2019 OKR Year In Review
10 min readFeb 9, 2020
Another year brings another personal OKR (Objectives: Key Results) performance review.
I’ll assess my 2019 OKRs, what they were, whether I achieved the goals and new goals that popped up through the year. The reason I do this publicly is to (1) express my values (2) set clear expectations for myself in a public forum and (3) hold myself accountable for these goals.
Asterisks * signify a Key Result that was added during the year.
Context
My OKRs break down into 3 buckets:
- Family. Things that I can do that benefit my immediate family, such as buying an apartment or traveling to new countries.
- Personal. These goals only benefit me, such as getting in good physical shape or learning songs on my guitar.
- Community. Things that benefit people outside of my network or in support of causes I believe in, such as donating money, building an app that helps people in some way, getting involved in my community board.
TL;DR
Overall, I hit an average of 60% across all my OKRs, which is a bit below the target. Here’s a snapshot of how my actual performance compared with my goals.
Now onto the longer discussion of each item…
Family: 58%
Broaden our family’s perspectives: 59%
- Spend 6 weeks in Europe: We love Europe and in particular, the Netherlands! This year we had set a goal spend 4 weeks in Amsterdam. The way I managed this was by taking 2 weeks of vacation and working for 2 weeks remotely (with the Amsterdam ClassPass team, who were amazing). This trip was really special for us because we lived like locals: we house swapped with a family in Amsterdam-Noord, rode bikes (including a bakfiets) all over, sent our son to Lego Camp and Nature Camp, and I worked for 2 weeks out of the WeWork office and visited ClassPass partners (of course by bike). I wrote more about what we did in this blog post. We also spent winter break in Copenhagen, which is an amazing city. 100%
- Host 30 people for dinners: We love hosting friends at our place. I updated this key result to be 30 dinners not “people” to be more reflective of what this is about. We hosted 22 dinners, which was pretty good considering renovations didn’t finish until April. 73%
- Host a housewarming: We wanted to have a little party but never got around to it. 0%
- Establish a letter writing component to our dinners: I had an ambitious idea of having dinner guests pick from a list of causes, a list of politicians (with addresses), paper, pen, envelope, stamp, take a polaroid to include and use the TED talk template for how to write a simple letter. Didn’t get to do this but still like the idea. 0%
- Make 3 new (family) friends: Similar goal as last year. We wanted to make a goal of meeting new friends such as families in the neighborhood or in Jack’s class, or neighbors. This is a vague standard, so in order to qualify, we have to have had at least 2 play dates with the family or had them over to our place (if no kids). We made 3 friends who qualify. 100%
- Get a family bike and do several trips: After returning from Amsterdam we decided to buy an Urban Arrow Cargo bike. This was a major purchase that impacted other goals but it was a decision we felt strongly about. I wrote this blog post that explains much more about what we got, why, and how our family has been transformed as a result. 100%
- Visit 5 new places in NYC: Maddy visited Roosevelt Island and we visited Washington Heights (141st st & 157th St) for a few car-free street fairs. 40%
Improve our home: 74%
- Complete renovations successfully and within budget: Huge thanks to Irene (our architect designer) and Julian at GWU Remodeling Corp (our contractor). Renovations (2 bathrooms and kitchen) were done in the first 4 months of the year, went about 6% over budget and 6 weeks longer than expected. But we are super happy with the results and have enjoyed our new space! 94%
- Set up 10 photos from trips around house: Maddy actually set up 16 photos in our hallway! 100%
- Digitize 50 of my video tapes: I have a ton of 20-year-old digital video tapes from my movie-making days collecting dust in a box in our storage unit (which is probably way too humid) and I was hoping I’d have some time to digitize them before they disintegrate. Not this year. 0%
- Get 3 proposals passed through Condo Board: I’m on my condo board and have been utilizing the DACI framework/document struand roadmaps that we use at ClassPass to more efficiently get ideas through. This year I put together a roadmap to clearly show what projects we were voting on, what was approved, in progress, and being considered or gathering proposals for. I helped drive an energy audit of our building (thanks to Brightpower), surveillance cameras and other ideas. 100%
Financial independence / peace of mind: 40%
- Complete estate planning: No, but we will in 2020. 0%
- Update our multi year savings plan: I updated our yearly expenses and am able to better project out about 5 or so years and account for changes in childcare costs, student loans, etc. To gain more transparency, I got the free apps Personal Capital (for a full view of all assets and liabilities) and Award Wallet (to track credit card points). 80%
2. Personal: 87%
Improve my professional career: 100%
- Drive 5 major ideas at ClassPass: This year I joined the Partners Squad, which manages the website that 30,000 gym, studio and wellness partners use to manage their relationship with ClassPass. It’s the site I created when I first joined ClassPass over 5 years ago so I’m returning to my roots! This team is fantastic and we were able to ship a phenomenal amount of value this year. Specifically, I worked on a new schedule management tool, tons of tech debt, new reporting, and other initiatives some. (If you are interested in applying for a job, please use my referral link) 100%
Get in the best shape of my life: 73%
- Attend 150 ClassPass classes: I technically did 105 ClassPass classes but also knocked out 5 Peloton “walk-in free” classes that are not bookable on ClassPass. So I’m counting those, for a grand total of 110 classes. 73%
- Complete 300 Citi Bike rides: I dropped this number down from 350 last year because I thought it was way too aggressive. But amazingly, I blasted through that goal with 392 rides! So 🤷♂️. I also earned 159 Angel Points. 100%
- Place in the Rye Turkey Trot (again!): I really tested my luck with this goal, thinking that if I could do a sub-8min pace in the 2019 Turkey Trot, I’d place. First, I didn’t even run in it (because my dad didn’t). And second, I looked at the race results, and a lot more than 2 runners in my age group did a sub-8min pace, so there’s no way I would have placed anyway! Still, I did several 6+ mile runs (including one where I ran home to Harlem from work, in Chelsea, which is about 6.5 miles). So I gave myself a 0.2 on this. 20%
- Ride the 5 Boro Bike Ride (again, on Citibike!): This was my second “5 Boro Bike Ride”. I helped raise over $1,000 for Planned Parenthood (thanks to my amazing friends and family who donated!). This time I did a lot more planning and made a little “Citibike docking map” that helped me along the 40 mile route. Unexpected was the absolutely awful weather — it was chilly and basically rained or poured the entire time. I was freezing by the end. But I’m glad I did it! I wrote a post about the ride and the logistics of doing it on a Citibike.
3. Community: 51%
Support causes I believe in: 48%
- Increase YoY donations by 30%: We were only able to increase donations by 12% (and 12/30 = .4). The bike purchase has set us back a bit so we scaled back some of our more aggressive recurring donations. 40%
- Attend 3 major Galas: We really wanted to attend Streets Ball, the EJI gala, and the Riders Alliance gala, but just couldn’t make it work. 0%
- Continue experimenting with iphone mounts (in the pursuit of bike advocacy): This was a fun goal. I was able to test out the Tenikle, and the Tenikle 2. I got a GoPro Hero 7 Black, helmet mount, various other mounts and got the hang of filming my commute. 100%
- Create or get on a bike podcast: I was hoping to record my own bike or safe streets podcast but instead crafted something that catered to me and my time constraints! I mounted a GoPro Hero 7 Black on my helmet and record all of my rides. But I often think of a lot of ideas or make observations during my commute and get lost in my head. So I figured why not just talk during my rides, record the whole thing, upload it to youtube unedited and call each one an episode. And that’s how I started Bike Talk www.biketalk.nyc, (here’s the 2019 Biketalk playlist) and created 62 episodes in 2019! I also chatted with @robogreen about filming a more formal pilot of Bike Talk. 100%
- Create a document for parking analysis idea: I love the idea of capturing images and identifying every parked vehicle in a neighborhood to help understand how frequently they move their cars, how many tickets they have, what the average price is, etc. I need to put this into a doc but haven’t had the chance. Curiously, CB7 just passed a resolution that asks DOT to do a parking analysis of the Upper West Side, to consider alternate uses of the curb space, so we’ll see what comes of this. 0%
- 5x the Impact of Reported: I had set a series of OKRs dedicated just to my app Reported, which lets you hold drivers accountable for dangerous behavior like blocking bike lanes and crosswalks. I decided this review deserved an entire blog post which I published here: 2019 Reported Year In Review. TL;DR we received 4x the reports in 2019! I also created the 2020 Blocked Bike Lanes daily tear-away calendar.
Be more involved with my community: 53%
- Request car free halloween: I was hoping to make more progress on this goal and at least request a formal street closure for Halloween but the process is pretty arduous. I did, however, send a detailed email about why this is important to Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. 10%
- Send 4 email newsletters for condo: I sent 2 informative e-newsletters to my condo association. 50%
- Request a bike corral in front of our apartment: After speaking with a person from DOT about bike parking, I asked if I could request a bike corral for my block. Every corral DOT creates has been for a business (think a bar or a coffee shop that can demonstrate that a bike corral is helpful for their business). As far as I know, I was the first to request one for a residential location. Amazingly, a DOT planner came out to Harlem to do a site visit, looked over the area and was super helpful. She came back with a design that not only had a bike corral but added a much-needed second crosswalk, replaced several car spaces with “daylighting” and made a no standing zone more clear with different color pavement. The next step is a CB10 approval (which can easily fail). But I’m hopeful! 100%
4. Other highlights
- The commuter with a cause. I was profiled in a Citi article and I just loved the headline.
