Ask HN: How do you determine if your week was a success? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you determine if your week was a success?

15 pointsaml18312 comments

To succeed or fail at something, you have to have a goal you were trying to meet. If you're confused about this, I can only assume you don't know what your goals are.

This is all there is to it. Outline clear goals, don't let too much creep in to your to-do list, and accomplish your goals. If stuff tends to creep in, find out why. If you have to, allow room for that - make one of your goals 'handle unexpected tasks'. If possible, defer things to your goals for the following week. If your goals are set by a manager's expectations, talk to them about the unexpected work load.

I make a habit of recording unexpected work. It's helpful for avoiding feeling bad if you miss your goals (you can see why you missed it - it's easy to forget otherwise), and it's helpful for anticipating the same work in the future and understanding why you didn't expect it.

Goals all the way! Give yourself purpose, keep track, and make sure you've got a manageable work load.

I’m assuming success includes personal as well as professional life. My measure: how well I sleep over the weekend

During the work day, or hanging out friends and family, it’s easy to delude myself that all is well. Its hard to lie to yourself at 3:00 AM Sunday morning. Every time i sleep badly, i know it’s time to stop and take a deep look at what’s going on.

That metric has served me well so far.

When I was stuffed to the neck writing my Thesis and could not exactly quantify my progress, I sometimes did a "stand up meeting" with myself and wrote short answers to three questions :

- What did I work on last week?

- What do I plan to do this week?

- What were the obstacles I encountered, and what I think will hinder me this week?

If I'm having fun, seriously.

My primary measurement is "do I have fewer TODO items than the week before?"

When I don't cause any major bugs in the platform.

HN is sounding more and more like Quora these days.

Leaving home on Friday evening with empty inbox.

Ahhh yes, the glorious email inbox. The world's most utilized service that allows other people to put action items on your todo list.

Select all > Mark as read :P

Sending invoices, getting paid.

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