Radical Focus – Christina Wodtke

Radical Focus – Christina Wodtke
Recommendation: 8/10. Date read: 7/14/21.

The best book that I’ve read on using objectives and key results (OKRs) to achieve your most important goals and focus on what matters. Wodtke advertises this as “a business book in the form of a fable” and its format doesn’t disappoint. Radical Focus follows a fictional case study of two entrepreneurs struggling to keep their startup alive. Throughout the story they find themselves struggling to communicate, not allowing their strategy to evolve, and trying to do too many things at once. The story brings the ideas to life without being overly prescriptive. The second half of the book then provides a tactical guide to implementing OKRs in an effort to help both you and your team realize your most ambitious goals.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Focus:
“A startup’s enemy is time, and the enemy of timely execution is distraction.” CW

“Select only one OKR for the company unless you have multiple business lines. It’s about focus.” CW

Weekly check-ins:

1. Objectives = inspiration for quarter. Key results = what happen if you do the right thing. DO NOT pick more than three key results. Set these with 50% confidence of achieving and every week give them a score out of 10 to assess confidence level. When you kick off the quarter, your confidence would be 5/10. As a starting place, think about usage, revenue, and satisfaction metrics as your KRs.

2. Health metrics: Sit below objective and key results. These are things you don’t want to forget or sacrifice while you aim to achieve key results. This could be customer satisfaction (don’t want to alienate current customers), team health, code health, etc.

3. This week: P1s and P2s, write 3-5 big things you’ll focus on this week to affect the OKRs. Don’t list everything you’re going to work on, just the things that must happen or else your objectives will be at risk.

4. Next 4 weeks, pipeline: Things you expect to happen in the next month so stakeholders aren’t caught off guard.

Example of how this might look:

• Objective: Establish clear value to restaurant suppliers as a quality tea provider
  

• KR: Reorders at 85% (5/10)

• KR: 20% or reorders self-serve (5/10)

• KR: Revenue of $250k (5/10)
  

• P1: Close deal with TLM Foods

• P1: New order flow spec’d 

• P1: Three solid sales candidates in for interview

• P2: Create customer service job description

Weekly status emails:

1. Lead with your team’s OKRs, and how much confidence you have that you are going to hit them this quarter.
   -OKRs remind everyone why you are doing the things you do
   -Confidence is a guess of how likely you feel you will meet your key results. 1 is never going to happen, 10 is in the bag. Mark red when it falls below a 3, green when it passes a 7.

2. List last week’s prioritized tasks and if they were achieved. If not, explains why (goal is to learn what keeps org from accomplishing what it needs to).

3. List next week’s priorities (pick three P1s)

4. List any risks or blockers

5. Notes (hiring updates, reminders about team events, open questions, opportunities to shadow discovery, etc.)

Vision:
“When you are tired of saying it, people are starting to hear it.” Jeff Weiner

Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport

Digital Minimalism – by Cal Newport
Recommendation 6/10. Date read: 12/3/20.

I read this because I needed a reminder to check myself and eliminate distractions. Newport emphasizes the principles of digital minimalism—mainly cutting back on incessant stimulation—including why clutter is costly, how important it is to optimize fewer things, and how intentionality adds meaning. Really it’s a book about thoughtfulness and being present. It could have been an essay, rather than a book. But helpful nonetheless.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Principles of Digital Minimalism:

• Clutter is costly

• Optimization is important (think carefully about how)

• Intentionality is satisfying (adds meaning)

Be Thoughtful:
“Part of what makes this philosophy so effective is that the very act of being selective about your tools will bring you satisfaction, typically much more than what is lost from the tools you decide to avoid.” CN

Solitude:
“Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.” Edward Gibbon

Cites Descartes, Newton, Locke, Pascal, Spinoza, Kant, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Wittgenstein as examples of men who never had families or fostered close personal ties, yet still managed to lead remarkable lives.

Make Time – Jake Knapp + John Zeratsky

Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day – by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Date read: 11/28/18. Recommendation: 7/10.

Strategies and tactics for creating more time to focus on the things you care about. It’s not about productivity, it’s about setting your own priorities. Similar to Sprint, they offer a framework to assist in the process: Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect. The real value of the book comes from the individual tactics they suggest, such as creating a distraction free phone, differentiating between “fake” and “real” wins, and bucking cultural norms. It’s all about becoming more intentional in how you spend time and allocate your energy. If you want to work on improving your own priorities and ability to focus, this is a solid resource.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Make time for the things that matter. Not about productivity, but creating time in your day for the things you care about.

Framework: Highlight, Laser, Energize, Reflect

Highlight: Start day with single focal point and goal. Prioritize and protect that activity on your calendar.

Three strategies for choosing your highlight:

1. Urgency - what needs to get done?

2. Satisfaction - what do you want to get done?

3. Joy - what will bring me the most joy when reflecting at end of day?

“You only waste time if you’re not intentional about how you spend it.”

If you’re stuck on what you should choose as today’s highlight, try redoing yesterday...gives you a second chance, build momentum, creates habits.

It’s never too late to change or choose your highlight...if the day isn’t going according to plan, recalibrate and focus on something ahead of you (i.e. enjoying dinner with friends).

Laser: Make higher-quality time to focus. “Every distraction imposes a cost on the depth of your focus. When your brain changes contexts–say, going from painting to a picture to answering a text and then back to painting again–there’s a switching cost.”

Distraction-free phone: Remove email, Infinity Pool apps, and web browser from your phone. Clear your home screen. Restores a sense of quiet to your day and helps you become more intentional.

“The best way to defeat distraction is to make it harder to react.”

Fake wins vs. real wins: Updating spreadsheet instead of focusing on harder, more meaningful project. Cleaning the kitchen instead of spending time that was intended for your kids. Email inboxes. This is all time and energy that could be spend on your highlight.

Email: “Every time you check your email or another message service, you’re basically saying, ‘Does any random person need my time right now?’”

Become a fair-weather fan: “Sports fandom doesn’t just take time; it takes emotional energy. When your team loses, it sucks–it might bum you out and lower your energy for hours or even days. Even when your team wins, the euphoria creates a time crater as you get sucked into watching highlights and reading follow-up analysis.”

Sports satisfy deep tribal urge. Unpredictable story lines that finish with clear outcomes (win/lose), which is deeply gratifying since it’s unlike real life.

Buck cultural norms (TV, sports, etc.) to free up time and unlock creative energy. “If you’re constantly exposed to other people’s ideas, it can be tough to think up your own.” ^Similar to drawdown periods from Ryan Holiday.

It’s okay to be stuck. Stare at blank screen, switch to paper, go for a walk. But keep focus on project.

“You know the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest...The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” Brother David Steindl-Rast
-Let go of caution, throw yourself in with sincerity and enthusiasm.

What matters is that you’re setting your own priority. “As long as we’re making time for what matters to us, the system is working.”