UP Case Study #9

PEAK

Outsourced 200+ hours of work to first personal assistant.

Goals

  1. Achieve all life goals
    1. Figure out what to do with life
    2. Slowly transform life to more favorable state

Intervention

  • Type: Individual Variable UP
  • Length: Ongoing, 9 months as of this update (9 months with UP Coach, self-led afterward)
  • Support:
    • 42 UP Coach Calls + 69 UP Coach Tasks + 71 UP Assistant Tasks + 0 Other Personal Team Tasks = 182 Tasks
    • 60 UP Coach Hours + 66 UP Assistant Hours + 0 Other Personal Team Hours = 126 Hours

Background

This well-resourced, highly rational investor chose to do an UP to figure out what to do with the rest of his life and in general live the best life he could. He was smart, married, and had no major obligations to attend to. He spent a lot of time with friends and family and on fitness. His life was already very good when he began his UP, which resulted in limited motivation to invest deeply in his UP.

Methods

The participant’s UP included specialized coaching from a carefully selected coach, access to a team of behavior change experts and assistants, and use of 50+ digital behavior change tools. He set a number of short-term and long-term goals in the beginning of his UP. His team helped him advance on these goals through weekly calls and ad hoc task completion.

Results

Protocol Completion

15%

Top 3 Successes

  1. Secured first personal assistant and outsourced 200+ hours of work
  2. Built a solid work habit and averaged about 20+ hours/week
  3. Averted divorced with wife by substantially improving emotional attunement, communication ability, and relationship expectations

Top 3 Failures

  1. Did not yet decide on next career path
    1. Did put hundreds of hours of work into research and planning
    2. Completed most of the 80,000 Hours 8-week course
  2. Did not yet achieve full behavioral mastery
    1. Did build a reliable 20+ hour/week work habit
    2. Did build a 90%+ reliable timeliness habit
    3. Did moderately improve diet control
  3. Did not advance substantially on emergency preparedness
    1. Did secure some emergency supplies and developed basic plan for managing potential nuclear war

Evaluation

  • It was a good UP overall that was enjoyable for both the client and UP Coach and was relatively easy to design but somewhat difficult to execute 
  • The client made moderate progress on his goals in line with his expectations 
  • The client was ultimately unclear on how to estimate UP’s influence on his overall goal attainment (but originally estimated a very high number)
  • The UP Coach estimated a 20% impact on the client’s overall goal attainment over the UP