Are you holding yourself accountable, today, for your future self?

In Edit #1 (Introspecting, Reframing, Executing), we’ve covered how to sit down, reflect and use a simple 3-questions process to understand what can be holding you back from tackling a particular goal.

Today, we will setup a sustainable execution plan inspired by one of the famous project management framework at the most successful companies in the world: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

I have been using it for 4 years in my personal life projects, and it appears to be helpful for my friends and mentees whenever I've share it.

Let's start with the order of the day

• The importance of holding your present self accountable for your future self with a sustainable strategy, using the 3️⃣-questions system.

• ✍🏼 10 steps to apply the OKR framework to your personal goals.

• Couple resources I’ve found insightful lately 🧠

• Mantra of the moment ✨

📝 Diving in…

Back in 2019, my team adopted a new project management framework and it inspired my last 4-years "life" management framework.

The whole organization made a shift to leverage the OKRs system. With a growing understanding of how it works, we have iterated multiple times to apply it effectively to our ongoing/future projects.

By the end of the year, as we were getting ready to celebrate 2020, I sit down with a blank new file on my "Pages" and started thinking how to effectively use the framework to do a better job when it comes to my own life projects. The principles were quite attractive to my analytical mind, one that loves tracking and progress.

For context, I asked ChatGPT3 to define OKRs in a simple way - check out Edit#1 Resources section to learn about more use cases of the new viral chatbot - :

“OKRs, or "Objectives and Key Results," is a goal-setting framework that helps organizations and individuals align their work with specific, measurable goals. It involves setting both long-term and short-term objectives, and then identifying key results that will be used to measure progress towards those objectives.”

If you are interested in a deeper dive how the framework was developed and used, check out the book reference in the Resources section below👇🏽

✨ For the personal life goals, the approach I’ve been using is as follows:

• The Objective is the WHY, a high level trait or a skill you want to incorporate in who you want to become as person, your purpose and values.

• The Key Results are a breakdown by granularity levels and timelines to track progress, quarterly and monthly, in the direction of the set objective.

Here's a practical example to clarify an objective, in the "financial wellbeing" bucket, with the 3-questions:

1. What?

Building Financial Freedom.

2. Why is it important in defining who I am becoming?

Becoming more independent, especially in a time of economic uncertainty and a job market in distress, will help in less stress and more flexibility of time and resources. Taking more risks while staying financially stable to cover essentials.

3. How can I make progress towards the intention?

Setting focus points and tracking the progress with actionable items, e.g:

• Tracking budget/expenses and setting a monthly savings' goal

• Real estate investment: what would it take to consider investment properties

• Stock market investment goals

• Business ideas to multiply the streams of income

💡Most importantly

• Be intentional

• Define a conceptual and/or spiritual goal independent from particular facts. Setting a focus on the WHY related to who you want to become as a person, helps with positive mindset and consistency even when "life happens", you can easily find your track back to what's important.

👇🏽A more detailed step-by-step breakdown of the process, including a visual template to utilize, in the publication down the next section.

 ✍🏼 Published

10-steps to setup your own plan holding yourself accountable for your future self, with questions and prompts to help you along the process, leveraging the OKR system.

Feel free to leave your suggestions for deeper dives in the form at the end of this email.

🧠 Onto the Resources

In the Tech world

CES 2023 was held last week in Las Vegas. It is the most influential conference to display the latest innovations in Tech. Here is an article with some of the most accessible consumer tech insights I've found interesting. Lots of them I see coming soon to our day-to-day.

In the Leadership / Continuous growth world

As I mentioned in the deep dive section above, "Measure what Matters: OKRs - the simple idea that drives 10x growth" is a reference book when it comes to implementing the OKR framework in any of your endeavors, personal and professional. It was very common to see it on random desks at my office, especially managers. And we are still using the same system today.

In the Wisdom / Food for thoughts world

Remember the mention to "the monkey mind" in the previous edit ?! Well, this talk is a gem to expand more on that concept related to procrastination, one of my all-time favorite talks.

✨ Mantra of the moment

💌 Final words

Thank you for reading through. Your opinion matters to provide the best value out of this newsletter. Here is a quick request form, feel free to share your suggestions of subjects/perspectives to cover in the upcoming edits. Short and Simple - LINK

Forward this newsletter to whomever you think it can provide value to!

Onto the 2nd half of January 2023, let's make each day count ✨

Stay Curious, Stay Unique & Explore more... Until Edit #3.

Oumaima Talouka