with hundreds of hours spent on coaching calls with ambitious young people, i want to open source some perspective with the intention of sharing insights i wish i had earlier.
background context for this question: starting a new term
with the fall term beginning, there are new decisions to make around what classes to take, side projects to explore, and ultimately how to spend your time.
when i was in school, i treated every term as a chance for partial self reinvention. either i was exploring new skillsets in design, like self teaching ux/ui design while working with a startup, or i would search for new perspectives for things that were not immediate in architecture school.
because i knew i didn’t want to be an architect, this was inspired by my curiosity to find pathways that made sense for me post graduation. now looking back, this quote from steve jobs resonates because of how different things actually ended up
you can't connect the dots looking forward;
you can only connect them looking backwards.
— steve jobs
small tangent (skip this if you just want to jump in) i had no way of guessing that exploring ux/ui with a startup for 6 months would lead to my dream role. the irony is eventually that role would have little to do with ux/ui. my path was nonlinear.
where it started: i self taught myself ux/ui designing a couple hundred screens and dozens of interactions, before the age of helpful prototyping software. it was painstaking to push pixels across adobe illustrator art boards… but initially when i started this project, i thought this was a viable way to apply design in a startup.
pivot moment: a few months into designing screens, i realized there were larger decisions, like color schema and naming that were beyond screen to screen designs, and accidentally found my way into branding. i liked brandingdesign better because of it’s connection to customers as well as other areas of design (logo, websites, slide decks, etc).
while that product was shipped with a few users, i ultimately used branding to get an opportunity to explore customer discovery at another startup, which then led to working with a group of founders to start cornell’s first summer accelerator.
^ and so while that was a 2 year journey in itself, each term was influenced by what was immediately in front of me to make the most of the resources on campus and time outside of class.
as the fall term starts, here’s a conversation with a student who is currently undecided along with a framework to figure it out. i wish i had this framework earlier as it’s a clearer way of thinking to collect the dots as you move forward so you can make sense of them afterwards.
"how do i prep for the fall?" undecided major, incoming freshman
them: your deciding a major post was interesting, i’m in the process of figuring out how to make the decision of what to major in right now.
me: what are you choosing between?
them: cs for machine learning or electrical engineering with a more robotics focus. i want to build self driving cars.
me: one perspective from a friend at mit is that cs is becoming more common. we need more people with different fundamental undertanding (math, biology, or hardware) before jumping into machine learning. you can take machine learning courses as an elective or self teach yourself with the options online.
them: i’ve also been in a reflective space. i want to figure out what’s right for me like what aligns to what i care about.
me: one way to do that is try to collect as many dots as you can with what you know right now and arrange it in a grid to start with the end in mind and work backwards to decide right now.
i like naval ravikants analogy of life being a single player game. for your own curiosity, choices, and collaborations, it’s not your parent’s score board, your teacher’s score board, or even society’s score board that matters. it’s a self set series of missions and values that you choose because you care about something.
them: tell me more.
me: one way to visualize this is something product managers use at microsoft to prioritize monthly and quarterly sprints for feature selection.
it’s called the 3x3 because it’s a grid. here i’ll walk you through it so you can do it for yourself. everyone’s looks different.
…continue below to what was covered on the call
making your own 3x3 grid
my reccomendation is use a piece of paper as it’s a distraction free medium and easier to translate your thoughts than a digital medium. you can import into a notion, google sheet, or apple note later.
caveat: this initial video is a snapshot of a session during ari global 2023 summer sprint. eventually i may get to making better tailored content for a new audience, but for now this will do. done is better than perfect.
step by step break down
first draw 4x4 grid
label the first row: 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks.
fill the first column is filled with the top three things you care about right now and will matter to your future self. this is part of the process in defining your own definition of success. start with what matters to you.
you might need to spend time figuring out, what are top 3 things you care most about?for me when i was a sophomore in architecture school it looked like this:
new skillsets with projects
meet like minded people (interesting, curious over a coffee chat)
explore new experiences
for other people it could include things like
- having fun with others
- making money to be financially free
- health
- romantic relationships- published research
- travel
- or literally anything you care about.
now with each row, you’ll start in the 3 year column to answer, what does success look like 3 years from now in this bucket?
for example, in filling this out my sophomore self would have these things under first bucket:
- have an mvp of a product i’m proud of with paying customers
- raise pre-seed round from accelerator (y combinator) or angel investors
- have initial team of 2-3 people i like building with
^ you can list all the things that make sense to add.after outcomes in three years, ask what are meaningful milestones i can hit in 3 months?
for the example above, it could look like this:
- mvp » talk to 100 users, ship 1 thing to get feedback
- raise » have 10 coffee chats with founders who have raised before or alumni currently investing to learn things i dont know i don’t know
- team » work with 2 new people on different side projects to explore potential fit after graduating
^ note each one is set up as a smart goal. it’s quantifiable and specific. note, i did not actually have this back when i was in school, but my actions did align with these intentions as i did these things.
now answer the question, what can i start doing in the next 3 weeks to make progress on these milestones?
in the example above, some action items over three weeks could look like this:
- mvp » talk to 100 users » talk to 25 users
- find online community forum for 10 new leads
- ask friends for leads, goal is 15 intros
- mvp » ship 1 thing » finish online tutorial (12 hours, 4hrs/ week)
- mvp » ship 1 thing » make 1 page idea of what to build
- mvp » ship 1 thing » record 2min video demo and get feedback from 5 users
7. repeat steps 4-6 for each of the next rows.
and now you have a 3x3 matrix that helps align your future goals with your present decisions. you can use this to filter for classes, side projects, extra commitments, and finding unconventional opps.
common mistakes in filling out
being wrong about what you actually care about. one way to test that is to ask yourself, why did you add this to your first column? why does this matter to you? sometimes it’s something you ineherited, from an outside influence like your parents or a friend’s definition of success.
for example, there was a student i was working with recently who wants to build with the latest large language models in machine learning, and she was asking herself if she should take french class this term. rather than take french, she decided to work on a translation project with llms as that was more aligned to what she wanted to do longer term. it was the fact her friends were taking language classes that she thought french may be initially good fit for her.
one question that goes a long way: ‘does this make sense for me?’ it’s surprising how many actions and decisions don’t make sense.minimizing ambition because of fear of missing. some people shy away from writing ambitious goals. they write only what they know they can get 100% on.
this is not a test. this is a blueprint and a guide. you don’t fail by missing, you fail by underestimating your future potential.
john doerr, investor and adviser to google in the early days, shared that early on google championed an ambitious culture. their intentions, at maximum effort and energy as to hit 75% of a goal. that meant the goal initially intimidated them and they needed to find a way to earn the 3/4 completion. this helps avoid complacency.thinking this paper determines your future and it’s written in stone. this document will (and should) evolve over time. it’s a living document you can revisit every 3 weeks to see what worked, find what didn’t and make new 3 week goals.
my reccomendation is don’t change 3 month goals until after you finish three months from writing. this may be obvious, but it’s important to capture gaps in data. this is some of the richest data for your future self to course correct on what actually happens.
no one has a crystal ball to predict things with 100% accuracy. you can re-evaluate 3 year goals every 6 months if you so choose.making it a 3x5 or a 3x7+. the myth in school is you can do all the things. know that each thing you add to this dilutes everything. this is a practice in prioritizing to filter. focusing on three things helps you get better results because you know what your top three things that really matter.
this does not mean you only have to do these three things, it just means other things are not core priorities.if you get stuck in figuring out one of the boxes then seek more perspective. talk to a friend for inspiration, listen to a podcast of someone who is where you want to be to hear their story, or grab a coffee with someone. there may be new places to start you don’t even know.
that’s a good 3 week goal - take time to figure it out what you want to be in the three month or three year buckets.
this is for no one else but yourself. you don’t have to show people. in fact i wouldn’t. this is about you starting to think for yourself.
people think differently. this is one way to frame. try it out. maybe it doesnt fully work for you. that’s also okay, worse case you have one representation of your future aspirations that are more structured than most.
main takeaways
alignment = what you care about (values) paired how you define success (goals). the rows align your values to different time scales of the goal. each column connects to the other for ways that make sense.
to make a 3x3 to explore your own definition of success
1. set 3 year goals for the top three things you care about
2. break down each yearly goal to 3 month milestones
3. take three month milestones and make 3 week action items
revisit every month for updates and new data. don’t change 3 month bucket until after 3 months pass. it’s okay to be wrong. some of the richest data is the gap between what you thought should happen and what actually did.
hope that helps. and if you made it this far, here are some ideas to make this more of a discussion than a monologue:
if you want feedback, feel free to dm me, i’ve seen hundreds of goals so happy to share perspective and data.
if something doesn’t make sense or if you have a better idea for what to do, share your perspective in comments below. this is not a one size fits all, but one practice i thought others may enjoy.
if you found it helpful, then someone you know may too. share it with them.
h/t to for first inspiration of the 3x3 as he designed it into an initial tks innovate session.
hey what’s up! i’m michael and i’m currently exploring my next accelerator for ambitious young people to build things that matter. connect with me on linkedin or follow on twitter.