Horizons, O.K.R.'s and Making Progress
What's On Your Horizon?
A few years back, I wasn't seeing the results I wanted in my professional life. My vision was clouded, found myself unsure of what I wanted out of my time here on Earth -- (yada yada - took a writing class recently -- instructor told me I should use more "Hero Journey" in my writing. Fine, but Odysseus I am not).
A Tour of Goals Systems
So, I spent time investigating the personal effectiveness gurus. Getting Things Done felt right, worked well for a bit, but I found I spent more time managing lists than doing the stuff on those lists. Not a knock against GTD, a knock against dumb-ol me. The Now Habit: fanned my immense ego by saying "I found most really smart people procrastinate". Good book, some good tips therein. War of Art: Fantastic. It's the only one of above I return to when I need a shot. Seriously. Go. Get. It. (and if you're a startup type, replace all instances of Writer with Entreprenuer).
So, between these books and 20-some also rans, I tried on a bunch of systems. Eventually I developed a workable process that's simple, quick and keeps my key objectives on the top of my mind.
System Validation
Back in January, I got a bit of external validation from a NYT Q&A with Mark Pincus. Here's the money quote:
Q. What else is unusual about how you run the company?
A. John Doerr [the venture capitalist] sold me on this idea of O.K.R.’s, which stands for objectives and key results. It was developed at Intel and used at Google, and the idea is that the whole company and every group has one objective and three measurable key results, and if you achieve two of the three, you achieve your overall objective, and if you achieve all three, you’ve really killed it.
We put the whole company on that, so everyone knows their O.K.R.’s. And that is a good, simple organizing principle that keeps people focused on the three things that matter — not the 10.
Then I ask everybody to write down on Sunday night or Monday morning what are your three priorities for the week, and then on Friday see how you did against them. It’s the only way people can stay focused and not burn out. And if I look at your road map and you have 10 priorities for you and your team, you probably don’t know which of the three matter, and probably none of the 10 are right.
I can look at everyone’s piece of paper, and their road map shows every item you were going to do and your predicted results and actual results, and then the results are in red if you missed them, yellow if they’re close and green if you passed them. I think road maps are a great principle just for managing your life. It keeps everybody focused, and it lets me know what trains are on or off the tracks.
My simple system
Much like Mark Pincus & John Doerr (in which I compare myself to titans of industry) I really can only keep three objectives top of mind at any given moment. But they gotta be BIG -- enough that if all three objectives are reached, the day is a wein-er. Likewise, for the month, year, and life (I hope).
Horizon Method: O.K.R for each Horizon
Pretty simple. Above is a screen cap of an Xmind mind map. My local copy is (of course) filled in.
Right side: daily, weekly, monthly, change often. Left side: pretty static. But those key lefties, necessarily, inform the righties. Completing this map takes a few moments each night (what's my O.K.R's for tomorrow?). And just works.
Stolen: Clearly, the Horizon idea is via GTD and the Life O.K.R's is a bit of Covey (begin with the end in mind)... again, a cobbled system that works well for me.
Here's a pdf download if you wish to print off for thine self.
Thoughts?
How do you keep your O.K.R.'s top of mind. Care to share?
