The One Thing That Causes More Dropped Balls Than Anything Else
For people or for teams who feel stuck or like they are always waiting on external factors to move them forward:
Give yourself or your team an accountability audit.
This assesses how clear your team is on their responsibilities, and where the gaps are. This is critical for pinpointing the systematic flaws that are enabling dropped-balls and missed opportunities.
It means accounting for achievable goals, not tasks that just took up time
Phone calls are not achievable goals that move you forward. They don’t add value to the customer or client.An email is not a task you achieved, your users don’t care how many emails you sent or how well intentioned they were.Closing the deal adds value, so that counts.Launching the book adds value, so that counts too.Accountability means tasks that are measurable.Accountability means thinking about the end user or customer first.Accountability means looking at the task list and interrogating impediments with a fury.It means facing reality and being honest with yourself about what actually needs to happen to hit the goal.
2 Minute Action:
Define the results you want/your goal.Call your best friend and ask them to text you every day until you get it done.When you start making excuses for why you didn’t make progress, you’ll either realize that you’re making excuses or you’ll continue to believe those excuses and see the same results.It’s up to you.
Use This Difficult Constraint To Your Advantage
I was reminded, yesterday, of the life changing effect of urgency.You know the feeling, it’s FOMO.
- Buy now, only 43 left!
- Limited Edition only available for the next 24 hours!
- Order in the next 15 minutes and we’ll throw in the Chop Chopper and the Double Chop Chopper free!
You’ve seen all of these before.But why?It’s not because there was an error at the factory and only 50 units were made.And it’s not because the limited edition models will expire and be in some violation of FDA regulation.They can make more units. They can expand the sale.
The punchline?
When things are important AND urgent, we take action.When things are important and NOT urgent, we mere humans are pretty inconsistent and bad at taking action.I’m not just talking about buying behavior.
I’m talking about just about every other aspect of life.
Its important to exercise, sure, we can agree on that. But since our bodies aren’t falling apart, it’s not urgent enough for us to have the motivation to go to the gym.It’s easier to just go tomorrow, when you’ll be more motivated.It's important to take your car in for a checkup, but if nothing is broken, why bother spending the money to bring it in?It’s important to us to learn that new language, but since we’re not going to travel for another 9 months, we can start practicing next week when we’re less busy.You can see where I’m going with this.Action often requires both importance and urgency, but especially urgency.Understand that you have a lot of control over the urgency part. It’s a seriously useful tool.You have the choice to use it to your advantage!
2 Minute Action:
What’s something you’ve been meaning to do?How can you add urgency?Here are some examples:Schedule a 5k run with a friend. Put a simple, weekly training schedule together and tell them not to let you off the hook.Place a “reverse bet.” Write a check to a trustworthy friend for $1,000. If you bail on your goal/deadline, tell them they are allowed to cash the check.Carve out a block of time on your calendar for that project you want to finish. Let it be sacred and schedule other things around it.
The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Help Your Productivity
It's not a tool, or an app, or a mentor.It's not a journal, or a habit, or a thought.It's the one thing that can keep you in check when your brain lets things slide.It's the one thing that will have your back when you want to hit the snooze button.Truthfully, it's the one thing that will keep you accountable to your goals.It's a person.It's a specific kind of a person.It's an accountability buddy.The habits, the thoughts, and the tools will all come with daily effort - as long as you put in the effort.It turns out, it's a lot harder to let someone else down than to let you down.It's almost January, people. Get a gym buddy. Get a novel-writing buddy.
Quick Methods for Staying Accountable:
The Idea TaxIf you have an idea, set up some consequences that go along with it. What happens if you take action? What happens if you don't? It's easier for your accountability buddy to follow through on your reinforcement, and for you to follow through on theirs. This prevents "cheating."2 Day ProjectPick 2 days on the calendar. On day one, it's all about your accountability buddy. Focus on their idea, and come up with as many action items as possible with them. Then, help them execute as many as possible for an entire day. On day two, it's all about you. You both work together on your project and move forward as fast as possible. This works because it's a lot easier to come up with action items for other peoples' ideas than it is for our own.Create Action Items with Why, When, & Where.When people say "I will do . . ." only 29% of people actually follow through.When people say "I will do . . . because . . ." that number jumps to 39%.And get this, when people say "I will do . . . because . . . on . . . day . . . at this time . . ." that number jumps up to 91%.Don't just say you'll do it. Tell your accountability buddy why, when, and where you're going to do it.
2 Minute Action:
Call someone whom you can trust to have your back. Tell them about one idea you want to execute and when you'd like to have it finished. Then ask them what goal they want to achieve at the same time. Set up mandatory checkpoints and put something on the line (like a cash penalty or a gift reward).If no one comes to mind, scroll through your phone contacts of Facebook friends and find someone.If you still can't find someone, go online. We live in an absurdly connected world. Google, for 2 seconds, and you'll find meetup groups, accountability groups or what have you. For example, here's a group of people who keep each other accountable for getting their novels written in 30 days.You're not reading this blog because you're the kind of person who makes excuses.You've got this.As always, reach out if you need anything. You can reply here, email me, tweet at me, or message me on Facebook.