Accountability By Appointment Only

Accountability – anything or anyone that helps us gain mental leverage to achieve the results we desire.

The Accountability Stop

What we really want from our accountability is the result. We want the habit. We want the goal to be met. We want success.

To do that we must put in the time. The book won’t appear without spending time writing it. The fitness reps don’t complete themselves while we’re sleeping. We have to read the law books to pass the bar. 

Time is a precious commodity these days. When I started adulting, I tried making a spreadsheet to list all the maintenance time for everything I was “supposed to do” regarding money, the apartment, shoes, appliances, the car, health and hygiene.  Guess what? I ran out of time in the day. That list was just for normal things. If we add a project (or two?) on top of normal life, how does that fit in?

I quickly learned, like everyone, that a lot of recommended maintenance is overkill. 

Playing with Time

One method to complete our personal projects is to set an appointment. Put it on the calendar. I will work on this particular thing at this particular time. Writing something in the calendar is the easy part, though. The hard part is honoring the appointment. We have to treat it like we would treat an important meeting. We have to give the task our full attention. We can’t pick up the phone or check email at every bell notification and pop-up screen. We must turn them all off and actually work on our project, even if we’re just taking that next small step forward. Here are a few ideas on how to stay accountable to our own appointment:

Parkinson’s Law says that work expands to fill the time available. But the inverse is also true. A task will contract to fit into the time we allot to it. Why is this important? Because we can recognize that once our appointment is over, we can go back to our regular, distracted lives. We don’t have to change our entire lifestyle to finish our project. We need only focus for short periods of time for the work to get done.

Setting an appointment couples well with the Pomodoro Technique. For me, just scheduling the time is not nearly as motivating as setting a timer that I’m working against. For an hour appointment, I often set a timer for 25 minutes, take a five minute break, and set another 25 minutes for myself. 

I mentioned in a previous post a powerful technique that I came upon by accident. In 2020, Ridley Scott worked with YouTube to create a sequel to the 2010 documentary, Life in a Day. The films used footage from video contributors around the world to create a single film of one day on earth. I decided to participate in 2020. I also gave myself an assignment. I had a song idea with snippets of lyrics and music. I decided that I would film myself writing the song for Life in a Day and submit the footage for the documentary.* That gave me tons of mental leverage to actually finish the song in one day. I was delighted, but somehow not completely surprised, that I was able to do it. I wrote the whole thing. 

Since then, I’ve used both the ideas of filming myself while working and giving myself a one-day deadline for creative projects. Both approaches can be effective. I’ll admit they have not been as motivating without the added pressure of submitting the video to someone else.

Wait … Is This Really Accountability?

Does it matter that setting appointments, Parkinson’s Law, the Pomodoro Technique, and my video-a-day’s-work are, strictly speaking, productivity techniques? They help us with how we accomplish our work more than why. Well, who cares? I suggest these ideas because in order for the appointment method to work, we have to be accountable to ourselves. These techniques do double-duty because they up the ante for accountability. They can give us external leverage because they partly gamify the process. It’s not much fun to think, “When am I ever going to finish my painting?” It’s more fun to think, “How much of my painting can I finish in one hour?” 

We can couple the appointment method with other accountability methods. We can tell a friend we’ve made the appointment and promise them that we’ll keep it. Or we might have that friend join us; they work on a project of their own at the same time. We can work in person or remotely with calls or texts. 

What’s Your Account?

Do you set appointments with yourself? Have you used any of the techniques above? How did they work for you?

Post Script: I literally gave myself an hour to take the outline notes for this article and write the whole thing. Did it work? Yep, I wrote most of it in 50 minutes or so in a coffee shop.

*None of my footage was used for Life in a Day. As far as I could tell, no one ever looked at the videos I submitted.