Forem: Jon Douglas

Balance Your Digital Well-Being

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 23:02:49 +0000

Do you want to be able to exercise regularly, read three to four books a month, and even learn to play an instrument? What about having a closer relationship to your SO and kids? How about succeeding in the workplace and increasing your focus to achieve more?

Although these results do not come easily, you will be much further along your way if you took charge of your digital well-being.

Many of our digital habits are detrimental to our goals and limited hours in a day. On average, you may use Facebook for up to an hour a day. On-top of this, you may check your phone over 40 times daily. Just think about how much time is being used here alone.

There is nothing wrong with using Facebook, or owning a smart phone. There is however something wrong with mindlessly scrolling through infinite socials feeds in search of validation and a sense of belonging.

By being mindful of our digital well-being, we are being intentional with the technology and setting rules to which we can use it with. I'll go over a few reasons why we should do this below:

Digital Clutter is Taxing - Having an excess amount of devices, applications, services, etc provide many ways to avoid boredom. Having the ability to use these items on virtually any device makes it even more accessible to get stuck in a feedback loop from hell.
Digital Optimization is Important - Being able to figure out what devices, applications, services, etc that bring you the absolute most joy in your life is a must. Secondly, having an intent for each of your devices, applications, and services helps you become more optimal with your limited time each day.
Digital Balance is Freeing - You don't need to feel obligated to take apart of other people's feedback loops. You are focusing on yourself and your close friends and family. You are being more intentional with making those relationships closer as they bring you more joy than being connected online.

Enter JOMO

JOMO, or what it stands for; Joy of Missing Out is the counterpart to FOMO, or what it stands for; Fear of Missing Out. When interacting with others on social media, texting, or even upcoming technologies, we get a sense of FOMO which prevents us from ever leaving the platforms. We fear that without sending a like or comment to our friend's feeds, they will forget about us. They might forget to invite us to the next happening thing, or they might forget we even exist.

Here's the thing about FOMO. The people who want to be connected with you will go out of their way to ensure that happens. Or vice versa, as you will ensure your relationship exists outside of a social platform.

I like to think of this rather as JOMO, as I don't have to prescribe to other's social feed validation in fear of being missed or forgotten, instead that actually brings me joy because it means I can focus my time and energy on other things.

Being Okay with Alone Time

Having alone time is needed for original and creative thought. Being deprived of it can actually make you deprived of these thoughts. Use alone time as a way to recharge, and know that it's okay and needed to have alone time.

Benefits of Unplugging

Your brain is working quite hard to keep up with all of life's daily distractions alongside all of the digital distractions as well. By unplugging even for a small amount of time every day, you are allowing your brain to focus on your subconscious mind more. This allows for even more original and creative thought. Having a clear mind can help you think and solve hard problems as well.

Tips for Balancing your Digital Life

For every device, application, and service, ask yourself if you really need it or use it today. It must bring you absolute joy before you let it into your daily life.
For each device, application, and service you use, you must give it rules that you abide by to ensure you are not constantly sinking time into them. i.e. Twitter for 10 minutes a day at Noon.
Use each device with a specific intent such as a cell phone only for communicating with others in personable ways such as texting and calling, or using a computer for programming. Get rid of applications and services on these machines that do not relate with the intent of the device.
Balance your passive consumption such as watching shows, playing video games, reading books, etc with demanding activities such as going to dinner with a friend, playing board games with family, etc.
Prioritize demanding activities over passive consumption.
Find a daily way to disconnect from technology. Go on a long walk, go to the gym, go to a coffee shop, go on a hike, etc all without bringing technology with you. If you do bring technology with you, make sure it follows a specific intention (Emergency contact, Music to listen to, etc)

Jon Douglas writes at jondouglas.dev, where he writes about better habits, deep work, software development, and improved health for Software Professionals. You can read his articles or join his free newsletter for new content every week.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

Leaders Are Coaches

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:59:24 +0000

Imagine you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you tell yourself that you're driven enough to lead a ragtag group of individuals to become the next Google.

You've heard the old adage:

Leaders are born, not made.

But you're not going to let this stop you. Instead you look for more inspiration, and you come across various quotes from great coaches like Vince Lombardi.

Leaders are made, not born.

In fact, you know deep down in your heart that you have what it takes to lead. You have everything in your swiss-army knife of skills to mold a group of misfits into a community, and you can work with each individual to nurture and align to a common vision and set of goals.

Leadership is a one-way street. Your people will make you a leader. They get to acclaim that, not you.

To get more accustomed with leadership, you must first know some tendencies that make great leaders.

Leadership Tendencies

The top priority of any leader is the well-being and success of their people.
To build rapport and better relationships among team members, start meetings with more personal topics to get to know everyone.
Have a structure for 1:1s and take the time to prepare for them, as they are the best way to help people be more effective and grow.
Your job is to run a decision-making process that ensures all perspectives get heard and considered, and, if necessary, to break ties and make a decision.
Define a set of principles that are immutable truths that are the foundation to help guide decisions.
High-performing but difficult team members should be tolerated and even protected as long as their behavior isn't unethical or abusive so long their value outweighs the toll their behavior has on people.
Compensating people well demonstrates love and respect and ties people strongly to the goals and vision.
The purpose is to bring a product vision to life. All other components are in service to the product.
If you have to let people go, be generous, treat them well, and celebrate their accomplishments.
Look for traits that make a person coachable such as honesty, humility, the willingness to persevere and work hard, with a constant openness to learning.
Listen to people with your full and undivided attention. Don't think ahead to what you're going to say next, instead ask questions to get to the real issue.
Be relentlessly honest and candid. Couple negative feedback with caring, and give feedback as soon as possible. If the feedback is negative, deliver it privately.
Don't tell people what to do; offer stories and help guide them to the best decisions for them.
Believe in people more than they believe in themselves, and push them to be more courageous.
People are most effective when they can be themselves and bring their full identity to work.
When faced with a problem or opportunity, the first step is to ensure the right team is in place and working on it.
Look for smarts and hearts; the ability to learn fast, a willingness to work hard, integrity, grit, empathy, and a team-first attitude.
Pair people to establish peer relationships on problems, projects, and decisions.
To win, you need the best team, and the best teams are diverse and inclusive.
Identify the biggest problem, the elephant in the room, and bring it front and center to tackle first.
Air all the negative issues, but don't dwell on them. Move on as fast as possible.
Strive to win, but always win right, with commitment, teamwork, and integrity.
When things are going bad, people are looking for even more loyalty, commitment, and decisiveness from their leaders.
Listen, observe, and fill the communication and understanding gaps between people.
Leading people becomes a lot more joyful, and the people more effective, when you know and care about the people.
Care about people by asking about their lives outside of work, understand their families, and when things get rough, show up.
Cheer demonstrably for people and their successes.
Build communities inside and outside of work. People are stronger when connected.
Be generous with your time, connections, and other resources.
Keep a special place in your heart for people who have defeated the odds with their vision and passion.
Loving people in the workplace is challenging, so practice it until it becomes natural.
Whatever you get involved with, have accountability and consequence. Drive it.
Surround yourself with people who have vitality. Engage with them.
Figure out what you're uniquely good at, what sets you apart. Understand the things inside you that gives you a sense of purpose. Now apply them.
Most of the turning points in life cannot be predicted or controlled. Allow fate to play a role.

Can you remember back to a point in your life when you had a coach, teacher, or somebody who really cared about you? You know, to the point where they would put off whatever commitment they had that day to help you learn? Or how they would show you in various ways that they honestly cared about your life by asking about your hobbies, family, and more?

They showed many of these tendencies, and you felt like you belonged. They showed you humility, empathy, and love. They showed you exactly what it is to have an impact on a life. They showed you what a true leader is.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

Finding A Mentor

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:58:02 +0000

As you work day-after-day in the software industry, you'll start to feel a bit plateaued, even stuck at times. After all, you're giving it your 100%, but what if 100% just doesn't cut it? Maybe you are looking to be promoted, take more responsibilities, or even consider a different role altogether.

Here's the shortcut, find a mentor. Having a good mentor in your life and the day-to-day can bring enlightenment that would take months, if not years to come to naturally. If you want to fully realize your true potential as a developer, you need to have somebody who can help guide you along the way.

You might be asking...well that's easier said than done, finding a mentor is not exactly a cakewalk. It's not always that easy, nor will the daunting task of being vulnerable enough to tell somebody you believe they would be an ideal mentor for you be either.

One thing to keep in mind is that your mentors are not going to be perfect. What I mean by this is that each mentor may be proficient in a certain skillset, and lack in the others. There's no such thing as a perfect mentor. Instead, you can take on multiple mentors and sharpen your mind by understanding each mentor's contribution they bring to the table, and how you can fully apply yourself with it.

What's in a good mentor? If you know of somebody who:

Understands the big picture
Actively listens
Encourages where needs be
Acts like your biggest fan
Inspires you to do better
Keeps you on track

Because these skills exist in people regardless of skill, it can be beneficial to seek comfort in finding these people in your life early on in your career rather than later. You can always repay the favor later by providing mentorship for others.

Mentors don't have to be people you consider your heroes, they can be as simple as a peer who might be struggling with the same problems as you, but they act like your biggest fan and encourage you to do better. You might even find yourself as one of your mentors. As crazy as it sounds, you are your biggest fan, you make sure you understand the big picture, and you keep yourself on track everyday.

Start small, first by asking somebody you admire their work, work ethic, or even their personality and ask them if they would mentor you once a month over a lunch. Most importantly, make sure that you do the work of identifying where you think you can improve, so that your mentor has an idea of the areas you're struggling with today while they get to know you.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

Narrow Your Focus

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:56:33 +0000

Multitasking as we know it today is a lie. Multitasking is neither efficient nor effective. In the real world, having your fingers in many pies is simply not sustainable. It provides you an opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time by bouncing between one thing and another and eventually you have to reorient your context back to one.

By multitasking often, you start to develop a distorted sense of how long it takes to actually do the task at hand. But what if there was a better way? What if you knew that success is about doing the right thing, and not necessarily about doing it right the first time?

Choose The Right Habit

Here's the trick to success. Choose the right habit and bring enough discipline to establish it.

Rather than completely rehaul what you deem as the right habits in your life. Start small with a single habit that you absolutely believe is the right habit. Ask yourself the following question: Who is the person I want to be in a year?

Now that you have this prompt, you simply need to ask yourself about that person, and the habits that person has. This person might:

Run a mile everyday
Work on a side project every morning
Eat well by cooking every meal
etc

It's as simple as taking one of these habits, and bringing discipline to establish it within your life. Want to run a mile everyday? Start with running everyday.

Manage Your Willpower

You have a finite amount of willpower you can exert everyday. Make sure that everytime you are approaching the right habit, you are allowing yourself to use a large chunk of your willpower to commit to the habit. In other words, most people have replenished willpower every day after sleeping. If you wanted to run everyday, try to run every morning right after you wake up. That way you can exert your newly replenished willpower and perform at your absolute best every day.

Maximum Willpower = Maximum Success

Stay In Your Lane

Life is a balancing act. The question of balance is really a question of priority. The challenge comes to be how clear your priorities are with various aspects of your life such as work, home, play, etc.

Work - When you're supposed to be working, work.
Home - When you're supposed to be home, be home.
Play - When you're supposed to be playing, play.

Let the right things take precedence and stay in your lane.

Conclusion

Success in life starts within you. By bringing purpose to your life, knowing your priorities, managing your willpower, and balancing your life, anything is possible.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

A Frame Of Reference

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:55:31 +0000

Being a software professional for a living is a bit like driving at night. You can only see as far ahead as your headlights. Whether that's your next move in your career, the next language/framework trend, or the industry shifting direction, relevancy hits us like a truck.

One thing I like to keep near me on my desk is a picture of my daughter and wife, they help me remind myself of the life I want. Whenever I'm thinking about the next thing I should work on, no matter how big or small, I take a look at this picture frame and I'm reminded of my why and figure out my next steps as I go.

As I'm tackling my next steps, I'm doing it one step at a time. I like to remind myself that there is a small amount of people who know what they are actually doing. Those who really know what they're doing, have already done it before and know what works for them. For me, taking that first step is the most intimidating. It sets my compass in a direction where I want to thrive in.

I know that the first iteration of this next thing is typically my shitty first iteration. This is where I let every idea pour out on paper regardless of how bad or good the idea is. I simply want to exhaust myself of ideas so it's easier to focus on the actual work to be done.

It's taken me many years to become comfortable with this. I'm finally at the point where I know that no one will see this work, and I can shape it later. Everything good begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere, and you can start today by doing something...anything...and just being okay that it exists although it's not perfect.

The main obstacle between you and your shitty first iteration is perfectionism. Perfectionism will stop you completely in your tracks. It will ruin your code, block your inventiveness, kill your creativity, and ultimately your life. Perfectionism is our mechanism to prevent ourselves from getting hurt or disappointed.

Perfectionism is a hard thing to conquer. You'll want to make sure you've tied every loose end before shipping something to the public eye. Just know that once you get comfortable with the gift of imperfection, then you truly conquer it.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

OK Plateau

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:53:25 +0000

Most of us spend at least an hour a day practicing, but we don’t notice much improvement.

In the 1960s psychologists found we pass through 3 phases.

The cognitive phase where we're figuring out the task while discovering new strategies to perform better and making tons of mistakes. This is where we are focused on what we're doing.

The associative phase where we make fewer errors and slowly get better.

The autonomous phase where we turn on our autopilot and move the skill to the back of our head by doing it and not necessarily paying attention.

When we feel we are good enough at a task, we simply turn autopilot on and go about our merry lives. We all reach OK Plateaus because of this.

Psychologists believed that there are barriers that we cannot overcome whether they be mental or physical. For example, it used to be the case that nobody could run a mile faster than 4 minutes.

Then one person ran a 4 minute mile, and eventually somebody ran a second faster. Now every person who deems themselves a competent runner can run a 4 minute mile. It's as if the floodgates lowered this barrier, simply by having someone break straight through.

What differentiates experts who are amazing at what they do? Is there something you can learn to do something better and become amazing at? The answer is yes. There are a set of generalized principles that are used by experts in the field of why their practice regimen gives them the expertise they desire.

If you want to get better at something, you cannot do it when you’re in the autonomous phase. It’s too hard to develop expertise. Use these strategies to stay out of this phase.

They operate outside of their comfort zone and study themselves failing.

For example, if you wanted to lift more at the gym, try to lift 20% more than you typically do, and see where you fail. You’ll spend more time understanding where you failed and how you can improve. The best people who practice try things that are really hard. Deliberate practice at it’s nature is hard.

People will also walk in the shoes of people who are more competent than they are.

Instead of how much practice you put in, think about how much studying you do around closing the gap between you and people who are more competent than you.

Experts crave and thrive on immediate and constant feedback.

Intuition does not provide you enough of a compass to know where to improve. Rather having a close feedback loop will provide you with methods to tune where you could improve next time.

Experts treat what they do like science.

They collect data, they analyze data, they create theories of what works and what doesn’t and they test them. This helps us create best practices.

Having a notion of overcoming OK Plateaus will separate you from just ok to amazing.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

Improv Your Life

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:51:38 +0000

As a kid, I loved staying up at night watching "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". I was fascinated with how well each of these actors could take a suggestion, and turn it into a magical experience for me watching from home.

It took almost a decade later, but finally a local theater was teaching comedy improv classes and I knew I had to fulfill my childhood dream of being just like Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and Wayne Brady.

The classes went by pretty quick, and soon I found myself engulfed with the local improv scene, where people from all stages of life come to gather and make each other laugh. For over 5 years, I studied comedy improvisation in my spare time, and applied every lesson I could to hone my craft on stage.

Over those 5 years, I read over 20 books specifically designed for improvisation with others, in your daily life, and for entertainment. 3 of those years, I helped run a theater that performed improv comedy, sketch, and stand-up shows every weekend of the year. And a handful of times, I would travel and perform in comedy festivals across the West coast of the US.

Here's how I believe you can use improv in your daily life to set yourself up for success.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Rules

Within improv, there is a concept of "hidden rules" that improvisers know and use to set themselves up for success in every scene and show. If somebody with absolutely no improv experience took these rules and applied them, they would be successful on stage.

Don't Deny

The first rule of improvisation is to always agree. To agree, you simply say Yes which means you're agreeing with whatever your partner created earlier. For example, if I say "The results don't look so good." and you say "You're not a doctor, That's not even a clipboard.", the scene immediately comes to a halt as we haven't agreed on the base reality. Agreement can best be summarized as accepting your partners choice. You do not have to agree that it's a good or bad choice.

Say "Yes, And"

The second rule of improvisation is to add something of your own. You've already agreed by saying Yes. Now you will be adding something of your own which is known as Yes, And. Using Yes, And promotes contributions as it's everyone's responsibility to contribute and you need to make sure you are adding something to the table.

Don't Ask Questions

The third rule of improvisation is to make statements. Every time you ask a question, you are putting pressure on somebody else to ultimately answer. Imagine you're working on a project and your project owner only asks questions. That person is a drag to work with because their contributions are nothing more than asking for clarity. Instead, by making statements you are putting yourself out there for others to contribute upon. Pro-Tip: Hate getting something to eat because nobody will make up their minds on where to go? Recommend McDonald's and everybody will have an opinion.

There Are No Mistakes, Only Opportunities

The fourth and final rule of improvisation is that there are no mistakes, only opportunities. Everything you may consider a mistake can be a blessing in disguise later on in a show. For example, if you're pretending to drive a car and your scene partner believes you're preparing for a tan instead, you are setup for a humorous opportunity to do typical car things, but in the context of tanning such as applying lip balm like a windshield wiper. At the end of the day, there are no mistakes but only great discoveries waiting to be found.

Many of these next rules are specific to the artform known as stage presence, so sadly we won't be going over these here.

Don't Dictate Action
Don't Talk About Past Or Future Events
Establish Who, What, Where
Don't Negotiate
Don't Do Teaching Scenes
Show, Don't Tell
Don't Talk About What You're Doing

What The Rules Really Should Be

Agree
Pay Attention
Don't Deny An Established Reality
Care For One Another
The Other Person Is The Most Important Person And Answer To Your Problems
Artificially Imposing Facts Is Unhelpful
The solution lies in the connection between the people
Play at the top of your intelligence

Fuck The Rules

Learning about the rules is great, but you don't need rules other than to understand how you can break them.

There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs. -Ansel Adams

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist. - Pablo Picasso

Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively. - The Dalai Lama

I'll tell you that these rules do nothing but give you a set of guidelines of what's proven to work. But for every successful improviser, they've adopted their own rules that work for them. In other words, you don't need rules other than to understand your own.

My personal rule is very simple, and that is:

Always behave and respond honestly in the moment.

Apply Yourself

Find a way to start embracing these concepts into your daily life. You don't have to go as far as being a "Yes" person, or applying a "Year Of Yes" to your life, but many of these concepts we don't normally think about in our day to day life. Give a full day of Yes a try, or make sure to ask less questions by making more statements. Finally, take more risks as any mistake that comes out of them is an opportunity.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

Never Too Late

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:48:08 +0000

Social media has really done some damage to our psyche. Being in a constant feedback loop from hell is not ideal for your long term mental health.

Comparison Is Hurtful

I grew up as a middle child. As my older brother would achieve various feats in his life, of course I would constantly compare myself to him. Everything became a comparison of what had been accomplished at what age, and really anyone else by that age. This really killed my confidence, happiness, and hope overall.

These types of comparisons will keep you trapped in a job you hate, a life you aren't happy with, and ultimately keeps you at bay because these are symbols of success defined by others, but not you. Recently my father told me that I should strive to be a "Salaryman". Which in other words is a person who works for a living until the retirement age of 65. This puts a thought in the back of your head that your happiness and sense of fulfillment will somehow happen later.

There is however a healthy type of comparison. Reading about how others achieved success, observing what others are doing and trying it yourself will ultimately put you on a clearer path than struggling through. When you notice people who naturally flourish at work, these are the types of people you want to learn from. They are the types of people who are willing to share their perspective on life and work and ultimately help others avoid going down the wrong road.

Ultimately, you don't need to worry about having it all figured out. Regardless of what you have tried so far and hasn't led to more happiness can rather be pursued as fulfillment to be a goal in your life to what success you can obtain that is meaningful to you.

Early Success Is Rare

When I was growing up, I had always thought my parents were pretty successful. They were young when they had their kids, they had a house, and they both had reliable jobs they could expect a paycheck from each month. This is the life, I had always thought. Until I experienced what I thought was the life. I bought a house when I was 20, I got married at 25, and had a kid at 26. Meanwhile, I also worked in the software industry fulltime for various companies ever since I was 18. I always thought of myself as successful, at least in my parents eyes.

Growing through school, I always thought there was a natural timeline to all of these things. You know, the typical

Finish High School → Graduate From College → Get a Job → Get Married → Buy a House → Start a Family.

I was able to accomplish each and every one of these steps, however it wasn't a sequential process. Rather it was a sporadic process. Mine looked more like this:

Finish High School → Get a Job → Buy a House → Graduate From College → Get Married → Start a Family.

What I'm trying to say to you is that in the long run, it doesn't matter. There are always early bloomers and late bloomers, and the only thing you have to worry about is to reassure yourself that everything is going to be ok.

You should know that there is three different paths of success. It's up to you to figure out which path you want to be on such as:

Fast Lane
Passive Lane
Slow Lane

Most of the people I know are not in a rush, these are people I believe are on the passive lane. They let things go with the flow and naturally things happen in due time.

However you'll come across people who are on the slow lane, these are the types of people who may not know what they want from life quite yet, and it puts them behind the curve.

Finally, you'll notice people who want more, and are willing to make it happen. These are people on the fast lane.

Let's look at some of the most famous people in each respective lane.

Slow Lane

Stan Lee, published The Fantastic Four when he was 40 years old.
Ray Kroc, opened the first McDonald's franchise when he was 52 years old.

Passive Lane

Vincent van Gogh, created majority of his recognized artwork in his mid 30s.
Jeff Bezos, started Amazon in his garage when he was 30 years old.

Fast Lane

Mark Zuckerberg, launched Facebook when he was 19 years old.
Alexander Hamilton, became the trusted aide to George Washington at 20 years old.

Don't Worry About When

At the end of the day, we are all on different timelines. The so-called race we are running is against one person, ourselves. The most important comparison you can have today, is to your past self.

What you should be doing is keeping a goal of fulfillment in your head and follow the lane you believe will take you there. That can take you on many paths such as changing jobs and making life-altering decisions that will ultimately bring you a sense of fulfillment.

It's never too late. Don't give in to the fickle beast known as hopelessness. In fact, you have the grit to pursue your wildest dreams. This will lead you to a path of success and fulfillment.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev

Personal OKRs

Jon Douglas — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 22:42:08 +0000

What is an OKR? It's known as Objectives and Key Results. It's a framework for an organization or individual to track and prioritize its most important goals.

An objective is the goal (the what) or direction the organization or individual intends to work toward.

Key results are the metrics (the how) used to determine how an objective is met.

Why OKRs?

Uses a data-driven approach to optimize costs and measure key result progress against higher-level objectives.
Measure how we are progressing and adjust if/when necessary.
Continuously raising the bar every time you practice.
Prioritize time and energy based on what will move your metaphorical needle.

Objectives

The goal (the what) and overall direction we are intending our work towards. You should not have more than 3-5 objectives at any time.

You may ask yourself:

What are my primary objectives?
What value do these objectives bring into my life?
What are the things we want to look at ourselves in a mirror and say "I can get this done".

Thus our objectives should be significant, concrete, action oriented, and inspirational.

Key Results

The metrics (the how) used to determine how our objective is met. You should not have more than 3-5 key results per objective at any time.

If you cannot measure it, it's not a key result.

If you cannot measure it yet, make a key result for being able to measure it.

Key results should be specific, time-constrained, aggressive, realistic, measurable, and verifiable.

How do I setup OKRs?

You can follow any cadence you prefer, but I would strongly recommend sticking with a typical quarterly basis. Here's how this might look:

Brainstorm and Define OKRs every quarter

November (Quarter 1)
February (Quarter 2)
May (Quarter 3)
August (Quarter 4)

Note: You can set your quarters however you want. These are dates approximately 2 months prior to the start of the quarter.

Grading OKRs every quarter

January (Q1)
April (Q2)
July (Q3)
October (Q4)

How do I grade OKRs?

You will grade your OKRs based on your key results progress on a scale from 0.0 - 1.0.

0.0 - You identified a key result but may have not put time and energy into it.
0.1 - 0.3 - You have made initial progress.
0.4 - 0.6 - You have made impactful progress.
0.7 - You have reached your goal.
0.8 - 1.0 - You have crushed your goal and may need to adjust your next goal to be more ambitious.

Sample Personal OKRs

Let's say you have a few objectives that you really want to work on for the next year. Let's take the following areas for example:

Learn a programming language / framework.
Workout at the gym.
Read more books.
Land a job as a software developer.

We'll now take each of those items to turn them into concrete objectives:

Objective: Create an Android Application.
Objective: Build Muscle with a Strength Training Program.
Objective: Read More Books.
Objective: Become a Software Developer.

Now that we have each of these objectives defined, we will now create key results that measure our objectives.

Objective: Create an Android Application.

Key Results

Create a list of 10 app ideas and select one idea by the first of next month.
Work on programming the app 3 days a week at 7pm-8pm.
Publish to the Google Play Store by 2020.

Objective: Build Muscle with a Strength Training Program.

Key Results

Read "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe for beginner workout programming.
Go to Gold's Gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1pm-2pm.
Be able to:
- Squat - Body Weight
- Deadlift - 1.5x Body Weight
- Bench Press - Body Weight

Objective: Read More Books.

Key Results

Read 50 books by 2020.
Read for 30 minutes every night before bed.
Write a monthly blog post on the most significant reads that month.

Objective: Become a Software Developer.

Key Results

Apply for 5 jobs every Monday.
Study for technical interviews every night for 30 minutes.
Attend 5 interviews every month.
Accept a job offer.

OKRs that define our systems

As simple as it sounds, setting these OKRs create a system for us to follow to be successful in reaching our objective. As these objectives are conquered, you may adjust the objective to be the next item on your list of priorities. For example, if you become a software developer, you might change the goal to be more specific such as getting a promotion, to which you can specify the key results that you will need to measure your progress.

Grading your OKRs every quarter is the most important thing you can do. By grading your OKRs, you are giving yourself insight to where you are focusing your energy and time. This will allow you to adjust your system so you can ensure your true priorities are being accounted for.

Summary

OKRs can be used as a framework to organize the systems that drive our habits.
An objective is the goal (the what) or direction the organization or individual intends to work toward.
Key results are the metrics (the how) used to determine how an objective is met.
Define and grade your OKRs every quarter of the year.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev