Get Productive: Get Accountable

Thanks for all your texts, emails, Facebook posts, tweets and phone calls regarding yesterday’s posts – wow!  It was so kind of you all to reach out and I so appreciate you sharing your own stories and people now committing to be kinder to others.

Now back to our regular programming.

If you have been reading our blog for a while you will know one of the most important aspects of productivity is accountability. It’s not just knowing what needs to be done or how it is to be done – it’s about DOING the work and holding yourself accountable to execution.

Yesterday my accountability group flew into Chicago to meet (one of us lives here, and the rest of the group lives in Philly).  The excitement and build up whenever we are meeting is amazing! We are like little kids waiting for Christmas morning and our time with each other is a gift.

In just three hours yesterday we felt like we conquered the world. Our conversations revolved around our own practice and ideas for 2013, how we could make more impact in the lives of our clients, ourselves and each other.

In his book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill  shares the concept of a ‘mastermind’ (a group of people) and he states when two brains are gathered a third brain is created. It felt like that yesterday. Our ideas and brilliance kept flowing just because we were all together.

If you want to increase accountability in your own life here are three ways to make it happen:

Make it public – share with someone you trust or post it online. I admire Cynthia D’Amour who started Facebook group to track her weight loss and fitness journey and my friend Jason Jani (awesome DJ and entertainer and owner of SCE Events) who posted photos of him on the scale – whatever it takes.

Form a group – if you get energized by others and want to create an extra brain, find like-minded people and meet regularly to stay accountable for your goals.

Document deadlines – the original meaning of ‘deadline’ was from the prisons and it was a boundary line that if crossed, you were shot… dead!  Documenting your agreed actions and plans and placing deadlines against each also allows you to make your plans concrete.  That’s what our group did yesterday so 2013 is going to be a BIG year!

Our accountability group meets again today so I am excited to see what else we create, change, enhance, build, design, discover and learn. And there will be much laughter … definitely laughter.

How can you stay accountable? Share your ideas with us here on our blog.

PS. If you want more ideas on how to increase your productivity – check out other blogs here and several eBooks you can share with your team.