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While I'm not currently practicing this, I'd recommend finding someone to be an "accountability buddy". One of the parts of my life where I grew the most in ter

While I'm not currently practicing this, I'd recommend finding someone to be an "accountability buddy". One of the parts of my life where I grew the most in terms of self-confidence, concentration and productivity was a 6-month period where I had daily email checkins with what I termed my "accountability buddy". The program is simple - every day, first thing in the morning you send an email to your accountability buddy. Include a list of the two or three most important things to accomplish today, and a short report on how your list went yesterday. (What kind of absurd mental acrobatics you went through to justify avoiding something, successes, failures, whatever...the stories can be pretty pitifully funny at times.) Since it's a mutual thing, you'll probably also respond to your buddy's report from the day before. But the important part is looking at your situation and behavior in a way that lets you explain it to someone else. I started this when I had a relatively high-burn lifestyle ($1k+ monthly rent, etc...), maxed credit cards, 10k of student loans, essentially no work experience and had been laid off my first real job after only 6 months. Making daily promises to my accountability buddy allowed me to get over the daily fear and embarrassment of my situation and just do the things I knew would move me forward. (In my case I started a freelance career that has cleared all my debt and have several ongoing clients with more work than I can really handle.)

Kadrith 15y ago
A good friend of mine does something like this. One day she decided that if a fried said they were going to do something she would ask them "by when." If they didn't know she would ask them by when they would know. She would then make a note of it and hold you accountable for what you said you were going to do and who you said you were going to be. All that she asked is that you do the same for her. It cut down on people saying they were going to do something just to look good or making promises that they knew weren't going to be kept. She became a very popular person to talk to, when people wanted to make changes in their life she was often the person to call since she would hold you accountable without judgement. Edit: Fixed a typo.

Kadrith 15y ago

A good friend of mine does something like this. One day she decided that if a fried said they were going to do something she would ask them "by when." If they didn't know she would ask them by when they would know. She would then make a note of it and hold you accountable for what you said you were going to do and who you said you were going to be. All that she asked is that you do the same for her. It cut down on people saying they were going to do something just to look good or making promises that they knew weren't going to be kept. She became a very popular person to talk to, when people wanted to make changes in their life she was often the person to call since she would hold you accountable without judgement. Edit: Fixed a typo.