As the January 1st came and went, and as along with typical New Years traditions, I got asked on more than a few occasions what my new year resolutions were for 2015. I normally come up with a few things to improve on but this time around I was so busy that I honestly hadn’t thought of anything. I recently got married around Christmas and with all the extracurricular activities that surround such a life event, self improvement goals were not at the top of my list. However, now that all the excitement has passed and I’m back to a more normal schedule, I’ve thought about how I can improve myself and I’ve come up with a few ideas.
I recently learned about Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and thought it would be interesting to apply this method to my personal growth.
What are OKRs?
OKRs stand for Objectives and Key Results and is a method of defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes. It is a method of managing results that started at Intel and became popularized by John Doerr at Google. Here is a great video explaining how Google set their goals using OKRs.
My OKRs for 2015
For my personal objectives I came up with following along with the corresponding measurable metrics.
- Read more: read and finish 1 book every month
- Increase physical fitness: do 2 personal training sessions a month and go on a hike twice a year
- Grow personal skills: work on personal projects at least 10/hr week and attend or organize a social event once a month
- Grow with my wife: cook for my wife at least twice a week and have date night once a month
While creating these OKRs, I wanted to adhere to three principles of transparency, measurability, and challenging. Some of these are easier than others but on a whole, these should challenge me to improve on a consistent basis. I’ll also be accountable to my family and friends and will track my performance on a monthly basis to monitor my performance.
More resources
As I started learning more about ORKs, I came across this great Medium post by @niket about the Fundamentals of OKRs. Also, check out First Round Capital’s post on How to Make OKRs Actually Work at Your Startup.
Feedback
I’d love to hear if you have any personal OKRs or if you have any feedback on mine. If you need any help (as we all do) staying accountable, drop me a line at louhong at gmail.com or on Twitter. Hope you have a fantastic 2015!
Update: You can follow the discussion here on HN.
