System life. How to organize life to cope with uncertainty and achieve results without burnout
books about IT. It’s necessary to become a programmer;
13. I learn about Agile and the word «sprint». Let’s try to set goals for the quarter, not for the year;
14. Well will you look at that! It works better. People, look at how I set goals – I’m a genius! No, Semyon, you’re not a genius. In the book «Just Space» Katya Lengold has already written everything. If you don’t know about this book, then be sure to read and subscribe to Katya. Her book brought Agile approaches into people’s daily lives and shortened their path to the dream. Katya, respect. Keep doing what you’re doing!
15. I read all the books about time management that come across. I start to read books about the brain to avoid thinking traps and make quarterly goals clearer. I find out about the zone of the closest development of Lev Vygotsky. It turns out that you don’t need to strive to get out of your comfort zone, that’s the twist. It turns out that I drank ashes with champagne for nothing;
16. I read and experiment further. I get to the book «Essentialism. The Path to Simplicity» by Greg McKeon. It hits the head of time management with a stick. I understand that the main thing is not productivity, but selectivity. To have time to do more, you need to plan more. There is not enough time to do everything, there should be fewer goals, but they should be important;
17. I’m wrestling with the ways to give up the least important among all the important things. I read about Gestalt psychology and learn more about true desires. It is difficult, incomprehensible, but it seems that this is the only way to set priorities in life correctly;
18. At the time I observe goal-setting at work. Managers make mistakes in goal setting. I collect them, reflect, draw conclusions;
19. An interesting observation. When I decompose work on goals in my task tracker, I notice that sometimes I forget about the goal, but the things I do still lead to it. Then why do they write so much about goal-setting? In Ivan Zamesin’s blog, I read a review of the book «The Theory of Luck» by Scott Adams. There I get acquainted with the principle of «System against goals». This becomes a powerful upgrade of my goal-setting system and finally puts everything in its place. Of course, I also advise you to read the book;
20. I tell my friend Dima Moroz about this. He says, «But there is the OKR method by Google,» and tells how it works;
21. I study OKR. I take all the best out of it and make a simplified version for myself. I’ve been living with this for a year, I understand more and more that selectivity and the system are the most ideal pair for goal setting;
22. I am telling in this book about my final version of the goal-setting system at the moment.
This is a brief history of my relationship with goal setting. I think many people will recognize themselves in the beginning. How the system works for me now, I will tell you further. I am sure that the system is not perfect and can work better. But even now, it also works for others when I help them set it up. Notice, I came to this through mistakes. At each new step, I understood how not to do it, and I did it differently. I learned new things from books and from people, cut off what didn’t work and left what worked. I smoothly moved from the «poke method» to the algorithm. Therefore, take care of your time and do not repeat my mistakes. Let your starting point be higher than mine, so that your final version of the system will be even cooler.
Mistakes in setting goals
Before moving on to the goal-setting system, let’s analyze the main mistakes so that you know the enemy in person. They understood how to deal with it, and why exactly these tools are used. When you understand what mistakes, they help to exclude, you will understand the principles of their work. This will allow you to adapt everything to yourself and improve your own approaches.
«Terminator: I have human anatomy files embedded in me.
Sarah Connor: I can imagine. After all, it makes you a more perfect killer»
Some errors are components or causes of other errors, but I have compiled just such a list so as not to miss anything and understand the cause-and-effect relationships. It turned out to be ten points – a beautiful number for a paragraph of a non-fiction book. I described the mistakes that I made myself and that I meet most often with other people. I also briefly described how to avoid such mistakes. Do not rush to let the thought «Thank you, cap, this is understandable, but how to do it?» into your head. Next, I will describe my approaches. Even without special knowledge, they will drive you into the framework of an algorithm that will minimize errors. Let’s start our hit parade!
1. No goals.
I’ve met a lot of people who can’t answer what their goals are. They just answer that they want to live well. Usually there is no goal for those who, like a squirrel in a wheel, solve problems nonstop in order to stay afloat. They just go with the flow. They are driven by incentives, so the goals are simple. But if they had ambitious goals, the approach would be completely different. Also, the desire to set goals decreases with the onset of the basic comfort zone. People in the comfort zone experience anxiety and do not develop. Without a goal, it is difficult to understand what is important, since everything becomes important, and it is impossible to determine the priority. The worst option is when a person is depressed or cannot recognize their desires. Such people live in the image of a victim and are happy to stay in it, blaming everyone around. So, it’s easier to come up with an excuse for your inaction and wait for everything to be brought on a platter. I was at the place of the victim and the squirrel. You read my story above. If you are reading this book, it is unlikely that you do not have goals. At least you have a desire for them to appear, and that’s fine. If you don’t have goals, analyze the reason why this is happening. In any case, you have desires and curiosity. If you don’t see them, figure out why. Through books, videos, psychotherapists or the poke method. The main thing is to try. Otherwise, life without goals will kill you mentally and physically.
2. Somebody else’s goals.
In the beginning, I already touched on this topic a little. Usually, they tell me that there are no other people’s goals. If a person wants something, then how can it be someone else’s wish? There is some truth in this. But I would say that there are no other people’s desires, but there are other people’s goals. Today, many people want to work in the IT field. Is it a desire or a goal to get such a profession? Ask such a person why he needs it. He’ll say something like, «well, it’s cool, modern, they pay a lot, cool offices and they have cookies there.» Such a person sets himself the goal of «becoming a programmer». But for some reason, actions are postponed, excuses are invented, and the code is not written. Most likely, this is someone else’s goal, with which a person wants to satisfy his desire for security or status. He wants to have a sought-after and prestigious profession, so that the conditions are better, and he is not ashamed to tell his friends about it. Because YouTube and social networks show such content about programmers that gives the right to think so. They program electric cars there, launch startups and speak at conferences. Everyone has become very successful. Wherever you look, there’s CEO, CPO and a lot of other abbreviations. Any person watches it and wants to satisfy his desire, but with the help of someone else’s goal. It won’t work that way. You need to want what you want and understand why you want it. I had such a situation with learning English. At the beginning of my work at red_mad_robot, I saw a man in the office who spoke on the phone in English, as if it was his native language. Then the thought flashed: «I want it that way too.» Why don’t I, so cool, working in such a company, speak English? Then I met a few more people who call to London and chatter in English no prob. So, in my goals for the year there was a goal to learn English. No matter how I formulated it and decomposed