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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)

#91
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…

> Give it a rest. Be with your family. Look at a sunset.

Yes, but... Perhaps a little bit of organization and goals, but never too much, is still doable?

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

#92
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_…

I can totally concur that the second order effect of being honest towards self is the key and valuable thing here.

Thank you for this insight, I did not realize earlier that this is the key thing and think it's an important fundamental idea.

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

#93
post #75
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

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 ou…

Generalisation is just generalisation. It has usage in my view. I cannot elaborate further without making more controversial comments. For me they are mythical creatures because they are the gateway of life, and I have learned with time to listen and be aware for signals in communication. The assumption that I as a men know everything because of my rational and have tangible results is "overestimation". Women are feeling first, they have a different sensitivity and intuition for things. Thats why I love them, they provide meaningful point of view with empathy (wired in biology and very important).

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

#94
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think those things are opposites. I don't exactly do personal OKRs, but I'm definitely working towards goals. To hit some of those goals, I build habits. And to build those habits, I carefully track how well I'm doing on that. E.g., I had a goal of being more fit. I wanted a habit of daily exercise, so I set a target of 10k steps/day. My current streak is 33 days, but I'd say the habit is still forming. I'm g…

Be careful with streaks. There’s another thread on today (about phone addiction) that goes into more depth how streaks can be harmful, but as an anecdote, I had a 500+ day streak on my Apple Watch fitness rings until the watch developed a fault intra day and I didn’t notice til the end of the day, breaking the streak. There’s no way to reset that, or show me new streak information. So I gave up entirely. The pandemic…

Fair point. Luckily, for me streaks become boring. They're just a tool for getting into a habit. Once I have the habit, I'll drop tracking the formal tracking of that particular metric. I really can only track so many things at once, and so I'll set some other goal.

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

#95
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…

Making To Do lists I will never follow a one of my greatest Joy's in life.

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

#96
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…

I am paraphrasing a bit but I recall David Allen 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.

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

#97
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.

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