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I’ve been journalling for 10+ years. In addition to forcing me to actually write down what happened that day, reviewing old entries provides a feeling of history that makes life feel soooo long and so rich. I can review my now-wife’s rocky courtship and feel grateful we made it. I looked back 3 years ago and found the day our children were conceived :D (we have twins). I can review the anxieties of my PhD years, etc etc.

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I’ve been tracking my OKR’s since 2014. Sometimes I accomplish what I set out for, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I accomplish what I put in OKRs but didn’t accomplish what I wanted.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

• There are usually four types of OKRs, and not differentiating types makes it really hard to get what you wanted
• Not only are there four, but they are roughly speaking prerequisites of each other.
• Not only that, but looking at all the self-help books I’ve read, it actually seems like most the books also fit into these four categories, and just reading them out of order makes no sense.

These categories are:

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This is the first in a series of posts describing how I’m keeping data about my self, environment, work, and goals. You can read the whole series here

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As part of my journalling habit, I used to keep excellent metrics about myself. From the year 2014 to about 2019, I recorded almost everything that I felt was important. This included workouts, spending, and time spent in a variety of areas, such as grad study. I logged each “good” awake hour. This allowed me to generate reports like the following:

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Half way through the year, time for a brief retrospective. Each of these could be a post on their own.

Job

It’s been a little over a year since I left JPL. After a brief hiatus at Amazon, I’m settling into my new job at Outrider.ai. Last year I was laid off from Amazon Robotics, AI, which I don’t think exists any more as an organization. They cited “Marcoeconomic factors” of course. So, the year started with me unemployed, but with some offers on the table. It came down to JPL and Outrider, and I wasn’t very pleased with how I managed that decision making process or juggled multiple interview tracks. I will have to write more about this, because I feel like I burned a few bridges along the way. However, those are two near-perfect options, and it came down to timing: Outrider could move faster with the offer, which helped shore up my dwindling cash reserves.

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I keep journals for my work and home projects, each of my group members, my section duties, my publications … you get the idea. Here’s how I use plain text, in markdown files, backed by GitHub as the ultimate productivity tool. view full post

To lower the effort required to actually create and edit entires, I use plain text, in markdown files, backed by GitHub. There are a few tricks I use to keep it manageable. For example, I use separate files for each calendar day, and I structure some of the text so it can be easily parsed. But it’s all quite simple and can be edited via GitHub web, or from the command line on any device I’m using. view full post