Same as for last year, I put down 3 goals for 2021:

1. Do less but better: Decentralise work by default. Focus on fewer projects. Contribute to my peers.
2. Keep good family routines and adapt to changing circumstances.
3. Invest in mental and physical health.

These are a bit vague, so here is some more meat to make them SMART-er:

I’m a massive fan of the Objective and Key Results (OKRs) methodolgy, ever since we introduced them at the Stars Group back in 2017. Neither at Stars nor at XING they are used in the right way which is why many colleagues have doubts but I’m keen on changing that. Although not as strongly as making it an OKR for myself 🙃

Objective 1: 👨🏻‍💻 Do less but better.

1. Decentralise responsibility as possible to other owners.
2. More investments into my new product are planned for 2022 (because it is a success).
3. I published 12 written pieces and gave at least 2 talks on product management.

While 2020 was a great year work wise, I noticed the balance in my responsibility distribution was off. Too many time, I “did it myself” because I didn’t took the time to enable someone else to do it instead. This ended in more and more things on my plate which caused a lot of stress for me and the people who had to wait for my response. Instead, more members of the team will share and be able to handle responsibilites so that I can do less things but better. This will put me in a spot to bring my new product to success and contribute to the product management community more often.

Objective 2: 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Keep good family routines and adapt to changing circumstances.

1. Every day starts and ends with family.
2. I work from home for half of the week.
3. Rike feels confident going back to work while the kids are taken care of.

The pandemic has been great for our family as we got to spend so much time together. I will keep it that way even though Rike ends parental leave and I will go back to the office.

Objective 3: 💆🏻‍♂️ Invest in mental and physical health

1. Meditate on 3 days a week.
2. Do 100 push-ups in one go.
3. Have a think week.

Before Covid-19, I cycled to and from the office each day which adds to 2 hours of exercise every day. This comes back once we are back to normal. In addition I will get stronger, hence the push-ups. For my mental health I do regular mediation sessions as well as a think week: a quite week with as few distractions as possible. Bill Gates does it, so it can’t be too bad.

Tomorrow is the first work day of 2021.

I can’t wait for the morning to begin ☕️

It has been a while since my last post. I focused December on bringing this turbulent year of 2020 to a good end.

What a year it has been! The Covid-19 Pandemic dominated headlines with a few stints about Brexit and the US-Election here and there. Sometimes I feel bad about saying that, but for me and my family it has been a great year.

At the end of a year, between Christmas and NYE, I sit dow to reflect on the past year and to plan the year ahead. My method is rather simple:

1. Check-in on the 3 goals set for the past year.
2. Review Fantasy Story for the past year and write the actual story.
3. Set goals for the new year.
4. Write fantasy story for the new year.

So, let’s check-in on 2020 goals:

Goal #1: Become a family of 4 –> ✅ Feels it always has been 4 of us

Goal #2: Know where to establish our base (which house to buy) –> ✅ We bought a house this year and love it soo much🎉

Goal #3: Revolutionize how XING does Onboarding –> ✅ the FIRST ONBOARDING flow is alive a newly created Onboarded KPI established 🚀

Checked all of the three goals which is why 2020 was a great year and I will always remember it that way.

This is my story of 2020:

Wow, what another amazing year that was. My second son “Jonte Frederik Neubauer” was born and we got to spent so much time together as a family of 4. Lasse struggled a bit to adjust to his new role as an older brother but now is super cute with Jonte, helping out and playing with him. When Jonte was born, I was able to stay at home and remained to work from home for the whole year due to the Covid-19 / Corona pandemic. Who would have thought that I would get so much family time this year? It was a bit of challenge to balance family (managing 2 kids and Kita Eingewöhnung for Lasse) with work time but it was definitely so much better than only seeing my kids shortly in the morning and not all evenings.

We also bought a house in Hamburg and moved-in! The goal was to find a house this year but we didn’t expect it to be in Hamburg because all the affordable areas we didn’t like and everything else was just too expensive. We call our new home Chestnut Cove because it is in Kastanienweg and we love it sooo much. It’s beautiful, cozy and perfectly set. The neighbours seem great too as well as seeing the woods and horses every morning. It could not be better.

At work, I got my pet project, the FIRST User Journey to a great output. The Onboarded KPI is established and used across the organisation. We didn’t get as much Personalization done as I was hoping for and also the parts ahead of the Onboarding journey aren’t perfectly connected but we will catch-up on that next year. My colleagues will lead that effort so that I can focus on a new pet project. I wasn’t able to go to Porto this year due to Covid which was a shame. The team did a great job fighting through the remote situation though. We had some friction which we probably wouldn’t have had in normal life but we got through it and came out better in the end.

I’m looking forward to more face-to-face time with my team in 2021 though! That will be mixed with 50% working from home. Everyone in the team feels comfortable working from home now and for me, it’s just the best balance between family and work time. I miss the office but I don’t need it 5 days a week.

Tomorrow, I will share my 2021 goals.