Personal OKRs for 2019

Updated with end of year notes: 🌲 = accomplished, 😐 = partially accomplished, 👹 = not accomplished.

Like last year, rather than define a set of resolutions, I’ve decided to use the OKR framework and to publish my goals as a commitment mechanism. As always, these are meant to be priorities, not a comprehensive list. Also, “maintain sustainable wins from 2018” is implicit.

We’re having our third child, due early February, so that’s the dominating context for 2019. However, I’m not quite sure what the right goal for “keep everyone sane” is!

Healthy mind: create more headspace & focus

• Sit down to read a physical book each week
  😐 I read a decent amount in the first half of the year, using a Kindle while on paternity leave and on vacation. But upon return to normal life with kids and work it’s entirely dropped off. Audiobooks simply fit into my life better.
• Meditate ~daily for at least 60 days
  🌲 Did 3+ months. Wrote about this here. Started back up casually last week.
• Sit and listen to a full album each week
  👹 Did about 10 of these. As reading a physical book, it’s tough to find the time these days (and the two of them compete anyway).

Healthy body: stay active despite the new baby & irregular schedule

• Exercise 5x/week
  🌲 4.7x, 285 hours, 980 miles
• Do 25,000 push-ups
  🌲 27 extra

Happy family: create space for existing relationships, despite new baby

• Take each older kid out for 1:1 dinner monthly
  🌲 Done. This was fun, but began to feel a bit like a chore and less exciting for everyone, so we backed off to every 6 weeks for 2019.
• Couple’s night+ away quarterly, date monthly
  🌲 Hit 3 of 4 quarterly getaways, which IMO is pretty good with a new baby. Didn’t log all the dates but I’m pretty sure we’re on track.
• Add a dozen everyday recipes to my repertoire + learn to roast a great duck
  😐 A dozen was more of a stretch than I expected! Got to 8, plus ended up flexing into other foods like mayo/aioli, more salad dressings, sides, etc. Learned to roast an acceptable duck.

Impactful work: set out on the path forward

• find a new job
  😐 Good progress, could be soon, but not done and could have done more
• figure out sustainable personal policy involvement (particularly housing)
  👹 Haven’t cracked this one beyond monetary contributions yet
• publish monthly
  😐 Published 8 articles, but front-loaded in the year. This kind of fell off as the time got directed into the projects below.

Sustainable hobbies: less clutter, more reward

• play piano for 150 hours
  🌲 258 hours. Playing begets playing here. Directed a lot of my time here.
• create navigable library of photo/video albums
  🌲 Done for photos, not yet for videos. In the late summer I changed the goal to delay the video work and sunk a lot of time into creating yearbooks. We now have family yearbooks—both digital and physical—going back to 2001. This was a massive time commitment, but super worth it.
• shut down personal web apps and NAS
  😐 Done for web apps, NAS shutdown is dependent on finishing video library work, which got deferred per above.