Playing POKR with 2021
2020 beat me down. My day-to-day self didn’t nearly survive initial contact with the new and awful normal. After the first few months of trying (read: failing) to pick up the pieces, I looked on helplessly as that self had also collapsed for everyone else. We were all left trying to self-arrest, collectively alone. How do we find an acceptable stasis and move on when the familiar foundations are gone?
My family and I have escaped it so far. We were incredibly fortunate to get pregnant in June, and have had a healthy pregnancy the entire way, but it’s meant we’ve all been hiding inside to protect my wife and this unborn kid. Every cough, sneeze, or slight sore throat grips you.
I miss my parents, it’s been over a year since we’ve hugged, and they’ve missed my daughter growing from toddler into little human as she started talking, got a sense of humor, and became a self-directed person. Each week I’m compelled to ignore the reality that my dad is a front-line worker and that it’s not a given he would recover easily should he get COVID; the terrorizing of the mind that does.
My grandma passed in May and all we could do was get on FaceTime and cry together — more dehumanizing than even a straight audio phone call would be. There was no funeral because nobody could travel. I didn’t even reach out to my uncles. What is there to say? Our familiar institutions for coming together to process and grieve have been suspended, and we’re quite disoriented as a result.
Even as the year lumbered on and the absolute worst didn’t materialize, the loneliness grated more than ever, as substitutes like Zoom are fucking awful for all the obvious reasons. I’m an in-person person, you know? Being in quarantine made it impossible to feel part of anything when every night was alone in our house doomscrolling into twitter and the news. We’re still new in this city, and that newness is now set to remain for at least another year, likely two or three.
Reflecting on all this has been disappointing. Intellectually, I understand that scary or chaotic times call for a recommitment to our definition of success or happiness. They require a surrender to the process, no matter the emotional ride it whips us through. Emotionally, though, my defense during these times is evidently to compress my capacity for both the highs and the lows, and to simply endure one day at a time in a holding pattern. Every morning I hold onto work or some house chore as a tentpole of progress and meaning. Every night I have a few too many drinks to ease me into sleep. The days were doable but the year was left tasteless.
2021 has to be better. With a kid on the way and much digging out from 2020 in order, there is no leeway for me to feel rudderless or emotionally unreliable. As such, I’m deploying the least sexy thing I can think of — setting Personal OKRs to help me stay on track.
These OKRs are back to basics — exercise and meditation, no drinking alone, writing to organize my thoughts — and most importantly are scored in a way that I won’t be able to hide. My last experiment like this took a hardline approach for good reason; it’s the only way to keep me honest and away from a qualitative narrative that is sure to be inflated.
Let’s play POKR…
Objective: re-establish habits to promote healthspan
Lifespan is our canonical metric because definitionally it’s easy to measure, but watching my grandma slowly pass the last 5 years with dementia is enough to convince anyone that lifespan is a red herring metric. Peter Attia defines healthspan as the holistic approach to brain, body, and spirit health, with good lifespan as an emergent property from that — yes, we should focus on cardiovascular health and mobility, but also friends, community, and sense of belonging as equal players in how long and rich our lives will be.
Key Result: Levels Health score consistently good
I got started with a Continuous Glucose Monitor from Levels Health in December and, good lord, what a sobering look it gives. Flipping another life switch from qualitative to quantitative blows away any narrative one might have, and also makes it possible to include here as a primary metric to track for my metabolic health.
This score is a complex one as the Levels app score is a composite of my average blood glucose, the variability throughout the day, time spent in my target range (70–110 mg/dL), and previous day’s score. To further complicate it, each of these measures can be affected by non-food inputs like sleep, stress level, and exercise — I can’t eat well and then trash my health in other ways while still scoring well.
Previous experience with Levels puts my poor-eating days at a score of about 55 when I have one blowout meal, with good days at 75 or above. I’m coming off a very loose holiday time and my body still seems to be jostling with the small swings throughout the day even with good food input — something I hope improves as I get more consistent and fit. Scoring here will register if my Levels output is between 55 and 75.
Measure: 75% or better every day Score: (75 — Score) / 20
Update 1/17: bumping the scoring range from 60–80 due to algorithm change from Levels
Key Result: Intense or restorative exercise most days
We got a Peloton at the start of COVID and I’ve certainly been putting some miles on it. The 30 minute rides are enough to get my heart rate average up around 160, with peaks around 190 to get the benefit of red zone cardio. This mostly replaced my CrossFit activity, with the obvious exception that I’m not doing nearly as much mobility or functional movement on a stationary bike.
Lately I’ve been wanting to add a restorative mind+body approach to movement, something I usually get through hot vinyasa yoga, but notably absent since the studios have closed. The Peloton service does yoga classes now, so I’m allowing it here.
Measure: 5 days per week, 30m ride or 45m yoga Score: Days / 5
Key Result: Drink, but only socially
Last year was the first year I can remember being concerned about my drinking. It was my tool almost every night to help close the day and ease me into sleep, a ritual and a crutch, the 8pm bell to open the bottle and put my kid to bed. It lightened the anxiety, but did so by bludgeoning my entire emotional space into a boring, narrow band.
As the vaccine rolls out and we start to get back to spending time in public, I don’t want to deny myself this experience, rather I want a return to using it as a social tool instead of a lonely companion. I’m making space for it.
Measure: 0 days per week drinking alone Score: (3 — Days) / 3
Key Result: Binge, but do so sparingly
Similar to exercise, and in the spirit of giving myself a break from 2020, I’m going to limit the number of days I go extra on the booze. My mornings are sure to be much more pleasant, and I won’t be as accepting of a low-grade hangover as my baseline.
Measure: 1 day per week with 3 or more drinks Score: (4 — Days) / 3
Objective: Reign in the distractions to promote continuity of thought
My nervous system needs a break. It’s not that there were many sudden or acute moments of stress, it’s more that my parasympathetic floor is too damn high. Lots of devices, all beckoning for attention, with social algorithm feeds to dial up the outrage.
Key result: Fewer hours in the digital, most in the physical
With the baby coming in March and me being off work for a good chunk of the year, I’m going to limit my total screen time to a reasonable average. This should give me more than enough room to spend weekdays working and weekends checking in as needed, but restricting my ability to be lost in a device the entire day.
Apple’s Screen Time feature, buggy as it may be, does an okay job at letting me put numbers to this.
Measure: 7 hours per day screen time Score: (12 — Hours) / 5
Key result: More single thread, less context switching
It would be hard to overstate the insidious nature of each device pickup, the dopamine drip-drip of the Retina screen and a brain evolved to constantly be foraging for information.
This has a value in Screen Time, and I’m going to attempt to use it. I say attempt because it’s open to noise from family members, and because I’m uncertain about the initial value.
Measure: 50 device pickups per day Score: (100 — Pickups) / 50
Objective: Calm inspiration in, delivered clarity out
The lesson I continue to relearn is that creating space is not enough for good habits to fill. I need to be deliberate about what I’m filling that space with, or the negative space invites more toiling and distraction.
Key Result: Start reading more
I’m committing to reading 1 book per month this year. Some of them are already determined, but others will fill in as the year goes by.
My benchmark here is roughly a New York Times best seller, one of the easy-reading life or business books. For example, in January I’m reading The Second Mountain by David Brooks; 325-ish pages, easy enough to get through even for a slow reader like me. For much larger books I may have them span 2 months.
Measure: 1 book per month Score: % of pages read
Key Result: Sit and listen
I’ve been practicing meditation on and off for many years, but have never developed a regular habit. It’s a quandary, since I’ve had profound experiences while meditating in a therapy setting — why hasn’t it taken plant in my daily life?
Style here can either be Vipasana or Metta, with the goal to be calming the noise and opening up to a different center of truth for my life. It’s always there, but it needs a particularly tuned ear, one that I’ve only ever experienced through contemplative practice. I’ll keep a journal of any particular clarity I gain through these sessions.
Measure: 5 days per week meditate 15m+ Score: Days / 5
Key Result: Organize your thoughts, on paper
Brains are notorious for constantly assuring us of spinning narratives, only to be dismantled at the tip of a pen attempting to get them down in any cogent manner. I’m hoping that writing not only gives me more (or less!) conviction of these narratives, but can back-feed into my thinking process as well.
Some of my work last year was spending time with technical founders and leaders, talking about the emotional and leadership bits of their job, and how they intersect with their life and background from childhood into now. It’s an area I’ve thought a lot about, have done many hours of therapy around, and now want to reify into a “lessons learned” series for myself and any other wayward traveler that may stumble upon it. My experience at Statuspage will be the focus.
Measure: 1 statuspage + 1 other post per month Score: Published Posts / 2
Publishing and feedback
Most days I’m logging items like meditation and exercise, and once per week I’ll go back through the logged history for Levels and screen time. Every Sunday morning I’m checking in with Steve Klein (he’s doing this, too) to go over how we’re feeling and to encourage any lifestyle adjustments we need to make.
The spreadsheet is available to follow along, please feel free to use the template if you’re interested in doing something similar for yourself this year.
