I've been struggling with getting my weekly review completely done, so I decided to try to find an accountability partner.
First I did some thinking about about what I actually wanted to accomplish. Goal #1 was to complete the review completely, down to filing every last project document (I still pile stuff on my desk as an "intermediate" processing step). But Goal #2 was to take concrete steps toward fixing whatever problems were leaving the weekly review unfinished. So I came up with three questions for my accountability partner to ask me during our weekly phone call:
(1) Did you finish your weekly review?
(2) If not, why not?
(3) What change do you need to make to complete it next week?
I assumed there would be some generic Accountability Buddy website out there, so I did a Google Search. This turned up almost nothing -- a few Christian groups.
So I ran an ad in the Activities and Volunteers sections of Craigs List. After three weeks I got one reply, from a graduate student who was thinking of making a radio documentary about GTD (although she didn't actually practice GTD and in fact hadn't yet read the book ...).
Then a friend on Facebook put out a call for an accountability buddy to help her produce some songs.
Our first phone call was today. It was great, because it forced both of us to think very, very concretely about goals and next actions. Explaining what I was doing in plain language to someone not in the scene was also extremely helpful.
I'll keep the Forum posted on how it goes. But I think there's a business idea here: a website that matches activity buddies. Anyone want to talk about that with me?
First I did some thinking about about what I actually wanted to accomplish. Goal #1 was to complete the review completely, down to filing every last project document (I still pile stuff on my desk as an "intermediate" processing step). But Goal #2 was to take concrete steps toward fixing whatever problems were leaving the weekly review unfinished. So I came up with three questions for my accountability partner to ask me during our weekly phone call:
(1) Did you finish your weekly review?
(2) If not, why not?
(3) What change do you need to make to complete it next week?
I assumed there would be some generic Accountability Buddy website out there, so I did a Google Search. This turned up almost nothing -- a few Christian groups.
So I ran an ad in the Activities and Volunteers sections of Craigs List. After three weeks I got one reply, from a graduate student who was thinking of making a radio documentary about GTD (although she didn't actually practice GTD and in fact hadn't yet read the book ...).
Then a friend on Facebook put out a call for an accountability buddy to help her produce some songs.
Our first phone call was today. It was great, because it forced both of us to think very, very concretely about goals and next actions. Explaining what I was doing in plain language to someone not in the scene was also extremely helpful.
I'll keep the Forum posted on how it goes. But I think there's a business idea here: a website that matches activity buddies. Anyone want to talk about that with me?