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Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

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Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#61

Post by fsloth »

texasbigdata wrote: post #57
dmje wrote: post #43

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…

It’s tough because it’s probably both. Perhaps in the short time being more flexible and in the moment is better, while over time Marshall Goldsmiths maxim regarding goals not surrendered of “unrealized ambitions end up being frustrated yearnings for the soul” might hold. Your solution sounds more European and likely better for overall satisfaction. However, if you for some reason did want to get to grade VIII on the…

Frankly, if I'm not so driven to get to grade VIII on piano it's on my mind with or without fake goals, I don't really see the point of getting to there?

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#63

Post by AnHonestComment »

helmholtz wrote: post #48
dmje wrote: post #43

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…

It's a false dichotomy. I can't speak for the author (and indeed, from his tone, I'm inclined to agree with you that perhaps he may need to let off the throttle a bit), but taking time to set non-work goals can lead to greater mindfulness about an activity, precisely because you've spent time considering it. If I decide that "In Q1 2021, I will be biking precisely 3 out of 5 workdays a week to the office", this might…

It’s more than that:

“Bike 3 out of 5 days to the office” is a reflection of your goals as a human — fitness, enjoying the outdoors, whatever.

The problem is our natural inclination to be lazy and take the bus prevents us from accomplishing our desire to be healthier or enjoy the outdoors.

Having an explicit goal you measure the results of is a way to assess if you’re living the way you want to.

You’re captain here: no one is making you ride the bike — but if you want to ride your bike more, making that goal explicit and measured is a way to overcome your own internal conflicts preventing you from doing that.

Captain made a call and now we’re doing it.

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#64

Post by quickthrower2 »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #45
dmje wrote: post #43

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…

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.

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.

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#65

Post by [deleted] »

texasbigdata wrote: post #57
dmje wrote: post #43

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…

It’s tough because it’s probably both. Perhaps in the short time being more flexible and in the moment is better, while over time Marshall Goldsmiths maxim regarding goals not surrendered of “unrealized ambitions end up being frustrated yearnings for the soul” might hold. Your solution sounds more European and likely better for overall satisfaction. However, if you for some reason did want to get to grade VIII on the…

[deleted]

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#66

Post by rufius »

tonymet wrote: post #34
noarchy wrote: post #28

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.

can we ask what you are doing instead?

Not the parent OP, but for myself...

I keep it simple. Choose a couple things to focus on and write those down in my planner (pen and paper). Lately it’s been:

- read more books, especially biographies and histories

- spend time with my kids

- write a blog post or essay once a month

Outside that, I don’t get much more specific. Work is already busy enough to juggle. I don’t need another thing to juggle. I’m not interested in forcing that much structure on my time outside work. I try to prioritize simple things that make my family or myself happy.

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#67

Post by barrucadu »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #64
bonniemuffin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

> That’s why you don’t need a teeth brushing OKR.

I do have a teeth-brushing OKR because I forget to do it otherwise, to the point where I've had to have two teeth removed.

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#68

Post by barrucadu »

noarchy wrote: post #28

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.

> Maybe weekly tasks can be filed as Jira tickets?

I use Trello for a to-do list (https://memo.barrucadu.co.uk/self-organisation.html), and have recurring cards for chores - it's very helpful!

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#69

Post by texasbigdata »

fsloth wrote: post #61
texasbigdata wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s tough because it’s probably both. Perhaps in the short time being more flexible and in the moment is better, while over time Marshall Goldsmiths maxim regarding goals not surrendered of “unrealized ambitions end up being frustrated yearnings for the soul” might hold. Your solution sounds more European and likely better for overall satisfaction. However, if you for some reason did want to get to grade VIII on the…

Frankly, if I'm not so driven to get to grade VIII on piano it's on my mind with or without fake goals, I don't really see the point of getting to there?

Sure, agree, but the more subtle second order point is that those unrealized potentially borderline subconscious things you set out for your self can accumulate and gnaw at you with low acuity yet chronically forever.

As a datapoint American garages are full of dormant dust covered dreams. It takes effort to donate that exercise bike or old piano to Goodwill because you have to face your demons that you will _never_ become that version of yourself, there's no future you that will be really fit, and without evidence I'll assert that it's that very conscious act which symbolically represents the destruction of ambiguity is difficult for most humans. So we go through our life with splinters serving as thorns we carry around forvever.

We're getting a little too foo-foo spiritual from here which is probably against HN rules, so I'll stop at that comment.

Re: Setting up personal OKR (objectives and key-results)

#70

Post by ZephyrBlu »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #38
tonymet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can we ask what you are doing instead?

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.

How do you manage or work towards long term goals?
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