[HN Gopher] Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)
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Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)
Author : pravj
Score : 97 points
Date : 2021-01-02 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hackpravj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackpravj.com)
| supercanuck wrote:
| What is your morning workout routine?
| pravj wrote:
| 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.
| lxe wrote:
| 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"
| fermienrico wrote:
| Live a little. Put the business bullshit away.
| nbzso wrote:
| 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.
| wortelefant wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| systematical wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Any reason you have reading as a separate category? Cant it be
| merged into the personal and professional categories?
| systematical wrote:
| 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.
| WJW wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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?
| WJW wrote:
| What I have found for myself is that I easily fool myself
| into applying these kind of frameworks for everything in my
| life, because every problem can be a nail for the OKR-shaped
| hammer. Some problems are better approached in different ways
| though. It's a valuable tool to have in the mental toolbox
| but it is also good to have a variety of approaches to choose
| from when confronted with a new problem or task.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| 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) 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.
| demadog wrote:
| Any books you recommend along these lines?
| sh_123 wrote:
| Can you share more about your process? I'm very interested in
| learning more. How do you track your daily data points?
| tuatoru wrote:
| 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.
| wcarss wrote:
| 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.
| zikzak wrote:
| This is how I learned. The most important step here is
| selection of the right thing to juggle. Nothing adds more
| difficulty (well, maybe riding a unicycle). The hackysack was
| made for this. The heft and size are perfect, especially when
| you move to having two in one hand and one in the other (the
| juggling starting position). After that, it is all muscle
| memory. After I got the basics, I would go out in the yard and
| just do laps while juggling. Before a week or so I was able to
| juggle fairly well with three identical objects, then figured
| out doing different sizes and weights together. At some point,
| I realized girls were not going to be impressed enough by this
| skill to overcome the other deficiencies I had, and I stopped.
| :)
| Jd wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Exactly. Outcome > Output.
| dwb wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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. :)
| aftergibson wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| closeparen wrote:
| There are usually more obviously good and desirable things than
| I have the bandwidth to accomplish in one time period; it's
| useful to pick the subset that will be my current focus.
|
| For example last year I invested a lot in lifestyle habits
| around exercise and cooking. Now those habits are largely
| autopilot and I'm looking at mental habits around attention,
| complaining, and negativity.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Not that I'm a particular David Allen GTD fan (and really am
| not much of a "methodology" person in general) but one of the
| handful of his ideas I really did like was the idea of
| breaking down projects into specific actionable tasks.
| Whether it's losing weight or getting better organized.
| spieswl wrote:
| That last statement is crucial.
|
| I was surprised to see how in-depth and detailed these
| objectives are. Not to knock the author, mind you; the
| dedication to breaking these things into granular tasks is
| impressive. Rather, I feel that there's little room for
| flexibility in taking an OKR approach to personal development.
|
| Case in point, I had a personal objective to do more service in
| the community in 2020. The way I had envisioned the key results
| was more volunteering, more interactions with people, more
| things like spending weekends working on a Habitat for Humanity
| house or something of the like. The pandemic really
| disincentivized those kinds of in-person activities for the
| sake of the community, so I pivoted to identifying more causes
| I could donate to or provide help to in remote ways. It was
| hard, no doubt, and I was still disappointed that I didn't get
| to do the former things, but considering the circumstances it
| _feels_ like my original objective was achieved. The takeaway
| is that I think personal objectives that leave little room for
| flexibility are fighting an uphill battle from the start.
| logshipper wrote:
| > 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
| noarchy wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| can we ask what you are doing instead?
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| 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.
| noarchy wrote:
| 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.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Not bureaucratize my life plans?
|
| I keep my objectives in my head. No need to write this kind
| of thing down and keeping scores of myself. And whatever
| happens happens. I don't need to bog myself down with some
| corporate invention.
| 3gg wrote:
| Sounds like the corporate brainwash really worked here.
| javajosh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Sure does! Okay, so there's a "default time bound" on your
| list. Makes sense.
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(page generated 2021-01-02 23:00 UTC)