Personal Board Update: Q2 & Q3 2020

October 1, 2020

Dear Personal Board of Advisors,

I hope you've enjoyed the past 4 months locked away! For this update, I'm only sticking to the most fundamental information:

High Level Update
The change in metrics I've been measuring with a reflection
What I will continue to measure and not continue to measure
Plans, and goals for the months ahead
An ask!

High-level update

Quite a lot has changed. I finished my internship at DataRobot and will be starting up at 1Password on September 2nd. I also did a month long product design gig with Props before the start of summer (crypto company out of NY backed by Union Square Ventures). Also, I had a great time at DataRobot and have the offer there for a part time or full time gig so it's a possibility that I'll spend more time there.

Most importantly, Rob and I launched MeetSunday (previously HeyThomas) and we have a bit over 100 beta users testing it out! We're gaining some traction, but have been very intentional with who're we're letting into the community. We have a fairly clear sense of direction and are looking to ramp things up this fall. In an ideal world, Rob and I can work on MeetSunday full time starting in January (Even though there are a few more classes I'm hoping to take at Michigan at some point in time).

Metrics

3 graphs attached:

Productivity

Progress on projects (50% of score): Fairly subjective (Did I get shit done and are we moving forward).
Tasks completed divided by Tasks planned to complete (50% of score): Fairly objective aside from the fact that some tasks are weighted heavier than others.

Health

Working out (30%): Atleast 30-45 min a day and high intensity is a 10/10
Sleep (30%): Based only on the score my sleep ring gives me each night which takes into account time in bed, types of sleep recieved, efficiency, etc.
Diet (20%): Little carbs, no treats, and no overeating is a 10/10
Meditation (10%): High-caliber 15 min a day for a 10/10 rank
Journaling (10%): 15 - 20 min a day for a 10/10

Intentionality with how I spend my time

Skills (40%): Spending at least 60 min a day learning a new technical skill is 10/10
Social(20%): Having 2 high quality social interactions + not letting social get in the way of productivity is 10/10
Curiosity(20%): Following and spending an appropriate amount of time on what makes me curious especially around MeetSunday is a 10/10
Thoughtfulness(20%): Being super intentional with my words and actions and doing things that brightens up another person's day is a 10/10

Metrics Changes

Productivity:

Quarter 1: 6.7 average
Quarter 2: 8.2 average
Change: + 22%

Health:

Quarter 1: 6.7
Quarter 2: 7.1
Change: + 5.9 %

Intentionality:

Quarter 1: 7.0 (only social + thoughtfulness taken into account in Q1 so numbers are skewed)
Quarter 2: 5.2
Change: -25.7%

Metric Reflection

Productivity

Overall I feel good about my productivity in Q2, but not great. There's was good output as far as projects and day to day tasks go but I'm not doing a great job being laser focused on what I need to get done. It was too easy for someone to convince me to go to the beach every now and then for a few hours even if it meant putting work on the back burner. If i'm going to step up my game this quarter that needs to change!
With that said, there was a 22% improvement in productivity and I think this is because during the first quarter I assumed that school work to be completed was a given rather than part of my overall score. So, with school out of the way I could complete a lot more of what I wanted to do outside of school.

Health

I've been fairly consistent this summer with workouts, hitting usually 2 and a half hours total each week, between 4 and 5 days each week. With that said, I'm not quite where I want to be physically and I need to be more dilligent in the workouts. It's too easy for me to listen to an audio book, get excited about how that part of the book applies to MeetSunday or product management, and then take 20 minutes to go on a writting spree in the middle of the workout.
I want to start going up in weights + cut down on carbs and be more consistent with my diet this coming quarter.

Intentionality

This is a bit hard to measure, but essentially it's a question of how I spend my free time. Am I being thoughtful enough? Am I spending enough of my time building the skills I want to build?
Q2 I aimed to do an hour a day building a technical skill, especially for my upcoming internship with 1Password as well as DataRobot. Thankfully, DataRobot cared alot about the skills I was picking up, so an hour a day wasn't too hard to hit.
I used to set up "thoughtful time" where I would just do kind things for friends ("Hey heard you were looking for a job. I have a buddy hiring - want an intro?"). I stopped this practice because I rather these things happen naturally but now I find I'm just being less thoughtful when it's not built into my routine.

Metrics for Q3 + Q4

Ever since early July 5th I've updated the metrics I'll be measuring. I've decided to keep measuring and ranking Productivity and Sleep. I've also started measuring the content I produce as I'd like to build out a more established personal brand. I measure tweets sent, blogs published, tiktoks + youtube videos posted, and newsletters sent. The numbers are incredibly low at the moment.

The following no longer receive a rating, but rather I just keep track of the time spent on each: Meditation, Journaling, Working out, Skill time, and Social time.

The following categories now have a simple set of 10-15 questions that I answer: Thoughtfulness, how I follow my curiosity, processes I'm working to improve, diet, things I should do less of, some Feedback to self. An example of a question is: "How thoughtful have you been with others? With who have you been thoughtful?" Or "how have you followed your curiosity this week?"

The reason for the changes above is entirely thanks to your feedback and the feedback from other board members this past spring.

Plans

I need to GRIND on MeetSunday + LEARN to be an engineer at 1Password. Rob and I have been making good progress but it's time to step up our game. This summer has been quite a hectic time from the internship and family events to personal matters. On the bright side, a user told us how MeetSunday has drastically improved her week and gives her something to look forward to. Hoping to make a whole lot more of this happen!

Also, while working remotely for 1Password, I'll be doing a 9 week trip across the US hitting:

Ann Arbor
Chicago
Salt Lake City
SF
LA
Phoenix
Austin
New Orleans
Nashville

If you have any recs. for places to go around any of these cities, please let me know!

High-Level Goals for end of Q3, beginning Q4

MeetSunday:

Find Product Market Fit (find the exact type of users who would be uniquely pissed off is they couldn't use our product any more) - getting close here
Establish founding team beyond just Rob and I - have a few people in mind
Get to the point in our product where we feel confident raising money Q1 2021.

Personal:

Be a kickass co-founder to Rob
Hold my self accountable to maintaining and improving relationships
Learn how 1Password operates inside and out
Learn how to work better with engineers as a junior developer
Establish the base for my personal brand

Ask

Imagine me being a youtuber. What's my "thing"?
If you're into the whole startup and VC world, is it okay if I send you the pitch deck for MeetSunday over the next 2 months? We're just starting to think it through, but I know we'll need some input come mid-late October.
What is an ask you may have for me? Even though you're a mentor of mine, I rather this relationship be two-sided!
Do you like the new update format + what I plan to measure? Any general advice here? What I measure largely dictates what I spend my time on! For a refresher I'm now ranking productivity and sleep, measuring content produced, measuring time spent on health related things like working out and meditation, and reflecting on social experiences, thoughtfulness, skills built, diet, and day to day processes I'm working to improve.

Thank you for all the continued support! Please respond to this email with any thoughts from the asks above! Seriously, this means more than I can express - I've highlighted every little bit of feedback I received last time and I can sincerely say it's improved how I think about work, life, and how I approach the world around me.

Highlights on some advice I received last time around

You will always be in a place where there are unknown variables at hand that you have no way of knowing. That is the human experience! (Thank you Mom and Dad)
At least 3 of my board members suggested that I have subgoals or at least make the goals more clear. I currently think of most goals on a weekly basis, but I do have some sub goals in mind here if you're curious! (Thank you Abu, Sam, Gary)
Measuring play + not spending too much time measuring is something I've heard a few times. I currently spent about 20 min per week (3-4 min a day) keeping track of this stuff and 1 hour each sunday documenting and reflecting. Thankfully I'm still able to do this consistently! (Thank you Paige, Chase, Matt)
Have an interesting things learned section and + establish and document principles learned. I've been working on this part! I think I'll be doing this in the form of my newsletter + blogs rather than here because ideally this covers the essentials and I don't take too much anyone's time (also heard a few times to do a TLDR) (Thank you Sid, Bradley, Ittai, Rob)
Some top professional skills for me to hone in on from one board member: Execution and resilience, sales, building, everything else + focus on having access to the right people (Thank you Eric, Will)
One question I received from a board member was "what role does school play in your life?" To be frank, I currently see school (atleast from the lens of these reviews) as a way to gain skills. School friends, clubs, etc. I see more as my personal life (Thank you Jonah, Sam)
Join meaningful communities (Thank you Calvin - Visualize Value is so dope)
Focus on what I stop doing just as much as what I start doing (Thank you Jonah, Brandon)
Make it look better (Thanks Bradley, Eric - decided to just shorten it up instead ;)