'll want to just keep trying, and it's easy to do most of these steps while you do other low-hands-use things like watching TV, having a conversation, or listening to a podcast. This comment may get lost, but maybe it'll also help someone! Juggling is a wonderful little skill to have, and it sticks around for life. I learned a little over a decade ago while in school and actively played with it for about a year, but can still easily resume it today.

noarchy 6y ago

Maybe I'm too cynical with regard to today's corporate practices, but what would be next? Maybe weekly tasks can be filed as Jira tickets? Burndown charts for how one's week went? If it works for you, great, but this seems like something I would never want to import into my personal life.

tonymet 6y ago
can we ask what you are doing instead?
- dkdk8283 6y ago
  I agree with parent and I’ll provide my own answer: I live in the moment. A simple but powerful lesson I learned from my pets.
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    How do you manage or work towards long term goals?
    - dkdk8283 6y ago
      I don’t have any.
- noarchy 6y ago
  Good question. I wish I had a more sophisticated answer, but everything I do is fairly low-tech. First, memory: this works for nearly everything in my case. Second, a whiteboard for grocery items, which I update as needed. Third, just keeping momentum going for my goals. For what I might term "loftier" aspirations (diet, fitness, etc), I just make sure I am being consistent. Those things have to be built into your lifestyle, or at least, that is the only way I can get it to work. There was a time, for instance, when I did track my nutrition with a spreadsheet. But after a few months I realized I could manage it all within my head: I had gauged my daily macro needs, and could largely judge by eye, and it has worked for years since. I have tried todo-style apps, as an example of where I have tried a more explicit approach. I find that they are just procrastination and delay lists for me. If I am not actively doing it already, with exceptions, it probably won't be done at all.

lxe 6y ago

OKR is probably one of the worst fads to happen to project management and software engineering. Just set normal realistic goals and plans, or even just a general direction. Don't use numbers where it doesn't make sense -- not everything needs to be a piece of data -- not everything has a completion percentage. Hope it goes away soon, along with "Agile", "Extreme Programming" and "Open Office Layout"

archsurface 6y ago
I completely agree. At work they never work out because there are inevitably so many detours. OKRs do nothing but reveal that management know nothing about the environment they're managing. Unfortunately, when the fad does pass, you know some other nonsense fad is going to arrive on the scene. If only people would stop with fadding.
wpietri 6y ago
All of those things have worked fine for me. I suspect it depends on how you use them.

fermienrico 6y ago

Live a little. Put the business bullshit away.

jvanderbot 6y ago

I've used OKR for 7 years, on a quarterly basis. I had simple markdown files at first, then vnl-log files, and now R notebooks (https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog) to read / plot. It may seem like overhead, and there's some snark in this thread about how it's project / team management without the project and team. I completely disagree. If you set up your KR's so they are 1) quantitative, 2) daily measurable, 3) simple to log ( a few keystrokes while journalling) and 4) completely under your control to achieve. At the end of the day, I mark down my progress on all my OKRs. I can quickly plot them, look back at progress, and look back at goals and concerns by seeing the types of objectives I had. It's a 10,000 foot journal that I otherwise wouldn't have. There's more to this than simply quantifying yourself. We like #'s because they are representations of complex systems. The self and your personal history are absolutely a complex system worth tracking. Looking back at my OKRs when I was dating my (now) wife, comparing the ways I put effort into our relationship and our changing priorities. Seeing over time my running distances, weight lifting activity, meditation record, and seeing how I consistently attempt to over-achieve by setting KR values too high ... Having those points of reference has made today more enjoyable, and been a constant reminder that progress comes slowly and missing on any particular attempt at something is irrelevant. It's so completely a part of my life now that I can't imagine setting goals or daily priorities without it. Think of it like quantitative journalling.

sh_123 6y ago
Can you share more about your process? I'm very interested in learning more. How do you track your daily data points?
- tuatoru 6y ago
  There are a lot of these comments on HN, that baldly ask for more information without contributing anything or providing any context. So many that I suspect a bot.
- jvanderbot 6y ago
  I have a text file in a known location. It's backed up on git. I can open and edit that file quickly using bash. From within VIM I can quickly commit to reduce the # keystrokes. More details: https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog#git-integration https://github.com/jodavaho/bashlog#git-integration (Really though, you can just save as an environment variable your file location) The text file is structured with space-delimited text, like this: https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog https://github.com/dkogan/vnlog My current structure for tracking a contribution to an OKR item (e.g. "meditate") by date (e.g., 2020-01-15) and amount (e.g., "1") is simply: "# date item amount" Easy to open, easy to plop down today's date and the item / amount. Save multiple date/item entries and add them inscripts ... Easy to save. Done. The work came in building stuff to plot it: I have other files that link "items" to goals or other metadata like categories, etc. Like a relational database, but easily edited in text. For example, to make a link from daily items to Key Results "# item okr" The OKR categories are usually Fighting (I box), Tech, Mental health, and Social, but YMMV Another example is "workout-mapping.vnl" with structure: "# item muscle-group factor" etc etc. vnlog has nice vnl-join commands that quickly build the table and all linked metadata and output formatted text (one command). Then reading that in R is easy ... ``` data <- read.table('../2020-Q4-OKR.vnl',skip=2,stringsAsFactors = FALSE) ``` Aggregating by date is easy: ``` data.agg<- aggregate(x=data$Amount,by=list(data$Date),FUN=sum) ``` Then plot using ggplot2. Examples from 2020 Q4 (just ran the numbers yesterday!) https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/okr.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/okr.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/workouts.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/workouts.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/mood.png https://josh.vanderhook.info/media/mood.png

nbzso 6y ago

Wow, just wow. Someone contributed to OKR getting a wife. I am blown away. I will never quantize some parts of my life. Work is work. Learning is learning. There are a lot of methodologies for GTD, but in my experience balancing order with improvised chaos is healthy practice :) PS. Joke aside there is a proven correlation between high achievement and habit of tracking and measuring a goal. I am not sure about OKR but may be the choice of which methodology to use is personal or psychology driven.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wortelefant 6y ago
the main benefits of OKRs might be transparency and alignment, not having a quantifiable goals. I am dating without much success for more than one and a half years now, and I have yet to meet someone who might be open to build something together. I regularly spend money on platforms like tinder, veggly, okcupid with a hope that despite corona, it might contribute to such a development. Still I did not put much effort in my activities there, as I wantee to keep it playful and not follow up on it as I would with a "real goal". I feel unhappy about my lack of progress in this area and I hope that for this new year, acknowledging it as a committment will help move this forward.
- nbzso 6y ago
  On this topic I will share my humble observation. Women are mythical creatures, they come and they go. One big lesson in life that I have learned, the only winning strategy is never to overestimate yourself and move quickly when they give you a signal.:) There is one problem in making this a commitment - the outcome is not in your control. There is a limit in projection when other peoples are involved. Note: Don’t use dating apps or services. They are really dangerous. Find other ways to connect.
  - swat535 6y ago
    Women are not "mythical creatures" they are humans with their own aspirations, personalities and dreams. You can't lump them in a single category..so perhaps it's my misunderstanding but I'm not sure what you are trying to convey here? Also, can you elaborate on "overestimate yourself" ? I would really appreciate it if you could expand on these points. As for the commitment, I think the point isn't the control the outcome but more keep an eye on your progress, I see it more of a checks and balances.

dmje 6y ago

This may be an unpopular opinion on HN, but I just don't get it. The whole notion of setting personal goals, working out tasks and sub tasks and strategies and charts - like, you deal with all that stuff in your work life. Give it a rest. Be with your family. Look at a sunset. Read a book or two. Paint or play the piano. Eat well, go for a run. Do things that are good for you and other people. Spend less time on your phone. Be a nicer person. None of this needs a chart or a strategy or a plan. It's just common sense humanity. Don't worry if you "fail", it's the journey that counts. You don't need to be grade VIII on the piano or the best artist in your social circle - just enjoy doing whatever it is. Find stuff with flow. Live life. Don't spend your time measuring it. Just my halfpence.

hungryforcodes 6y ago
Making To Do lists I will never follow a one of my greatest Joy's in life.
SN76477 6y ago
I am paraphrasing a bit but I recall David Allen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Allen_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Allen_(author) Saying something to the effect of goals are not there to be done in the future, they are there to orient your present. I love this because if I have a goal of spending more time with my son then taking an after run is a bad idea. They help guide your decisions which speaks to me.
bonniemuffin 6y ago
My cool-headed long-term-thinking self wants to "eat well, go for a run", but my saturday morning self just wants to sleep in and have a donut. Some of us need some form of accountability structure to help our rational selves prevail over our self-sabotaging hedonist selves.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  Habit forming works better. That’s why you don’t need a teeth brushing OKR. Or a dog walking OKR. Check out tiny habits. I find performance metrics tiresome these days, especially at work. As a programmer you are doing creative and fairly reactive work, yet you are trying to please some performance metric written 2 months ago for the quarter, which with new information is BS so now you need to negotiate to ignore the metric. I probably have metric fatigue.

mhd 6y ago

I'm all for self-improvement (no to self-optimization, though), but I find phrasing this in corporate productivity terms to be somewhat problematic. Six Sigma Your Life?

loteck 6y ago

Appreciate the spirit of the post and wish the author success. Well-meaning comments here ridicule the idea of structuring personal goals, either in this way specifically, or entirely. They ask, why not just live your life? That perspective may misunderstand those who are engaged in a multitude of activities that are all extremely worthwhile, which does include relaxation and self-care, but may also include nurturing a marriage and developing oneself, or developing a child. There is finite time & opportunity in the author's day, and he is perhaps acutely aware he must choose his time expenditures wisely. It is good to step back, admit this, and install structure to support your true and prioritized goals. Otherwise, we may easily find ourselves neglecting activities that are dearly important to us, like connecting with a spouse. To those that say: "just do less," I would say: there is a time where that suggestion will become natural law for each of us. Enjoy your abilities while you can.

kyle_martin1 6y ago

This is doing “it” wrong. Set up SMART goals and follow through. It’s painfully simple.

dboreham 6y ago

The Viv Savage OKR.

jacksonkmarley 6y ago

Pretty interested in whether people are getting more mileage out of specific, SMART-type goals (like the ones in the article), or more open ended ones as described here [0]. Personally I've found that with a good tool to measure and track progress (I'm using the Hacker's diet logging which produces a nice graph [1]), my weight loss is coming along nicely without a set endpoint. [0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-31/new-years-resolution-goals-should-be-open-not-specific/13017290 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-31/new-years-resolution-... [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/#Comptools https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/#Comptools

sircastor 6y ago

I’m amused by the contrary positions a lot of folks seem to be taking here. Either people agree with the author, and think personal goal setting and measurement helps actually accomplish tasks, or people are astonished that someone would live so structurally. On both sides it seems like there’s bewilderment at the other - what kind of monster would live like this? It reminds me how different people are, and how much we need empathy even with something like how people set personal goals.

Cybergenik 6y ago

Leave it to an engineer to automate self improvement by building a complicated system instead of just spending that time doing the improvement. Just how I like it.