How to OKR your life?

There are way too many articles explaining what OKR is so I’ll just skip to the part where I’d like to write about. Just remember OKR = Objectives and Key Results.

I am a big fan of writing things down. You will see my carrying my Moleskine notebook with my dear ballpoint pen most of the time outside of work. I like taking notes not just because I do not remember them, but because writing things down has always given me a way to visualize things. So what does this have to do with OKR?

Well since I started reading about Objectives and Key Results, the more I learn about this system, the more I discover that it is the system that is being followed by a whole a lot of people. If you are a fan of Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn and many more you will see all of them have discovered the power of writing goals, setting objectives and completing them step by step.

It is a business system? Or is there more to OKR than it catches naked the eye?

If you filter all the hype around goal setting and GTD(Getting Things Done) and get to the real deal you will see that there are a lot of scientific studies researching on goal setting by writing them most of which will trace back to the same principle that OKR is built on:

• Write your Objectives
• Write your Key Results
• Measure your Key Results continuously
• Pivot or persevere

Let’s discuss all these in two very simple(Just for the sake of not confusing things) examples:

Big Objective: Start Living Healthy by April 2019

— Sub Objective 1: Stop eating M&Ms at work by January 2019

• Key Result1: I have eaten less than 10 M&Ms(green ones) at work by the end of December 2018
• Task1: Take M&Ms out of your eyesight by November 15, 2018
• Task2: Stop M&Ms with coffee in the morning and replace it with fruit by December 1, 2018
• Key Result2: A pack of M&Ms I have bought lasts more than 15 days by February 10

— Sub Objective 2: Start going to the gym

etc…

So here it is.

The bigger objective is to start living healthy by April 2019

A sub-objective (a step towards it) is to stop eating M&Ms at work.

How do you know you are doing it right? There you have a Key Result to eat less than 10 M&Ms at work

What do you need to do to eat less than 10 M&Ms at work? There you have 2 tasks to achieve it.

That simple!

What if let’s say you are not able to do the 2nd Key Result? Every time you bought M&Ms at work they last 10 days and you end up eating them all? Well just take it and change it to:

• Key Result2: A pack of M&Ms I have bought lasts more than 12 days by February

Not 10 days (You are already there), Not 15 days (You cannot get there yet) but 12 days(You just can get there if you push yourself a bit).

The power of OKRs lies in its simplicity and its system that allows you to modify and even change tasks and objectives in order to get to the main objective.

I do apply it not only M&Ms but for all my goals. Do you?