OKRs for one person: key results you can count
by Andreas Tissen · · updated
At the start of a quarter you write "Get healthier" and three key results under it: exercise more, eat better, sleep properly. Twelve weeks later you look at the page again. You cannot say whether any of them happened, because "exercise more" has no number.
The fix is one rule for the key results. It is small enough for a single person to keep. I show it below on a quarter kept in Pando, the outliner I built, where each key result carries its number and the work that moves it sits underneath, so Claude can update the counts when you tell it what changed.
Where OKRs come from
OKRs began at Intel under Andy Grove. Grove described them in High Output Management (1983), and John Doerr, who learned them at Intel, brought them to Google in 1999 and wrote them up in Measure What Matters (2018). His short form fits in one sentence: I will (objective) as measured by (key results).
The objective says in words where you want to be. The key results say how you will know, in numbers you can check at the end of the quarter without an argument with anyone, yourself included. Doerr's own site, whatmatters.com, says an objective is typically written with three to five key results below it (read on 14 November 2026). For one person, one objective a quarter with three results is plenty.
A number, a target and a source
A key result is a number, a target and the place where the number comes from. "Exercise more" has none of those. "Run 3 times a week (now: 1), counted in the running app" has all three, and you can check it in ten seconds.
Write the current number down on day one. If you do not, then by the last week you will remember January as whatever flatters you. If you cannot put a number on the third key result today, drop it until you can measure it.
The weekly line nobody writes
The OKRs usually live in a document or a spreadsheet and the work lives somewhere else, so checking them each week means opening the document, looking up three numbers in three places and remembering what moved each one. In week three that gets skipped. By week ten the sheet records what you hoped for in week one.
The weekly check itself is one line per key result: this week's number, and what moved it. That takes a few minutes. When nothing moved it, write "nothing this week" instead of leaving the line out, and if a result collects that line four times, ask yourself whether you still want it.
A quarter in Pando
In Pando the objective is a bullet and the key results are bullets under it. Each key result's note names its source.
The picture shows a quarter called "Q3: the newsletter carries itself", whose first key result reads "1,200 subscribers, now 840"; the note under it says where that comes from: the provider dashboard, on the first of the month. The third, "3 posts cite it as their source, now 1", is counted by hand, and its note says so. Below the objective sits the weekly check for 11 July, a bullet you duplicate and date each week.
The work that moves a key result goes underneath it as children: the guest posts under the subscriber number, the mails to other writers under the count of citations. A project that sits under no key result is worth a question: it may still matter, but it is not what this quarter is for, and the weekly review is a good moment to ask. If you plan the same quarter as a twelve-week year, its weekly lists can hold the same tasks as mirrors.
You can take the whole branch from the OKR template: the page shows it read-only, and Show in my Pando puts an editable copy at the top of your Home after you sign in.
Claude updates the numbers
Claude can read and edit this outline once you connect the two, which takes one connector in Claude's settings and one Allow on Pando's consent page. Claude cannot see your newsletter dashboard unless that is connected too, so the usual way is to tell it from your phone: "subscribers 858, the guest post is out". Claude updates the now-numbers, adds a dated weekly line under each result, and writes "nothing this week" where you gave it nothing, as the template's For your agent bullet asks: never invent a number.
You can also ask which of your projects sit under no key result. Claude reads the tree and lists them. You decide what to do about each.
Pando is free up to 5,000 bullets, every feature included, and Pro is 3 EUR a month. To try one quarter with Claude keeping the numbers, create a free account and connect Claude.