Another month, another sprint retrospective!

High-level metrics

Sleep Score

79 -> 82

Activity Score

85 -> 77
- :(

Weight (Changed metric to weight trend)

167.5lbs -> 167.9lbs

Events

I ended up hurting my leg/knee as soon as the gym opened up. Who knew, tennis match 3x a week and gym 3x a week would be a little much for my body :P. This meant I didn't play tennis for the last 3 weeks of November but started going back to the gym.

Full week of thanksgiving was, uh, spent sleeping and detoxing caffeine. Was very relaxing but as you'll see in the KR summary there was not much work done.

KRs

[P0] Key Result 1: Mindless Project Development

Success Criteria: Feature Parity with un-commited code.

We spent very little time on mindless. I'd say a <10 hours this month. That said, a surprising amount was done in that time with the simple home view and adding of tasks set up. No connection to the server (which needs to be reworked partially).

We really need to prioritize this and get some focus time. This is at infinitely high risk of falling out.

KR Score: 1/10

[P0] Key Result 2: Mindless Project Consistency

Success Criteria: A blog post about Mindless

Um, can't blog if you haven't done anything.

KR Score: 0/10

[P1] Key Result 2: Ruthlessly Prioritize

Success Criteria: A deep work block everyday in the morning.

Every morning at work I scheduled a time-blocked period of deep work for a few hours. Initially, this worked well but I found myself breaking it to discuss something with someone, or to firefight something.

Moving forward, I will treat this more like a pseudo meeting such that I will leave the conversation I'm in to attend the "meeting" as well as stay focused on the meeting until it ends. Of course, I still want to be flexible and if there's someone who really needs to talk I'll make time! However, I think most problems are not as time sensitive as I think they are.

KR Score: 6/10

[P0] Key Result 1: Develop a consistent sleeping pattern

*Success Criteria: The 5th percentile and 95% percentile for sleep time are within 1 hour of each

Data

Wakeup Time: 06:36am on average compared to 06:11am last month Total Sleep: 8 hours 37 min on average compared to 8 hours and 2 min last month Total time in bed: 10 hours 37 min average compared to 9 hours 28 min last month Bedtime: Oura ring was a little confused and the data is hard to analyze. Eyeballing it roughly 9pm bedtime.

Summary

The total sleep went up simply because I was in bed more. This is a combination of lack of exercise (see activity score), diet and finally caffeine detox.

KR Score: 5/10 - I slept early, but sleep is more than just time in bed. The routine and lifestyle is important.

[P1] Key Result 2: Food

Success Criteria: Do not break intermittent fast. Less than 5 unhealthy meals a week.

From last month:

You're probably saying "Less than 5 unhealthy meals? That's not a very hard goal!". You'd usually be right but you should see my eating habits last month ;). Feeling like Warren Buffet with the amount of burgers I'm eating.

I can confirm the goal was surprisingly hard.

KR Score: 1/10 - (I think I had a salad?)

Summary

Okay, so the data doesn't look so good. Last month was not a very effective week in terms of our OKR goals. Let's dig into some reasons that caused things to go off the rails.

World Events

The election took a surprisingly large toll on me for someone who would say they don't follow much politics. I guess being surrounded by people affected by the events I couldn't help but follow it. This brought additional anxiety and stress as I would frequently refresh the news and follow stories.

COVID in the US is getting pretty scary. This compounded with the unknown of being able to visit my family end of this year / early next year has caused some strain. The extended social isolation is beginning to take its toll.

To be honest, I was surprised to see the amount of these factors affected me. To counteract this, I pivoted to focus on:

[P1] Key Result 3: Reflecting (Mental Health) [P1] Key Result 4: Relationships

AI: I spent the thanksgiving week as a time to detox from the media and spend a bit more time with myself.

A Lack Of Urgency

Mindless, despite being a P0, has been on the side as the focuses lie on Objective 4: Work. This is due to the lack of instant gratification and demand to get the features done. The solution to this is setting up systems to ensure it gets completed. Instead of scheduling a whole thanksgiving week I should schedule small bits daily, or a day on the weekend to focus on this.

AI: Determine what is truly important and schedule time for it.

Exercise

Exercise and Sleep are the two key factors that determine whether my routine will go well or poorly. Sleep has always been a battle but exercise has typically been the foundation of my routines. However, due to injuring my leg, the foundations were broken. We need to be sure that even if we don't do a fully workout we can do something small and quick every morning to keep the routine in place!

AI: Keep exercise in the routine when things go off the rails.

Overall, last month was a little rocky month when it came to the OKRs. We have one month remaining and a few P0s are at risk :P. Let's end 2020 strong!