An OODA loop is a repeating loop where you take in information, integrate it into your decision-making, use it to make more decisions, and then receive more information in response.
“OODA” is a particular structure referring to:
Observe: “what is happening in the world” (in as raw a form as you can)
Orient: “what sorts of things are important right now? How do I organize the information I’m seeing”
Decide: “what do I want to do next”
Act: “Okay I’m doing it now.”
You are probably doing some kind of OODA-loop-like-thing already. But it’s worth reflecting on how you could do it better.
For my last workshop, partly because it was cute, and partly because it seemed like probably a good idea, I put together a worksheet for applying a deliberate, intentional OODA loop to your OODA loop.
I don't actually know if this worksheet turned out to be helpful (it was one thing among many, and the person who most intentionally updated their OODA loop did so before we even got to this worksheet).
But I figured I would put it here for easy reference.
I recommend copying this into a google-doc, or whatever your preferred notetaking system.
Then, I recommend first skimming all the prompts, and focusing on the prompts that feel intuitively useful to you.
(If you bounce off this doc but it feels like a nearby thing would be useful, please let me know in the comments)
Observation
Empirically, how do you seem to observe, orient, decide, and act right now? Think of concrete specific moments when you…
…took in information
…organized or prioritized or made-sense-of that information
…decided what to do
…did stuff
These might come bundled together in a “loop”, or haphazardly over a long period of time. Whatever the way you actually do each of these things, write down as much concrete detail as you can about how you did it.
Write down those details for OODAing on at least two timescales (i.e. how you respond to information in the middle of the day, quickly, and how you orient to your overall life over months or years)
Write details about some short-timeframe examples of…
Observing
Orienting
Deciding
Acting
(acting has tons of detail that isn’t that useful here, but maybe focus on the particular moment you shift from deciding, to acting)
Write details about some longer-timeframe examples of…
Observing
Orienting
Deciding
Acting
Orient
Orienting tends to include two aspects:
Organizing information into a schema. There's a ton of info flooding into your brain every second. You need some way of conceptualizing it that fits in your working memory.
Thinking about what types of information matter, and how it might apply towards your goals.
In this case, we’re organizing information about “how does your OODA loop work”.
Some prompts:
What seems important to track about OODA loops?
Write a short 1-2 paragraphs or bullet list describing your high level OODA loop processes.
(i.e consolidate observations from the previous section into a short schema that fits easily in your working memory)
How would you know if you had a good one?
What (if anything) are you dissatisfied with about your current OODA loops?
What are some ways your OODA loops could be better? (including quick fixes and deeper effortful fixes)
What’s hard or confusing about improving your OODA loop?
Deciding
Okay, now you’re going to decide whether to make any kind of intentional changes to your OODA-loop-ish processes.
“I don’t want to change anything, it’s fine” is a possible option.
List out some possible plans or actions you could take, to improve your observations, orienting, deciding, or acting. These can be:
elaborate plans
“I’m going to do a quarterly review with structure X”
quick actions
“I’m going to download this app, or buy a notebook”
experiments to try
“I’m going to try a process for daily or weekly planning.”
List of plans or actions
For each “plan”, what’s a next-action you could take right now, to get the ball rolling on it?
Act
Do all the next actions that make sense right now. (This might be 0, 1, or several that you can fit into ~5 minutes)
(We’re only going to do quick actions for right now, but, often this part takes much longer than the other parts)
Let me know in the comments if this was helpful to you (or, if particular prompts are helpful, unhelpful, or confusing)
An OODA loop is a repeating loop where you take in information, integrate it into your decision-making, use it to make more decisions, and then receive more information in response.
“OODA” is a particular structure referring to:
You are probably doing some kind of OODA-loop-like-thing already. But it’s worth reflecting on how you could do it better.
For my last workshop, partly because it was cute, and partly because it seemed like probably a good idea, I put together a worksheet for applying a deliberate, intentional OODA loop to your OODA loop.
I don't actually know if this worksheet turned out to be helpful (it was one thing among many, and the person who most intentionally updated their OODA loop did so before we even got to this worksheet).
But I figured I would put it here for easy reference.
I recommend copying this into a google-doc, or whatever your preferred notetaking system.
Then, I recommend first skimming all the prompts, and focusing on the prompts that feel intuitively useful to you.
(If you bounce off this doc but it feels like a nearby thing would be useful, please let me know in the comments)
Observation
Empirically, how do you seem to observe, orient, decide, and act right now? Think of concrete specific moments when you…
These might come bundled together in a “loop”, or haphazardly over a long period of time. Whatever the way you actually do each of these things, write down as much concrete detail as you can about how you did it.
Write down those details for OODAing on at least two timescales (i.e. how you respond to information in the middle of the day, quickly, and how you orient to your overall life over months or years)
Write details about some short-timeframe examples of…
Observing
Orienting
Deciding
Acting
(acting has tons of detail that isn’t that useful here, but maybe focus on the particular moment you shift from deciding, to acting)
Write details about some longer-timeframe examples of…
Observing
Orienting
Deciding
Acting
Orient
Orienting tends to include two aspects:
In this case, we’re organizing information about “how does your OODA loop work”.
Some prompts:
What seems important to track about OODA loops?
Write a short 1-2 paragraphs or bullet list describing your high level OODA loop processes.
(i.e consolidate observations from the previous section into a short schema that fits easily in your working memory)
How would you know if you had a good one?
What (if anything) are you dissatisfied with about your current OODA loops?
What are some ways your OODA loops could be better? (including quick fixes and deeper effortful fixes)
What’s hard or confusing about improving your OODA loop?
Deciding
Okay, now you’re going to decide whether to make any kind of intentional changes to your OODA-loop-ish processes.
“I don’t want to change anything, it’s fine” is a possible option.
List out some possible plans or actions you could take, to improve your observations, orienting, deciding, or acting. These can be:
List of plans or actions
For each “plan”, what’s a next-action you could take right now, to get the ball rolling on it?
Act
Do all the next actions that make sense right now. (This might be 0, 1, or several that you can fit into ~5 minutes)
(We’re only going to do quick actions for right now, but, often this part takes much longer than the other parts)
Let me know in the comments if this was helpful to you (or, if particular prompts are helpful, unhelpful, or confusing)