What it is
What an OKR template is for
Most quarterly goals die the same way. They are written with energy in the first week, filed somewhere sensible, and found again in the last week when it is too late to do anything about them. The goals were not wrong. Nobody looked at them in between.
OKRs, short for objectives and key results, are a way of writing goals so that looking at them is quick. The objective is a short sentence about where you want to be at the end of the quarter. The key results are three to five numbers that would prove you got there. An OKR template is simply the page that holds both, plus a place to score progress every week, so the check takes two minutes instead of a meeting.
The method works the same for a company, a team or one person. A founder can run it on the business, a manager on a team, and anyone on their own year. What changes is only how many OKRs you hold at once: one to three is plenty for a person or a small team.
The layout
An OKR template on one page
This is the whole template. One page per objective, filled in before the quarter starts and scored every week after.
| Part | What goes here | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Where you want to be, in one sentence, no numbers | Make the shop a place people come back to |
| Key result 1 | A number with a start and a target | Repeat customers from 12% to 20% of orders |
| Key result 2 | A second, different measure of the same outcome | Email list from 800 to 1,500 subscribers |
| Key result 3 | A measure that stops you gaming the first two | Refund rate stays under 2% |
| Weekly score | Each key result scored 0 to 1, every Friday | 0.3 / 0.5 / 1.0 in week 5 |
| Confidence | How likely you think the target is now, 1 to 10 | 6 in week 5, down from 8 |
The third key result is the one most templates leave out, and it does the most work. Every number can be pushed up in a way that hurts something else: more orders by discounting, more subscribers by buying lists. A guard result, such as keeping refunds or quality steady, makes sure the quarter improved the thing you actually cared about.
Writing them
How to write OKRs that survive the quarter
Four rules catch almost every weak OKR before the quarter starts.
- The objective has no numbers. It is the sentence you would say out loud to explain why this quarter matters. Numbers belong in the key results.
- Every key result has a start and a target. “Grow the email list” cannot be scored. “From 800 to 1,500” can, in any week.
- Three to five key results, never ten. More than five means some are tasks in disguise, or the objective is really two objectives.
- Aim where 70% feels like a good quarter. If you expect to hit every target in full, the targets are too safe. Scoring 0.7 on an ambitious result usually beats 1.0 on a timid one.
Then test each key result with one question: if this number moved and nothing else did, would you be happy? If the answer is “only if”, the “only if” is your guard result.
Examples
OKR examples for a business, a team and a person
| Level | Objective | Key results |
|---|---|---|
| Small business | Make the shop a place people come back to | Repeat orders 12% to 20%; list 800 to 1,500; refunds under 2% |
| Team | Ship releases nobody has to apologise for | Bugs reported in week one from 14 to 5; release on the planned date 3 of 3 times; no release rolled back |
| Person | Become the person the team asks about pricing | Read and summarise 6 pricing reviews; run 2 pricing tests; present results at 1 team meeting |
Notice the person example leans closer to tasks. That is normal for personal OKRs, where the outcome (being trusted on a topic) is hard to count. Keep the numbers honest and the objective about the outcome, and it still works.
If you can tick it off by doing it, it belongs on your weekly page, not in the OKR.
The weekly check
The weekly OKR check that keeps a quarter alive
The template is ten minutes of work at the start of the quarter. The weekly check is what makes it worth those ten minutes. Every Friday, do three things on the OKR page: score each key result from 0 to 1 against its target, write your confidence from 1 to 10, and write the one thing you will do next week that moves the weakest result.
That last line is where OKRs meet your week. The OKR page says what matters this quarter; the weekly page in your planner holds the tasks that move it. If you plan your week on paper or a tablet, put the OKR page in the same place, so the Friday check sits next to Monday’s plan. Our guides to productivity planners and digital work planners cover how the week side fits, and a team that tracks projects in a spreadsheet can map each key result to tasks in a project plan template.
A falling confidence score is the most useful number on the page. When it drops two weeks in a row, the quarter is telling you something while there is still time to act on it: change the plan, ask for help, or decide openly that this result will land at 0.4 and that is fine.
Ours
A quarterly goals planner that links goals to weeks
We are building a Quarterly Goals and Strategy Planner around exactly this loop: a yearly plan page, a page per quarterly objective with scored key results, and a weekly review that links back to the objective it serves, so the Friday check is one tap from the week. It is not out yet.
Until it is, the Digital Work Planner holds the weeks and meetings the OKRs turn into, and the one-page template above fits on any of its note pages. More guides live in planning.
For managers, the weekly score fits naturally into each one-to-one; our one on one meeting template gives the growth and actions slots where a key result can be checked in two minutes.
Do you score OKRs weekly, or only at the end of the quarter? Tell us in the comments; we are deciding how much space the weekly score gets.
FAQ
Common questions, answered briefly
What is an OKR template?
How many OKRs should you have?
What is the difference between an objective and a key result?
How do you score OKRs?
Can you use OKRs for personal goals?
If yours isn’t above, drop the question in the comments and we’ll add it.
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