A Reflection on 2020 H1

2020 H1 was a half of surprises. The systems of habits we attempted to build in-place to handle volatility in life broke under the pressure. In-fact they were even more fragile than initially expected. Minor changes would throw off the routine, multiple iterations required and to this day we do not have a stable routine.

Major disturbances:

Work Trip Feb 10-15
Australia Feb 19 - Feb 29 - Holiday
Australia March 24 - June 30 - Working from Australia due to COVID
COVID WFH

The uncertainty of COVID and the heavy amount of traveling came with many difficulties.

These same difficulties promoted growth and we learned, at an extremely rapid pace, what would work and what wouldn't.

Habits

Habits have continued to be a pain point throughout the half. The key theme from all the iterations is they have been too ambitious and fragile. Goals like waking up at 4:00 am are idealistic. Even when we are consistently waking up for a week a single late night throws everything off where we will go MIA for weeks or even months at a time.

Working from Australia meant misjaligned time zones. Waking up at 2:00 am worked well when I would actually wake up as opposed to snoozing.

Furthermore, being in Australia meant a much more social lifestyle with hanging out with my girlfriend at the time as well as friends and family. This resulted in more variation than the habit system could handle and I often found myself going with the flow.

This is not to say everything has gone to waste. The continued persistence is definitely to be admired and was incredibly valuable. Despite not having a consistent routine we can adjust much quicker than when we started. We learned from this extreme scenario that religiously following a routine will not help us achieve our goals. Adding flexibility and buffer zones to account for variability is the only thing that is sustainable in the long term.

Habits OKR score: 2/10

Rationale:

[-] No real tangible results from habits.
[+] We are adjusting/adapting much faster than when we initially started.
[+] Resilient

Note: Scores are adjusted for environmental factors. That is the score does take into account the volatile environment we are in.

Health

Health was an area that at the beginning of 2020 H1 we were doing outstandingly. Things slowly fell off the rails as a common theme of 2020 H1.

Exercise

At the start of the 2020 H1 we were getting back into the gym and doing well. Squatting almost two plates, benching 1.5 plates and deadlifting 3 plates. We were almost getting back to regular strength!

Work Trip, traveling to Australia for holiday and the initial weeks of COVID meant we did not get back to the gym.

In Australia when we realized we were in this for the long haul we started to experiment with different avenues for exercise. Running, home exercises, purchasing a gym workout equipment were all tried. Despite having some success with these routines sticking to them proved difficult.

Near the end of 2020 H1 we were walking quite consistently, with the bi-weekly workout. However, after hearing we would be heading back to the bay everything went back on hold.

Exercise OKR score: 4/10

Rationale:

[+] Transition to more cardio and walks.
[+] Adapted to different environments well.
[-] Missed the mark on powerlifting goals.

Food

As a common theme in this OKR review, the start of 2020 H1 food was great! We were proceeding with intermittent fasting whilst having salads for lunch daily in the office.

Work Trip + holiday to Australia meant lots of unhealthy meals as well as a considerable amount of drinking. This is to be expected as it was my yearly break.

Getting back into the office with COVID meant no more food was being served. This period was a lot of take-out which I am not exactly proud with.

Going back home to Australia was a huge plus for my health. Eating my parents cooking was not only healthy but incredibly tasty. Still had occasional food delivery and started building a unhealthy habit with energy drinks.

Food OKR score: 5/10

Rationale: Achieved our goals but picking up bad habits.

[+] Eating well when office was still open!
[+] Eating at home in Australia was great!
[-] Started eating delivery during periods of slight stress.
[-] Energy drinks during hackathons aren't ideal.

Notes:

Be careful in 2020 H2 as we are no longer at home.

Mental Health

Mental health was pretty stable despite these radical changes. Focusing on what you can impact as opposed to what you cannot was a helpful mindset.

Being around family, friends and loved ones was a huge positive. Very much grateful to be able to spend time with them.

Mindfulness exercises improved with more journaling and walks in nature. Meditation has still yet to stick and needs to be worked on.

Mental Health OKR score: 6/10

Rationale: Improving but nothing outstanding.

[+] Being around friends and family

Health Overall OKR score: 5/10

Rationale:

Did not hit health goals for the half.
Would have a lower score but we did well adapting to the changing environments. A lot of this was out of our control but we still maintained decent health throughout the half.

If there was one positive of COVID it was social connections sky-rocketed. Work Trip, holiday in Australia and then spending a lot of time in Australia gave me a lot of time to connect with my friends and family.

I was able to travel down to Melbourne and spend time with my distant family as well. Socially, I feel much better connected and have a better support network than the start of the year.

Social OKR score: 8/10

Rationale: Exceeded this area mostly due to circumstances.

[+] Spent a lot of time connecting with friends and family.
[+] Explicitly focused on trying to reach out and connect to friends.

Work

Work in 2020 H1 was interesting. We did some great work putting ourselves out there and doing presentations at the Work Trip. This was outside of our comfort zone so we get a plus for that.

Productivity took a huge hit being in Australia. Only having my laptop and somewhat unstable internet made things difficult to focus on what I wanted to get done. Combining that with on-boarding a new teammate required more communication.

Work OKR score: 6/10

Rationale: Adjusting for the environment we were in I think we did a good job. We went into the half with high expectations but got de-railed.

[+] Work Trip presentation was a good way to go outside of our comfort zone.
[+] More vocal about decisions and having more independent ideas.
[-] Productivity tanked.

Personal Improvement

If there was an area that was impacted the most by COVID it would be my personal improvement. The goals at the start of the half were to learn some courses from MIT/Berkely about Computer Architecture and work on my project. However, all of this was replaced with social life and work.

This category is those that are very important but not urgent and tend of fall out easily. We need to be sure in 2020 H2 we carve explicit time for these so they don't disappear.

Project

We did a few hackathons on the tracking project but nothing to write home about. Need more consistency in this area.

Personal Project OKR score: 1/10

Learning

Wanted to do a few courses but never got around to it :(

Personal Learning OKR score: 0/10

Development

Read a few books like Digital Minimalism, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, etc. Did also end up reading more articles / learning more about the world.

Unfortunately, this wasn't very focused learning - need to write about what we've learnt + have more actionable insights.

Personal Development OKR score: 3/10

Overall Personal Improvement OKR score: 2/10

Overall

Overall there was nothing outstanding done in 2020H1. We were mostly reaping the fruits of our labor in 2019H2 and adapting to this ever-changing environment.

Next up in this seris of posts will be 2020H2 planning.

Appendix

Grading scale

Grade of [8-10] means we demolished the goal.
Grade of [6-7] means we achieved our goal.
Grade of [4-5] means we were close but just missed the mark.
Grade of [0-3] means we did not get close to what we were targeting.

Grades [0-3] for OKRs require a review to understand what happened and why we missed. Focus on what we learned from this experience.

Expect most grades to be ~6 since we should have quite ambitious goals.