Kevin Ball’s Post

A recruiter recently asked me "How do you stay on track with your own growth in a fast-paced, startup environment?" Thinking about it, I realized how this and so many other questions about effectiveness, focus, growth, and planning for me come down to the foundation of yearly, monthly, and weekly personal retros. The outermost layer is the yearly retro. I started doing annual personal reviews in 2017. Typically around my birthday (late November) I'll start thinking about it, and work on it off and on through the new year. I look back at the past year - what did I accomplish, what went well, what didn't, and what do I want to do differently? Then I look forward and set myself some goals for the coming year. Very high level, directional goals, but trying to span the various areas of my life - work, hobbies, family, romantic, fitness, etc. This sets the context for my year. At this level I keep it pretty low fidelity, things like "I want to focus on doing more writing", or "I want to get back to doing international trips", but it helps me have a direction. Next layer in is monthly. Around the first Monday of every month, I do a monthly retro. The format is very similar. I look back at the previous month and ask what I did, if I met my goals, what went well, what didn't, and what do I want to do differently? Then I plan forward for the next month. Here I'm usually starting to get a bit more fidelity in my goals. "I want to ship a first draft of my e-book" or "I want to get 3 weeks ahead of my interview publishing calendar". Two or three high level goals is about the right number. I will also look back at my annual goals and make sure I'm being true to the directions I set (Or identify if I've deliberately gone in a new direction). The final layer is weekly. This also typically happens on Mondays, though sometimes it's Sundays if I have free time. The structure is once again identical, but now on the weekly level. Look back, ask what went well and didn't, what I want to do differently, and then plan forward. Look up at the month goals to make sure I'm on track or see if I need to invest more time & energy. At this level I get very tactical, often planning out blocks of time in my week where I'm going to work on specific things, and adding to my todo list for each day. The structure is simple -- those who are familiar with agile sprints and retrospectives may recognize it from that context. But the consistency is incredibly powerful, because it makes sure I never get too far off track, and continue making progress no matter what life throws my way. #planning #agilemindset #humanskills #life #growth P.S. If you're trying to figure out how to start... I started with annual reviews, so you're only spending time once a year, and even that was super helpful. You could also start with the weekly level. Block a short period of time every Monday morning or Sunday afternoon/evening. You'll be shocked by the impact of even 30 minutes a week.