New year is so often resolution time. And it’s 15th January already, so it’s already about the time that the first of those resolutions start to drop by the wayside.
We’ve been trying Objectives and Key Results (OKR)s at my place of work (the link gives you a better summary and range of info than I can achieve here). I’m still very new to these and learning, but I quickly realised that one of the strongest things about OKRs is the idea that you’re not trying to hit 100%. Even if you’re not “doing OKRs” I’d recommend considering the idea of setting a bunch of goals where you’re not expecting to hit more than (say) 70% or so. Just by doing that, you win three things.
- Ambition – you can shoot for things you don’t know you’ll be able to achieve.
- Flexibility – you can dump things that turn out to be boring (in exchange for doing well on things that are fun and engaging). Likewise you don’t have to keep working on polishing something after you’ve already got most of the value out of it.
- Motivation – 100% resolutions are binary. If you slip one thing, one day, you can’t get it back, and the pressure and motivation fall off.
Practicing what I preach, this year, instead of New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve nicked the 70% idea from OKRs and come up with the following non-work “OKRs”:
Be fitter
- 200 Yoga sessions
- Run 500k
- 10,000 press ups/sit-ups
Think more
- 40 hours teaching/mentoring
- 25 blog posts (Yes, this counts as one!)
Experience more
- Go to 6 significant shows/performances in London
- Go on 26 “dates” with my wife doing things starting with different letters of the alphabet (First up – W for Wine Tasting :)).
testingmanagement 