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Comment by tonymet | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

What you were thinking of before was not a KR. It was an individual task to achieve the KR. There is so much bad KR advice out there. Making each KR an individual task is exactly how OKRs (well its one way of doing that) fail in companies.

The objective you had was kinda fine even though it certainly has the connotation of volunteering in person. But if you just make the KRs something like "increase time I help the community by 5 hours per week" then the individual tasks can adjust without making you fail the OKR. Well sure you really envisioned doing a full "work day" each week for habitat for humanity. Covid hit so now you volunteer at the "teens in trouble hotline" for 8 hours a week. KR checked!

> 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

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.

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.

I think the common element in both cases is building clarity and focus.

I don't do an OKR process, but I have congruent ways of limiting how much personal change I'm tackling at once. If I try to a bunch of vague and broad things, I don't succeed. If I pick some clear, specific, time-bound actions, I do much better.

And I think it's fine that OKRs leave out the hills. In setting them, we think about the hills and possible routes. When we're working toward them, we develop a lot of understanding of where we are and our current specifics. If that in the moment demands creating more explicit or formal, that's fine. The OKRs are just there to create the context.

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.

> we all know we need to lose weight and reduce BMI

This is not only untrue but is actively harmful to those with lighter bodies.

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