How I Got Accountable and Completed My Projects

In the last decade or so, I’ve completed many more projects than I have in several decades before that. I attribute my improved completion rate to better accountability approaches. In the interest of helping you get results through accountability, I thought I’d walk you through how I completed these projects. I also provided a link to each of them so you can see that I really did produce work. (No need to follow the links, the accountability discussion is all in this article.)

A couple of clarifications:

• Just because I completed a project doesn’t mean it’s any good. It means I finished it. Truth be told, none of my projects have achieved what most people would qualify as success. They’re just out in the world for others to see. I’m not promising overnight fame and fortune. I’m here to help you do your work. 
• I have a wide range of interests and my projects are often far-flung from each other. That’s one reason I need accountability. I’m apt to abandon one project in favor of some other shiny object that falls in my way.

Critical Mass

I composed a Catholic Mass music setting. I won’t get all religious on you. You believe or don’t believe anything you want; you can still be accountable! A Mass setting is music (melody and accompaniment) for regular responses of the Catholic Mass. My accountability methods used were a deadline with interim deadlines and writing it for someone else to sing. I gave myself a deadline of completing my Mass before the choir season began the next year at my church. That was approximately a year away. I also promised the choir director and accompanist that I would do it. So I had to deliver something if they were going to start rehearsing!

That’s a Joke, Right?

I created and self-published a webcomic online. Hewtoons was a year-long (sort of*) webcomic idea. I sent a high-school friend a few random comic ideas during college. He hounded me for years that I should create a comic. When his 40th birthday was coming up, I thought maybe I could write a year’s worth of comics and publish them online. Two things sold me on it – first that limited scope — publishing just 4 days a week for a year. Second was a flexible-but-specific story framework — the backstage goings-on of a low-budget superhero TV series. I made myself accountable by promising my friend I would publish the webcomic as his 40th birthday present. 

The Next Martha Stewart

I created a YouTube series. This was one of those rare lightning-bolt ideas in the night. I suddenly wanted to create interior design tutorial videos and call it Roominess. The twist was that it wouldn’t show unobtainably beautiful interior makeovers. It would teach people the nuts and bolts of how to design their own interiors. At the time I was part of a private social web site. I found accountability there first through an informal accountability group that I created. We met every other week. I also had an accountability buddy through the group; we exchanged updates daily. Those both helped, but in this case it still wasn’t giving me enough external motivation to make videos regularly. 

What really made me stick to a regular video schedule was hiring other people. First I hired a couple of friends to help with filming and editing. Later switched back to filming by myself, but hired a virtual assistant to help with social media and a video editor. Once my VA scheduled regular weekly meetings, I truly had the right accountability for the project to regularly push out videos and social media links. Even if my VA and I weren’t ready with our tasks complete for our weekly meeting, we would literally take the time we scheduled and do the work. 

A Fixer-Upper

Remodeling a Condo: Remodels are notorious for finishing late and going over budget. Mine was no exception. My accountability for this was again the private social web site with my accountability buddy and the biweekly accountability group I ran. I also had a deadline of Christmas breakfast that I was to host – two years after the renovation started! I thought that was a long enough runway. Looking back on it, it was a tight squeeze! My money almost ran out. I had the last furniture I needed delivered just the week before Christmas! But it felt strangely under control the whole time while I was doing it.

Ironically, I can get stuck on interior design decisions. I usually know what I want to do. But I have about 10% doubt stuck in my mind. In my previous home, that 10% of doubt could delay decisions for years and decades. Just having a small amount of accountability in this case was useful. I could talk through my hesitation, see that it was unimportant, and make a decision to move forward regarding window treatments, furniture, and rugs.

We Could Make Believe

I wrote and performed a one-hour musical. I’ve always wanted to write a musical since I was a kid. My 2020 lockdown project was to see if I had a musical in me. The YouTube Life in a Day project gave me a unique accountability when I said I would write my first song in one day. 

I also had a new accountability buddy who self-published an album. We talked through the challenges and scheduled appointments with each other to work on our projects. For months my work was writing songs.

Once I had paid my entry fee at our local Fringe theater festival, I had all the accountability in the world to make it work. Shy (the musical!) was the result. A future project is to record all the songs with vocals and add them to the same soundcloud site. 

What’s Your Account?

I can confidently say that none of these projects would have been finished without a strong accountability component attached to them. How about you? Do you see a difference between projects you try to power through on your own and ones where you set up accountability along the way?

*Hewtoons was a big undertaking. It basically took all of my free time for nine or ten months. When my day job became too busy at the end of that year, I had to postpone finishing my web comic. You probably know, that’s dangerous territory. Once a project gets mothballed, it’s really hard to resurrect it for completion. However I had a new accountability group I was working with and they helped me push it over the finish line.