Get your S!%T Done by Staying Accountable

You have goals. You have plans. You have a to-do list. Great. Awesome. You're super!

I have goals. I have plans. I have a to-do list. I have not been great. I have not been awesome. I have not been super. I've been in a slump. This is a lack-of-focus slump. I am all over the place right now - starting lots of things, then not finishing them.

Having a to-do list is great, but it's only the first step.

How in the world do you ensure you actually do stuff? For that, you need to keep yourself accountable. There are a few techniques you can use - I'll tell you what I do.

I have been struggling recently to finish things, and to not drift into a Simpson's or Frasier marathon. (One episode, just one more, that's all I need...) So I searched all of my resources looking for help, and this concept popped up. I now use a Daily Accountability Form (I have it bookmarked as Accountabil-a-Buddy)

I stole the idea from Noah Kagan (who stole it from someone else) to create an accountability form. He uses it for marketing efforts with his team - it looks something like this:

I created a daily accountability form for myself using Google Drive. For those of you who don't know how to create a form - look below for the video to do it yourself.

My form looks like a bit more polished than Noah's - I used some formatting, but it took me 10 minutes tops to set it up.

The results are populated automatically into a spreadsheet with a timestamp.

My Neatly Organized Responses to Myself

So now I get a reminder every night at 10:00pm telling me to go do my accountability form. I fill out 6 questions, though they may change as my life goes forward.

• How good do you feel about your day? (1-10)
• What were three things you accomplished today?
• What is one thing you could have done better?
• Did you write something today? (Yes/No)
• Did you eat 1 salad today? (Yes/No)
• How good was your day really? (1-10)

The reason I ask myself to rank my day twice is that I want two measures. How I perceived my day to have been. Then, after thinking about what I did, deciding how good my day really was. I am measuring this to see if how I felt about my day is actually tied to how much I got done. It's all data!

The best thing about this is that I can go back pretty much forever and see when I was most effective. If I see results in my other tracking (weight, cholesterol, bank account, etc.) I can look at the corresponding dates in my accountability form and see if I was doing something specific that led to more benefits. This is the same thing Nev from NevBlog does with his infamous to-do lists.

Then, of course, I wrap up my form with an inspiring image...

 What to Include in your Accountabil-a-buddy questions

I used a simple method to determine what questions to ask: I made them up. 

However - the two Yes/No questions were generated based on habits I have developed, would like to develop, or have previously developed but am slipping on.

For example, I have been slipping on eating a truly nutritious diet, (I haven't been eating unhealthily, but have not been a shining example of health like I have been in the past) and my weight loss has stagnated, so I added the one salad a day requirement. (edit: After less than one week doing this, I lost 8 pounds, and it appears my weight loss has started up again)

Every month or so, I write out the habits and lifestyle choices that are important to me. This is basically an audit of my behaviorS - at least what I wish it to be. It changes vastly over time, but a few key pieces tend to stay put.

My Desired Habits at a snapshot in time

I now take one or two items from this list which are not currently well-ingrained habits, and I add them to my Accountability Form. In this case, writing daily, and eating a salad. If it weren't for my "write once a day habit" this post would not have been started, and you might not be reading it right now.

In this case, I've categorized it as Health, Wealth, and Love to help me focus. As you can tell, I've chosen to hyper-focus on health. That is due to my health being considerably lower than it should be, so I'm playing catch up.

Set up your own Accountabil-a-buddy

1. Perform an audit of your current, desired, and potentially slipping habits
2. Choose one to three of them that you'd like to focus on this month
3. Create a Google Form with your questions (if you don't know how, watch the video below)
4. Bookmark the input form - make it #1 on your bookmarks bar
5. Set up a reminder to do this daily (Any.do, Google Calendar, Outlook, Phone alarm, A note hanging above your bed, whatever)

That's all it takes. I can already see myself being more effective with this Accountabil-a-Buddy, and I am clawing myself out of a slump I've been in.

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Amazon: The Greatest Gift Giver of All

Looking for the next in the series of Rut Busters? Well, my laptop has died, so I'm delaying the next post. A preview of the title though: "Rut Busters: Preventing the Rut"

This is a longer post. My recommendation: Use Amazon Wish List for your Christmas list. 
Read below for some more specifics, and for details of how I evaluate new tools like Amazon Wish List.

Have you ever dealt with everyone in your family, and maybe even your friends, pestering you for a Christmas list, or a Birthday list?

Well, just in time for Black Friday (I hate that day, by the way)

Every year, it's a constant flow, starting around mid-November for me.
"Can you send a list"
"What do you want for Christmas"
"Do you have a list yet"
"I'm going shopping tomorrow, what do you want?"

I always dreaded these questions, because I never knew what I wanted. Usually, I would pull together a combination of DVD's I kind of wanted, a couple of books, and some gift cards. This was always nice, but it never captured what I truly wanted.

Solutions for Christmas (or other Holiday) Lists
I think there are a few criteria for a good Gift list. Whether for Birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Mother's day, Father's day, or any other day on which social protocol dictates that you exchange gifts.

The criteria for a good gift capture device is:

1. The ability to capture the gifts you want (duh)
2. The ability to access the list from multiple devices (sometimes you need it on your phone, sometimes your computer)
3. Easy to send off to family members
4. Easy for family members to read
5. Easy to capture where the item can be purchased

There are, of course, a few solutions for this problem. So, like any good nerd, I have a chart!

Typo: The "Note on your Phone" only scores a 2

As you can see, Evernote comes close. You can capture what you want, access it from wherever you have an Evernote account set up. You can e-mail a note from Evernote easily, and it's fairly easy to read. However, to capture where it can be purchased is a completely manual step, and if you make updates, you have to send out the note again. 

Close, but not perfect.

Enter Amazon Wish List

Amazon has a service which has been available for a long time, but just recently has caught my attention. It allows you to capture a list of items you want, and you can easily send them out to your family and friends (or even Facebook and Twitter) This way, you capture everything you want, all year long. If you decide you want something from your list at some point during the year, you can just buy it. Anything you don't buy is on your list for your Birthday, Christmas, etc.

When your friend or family member orders something from the list, it actually removes it from your list! It works just like a wedding registry. In order to maintain the surprise, though, when you log in, it will still appear in your list for a few weeks, to maintain the surprise. 

But Paul, what if what I want isn't on Amazon?

That's fine! There are widgets (extensions, widgets, etc.) for each of the browsers that let you add items from any online store to your list. Additionally, you can add any item to your list manually, even if you don't have a link! To get these widgets (available for: Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari, and iPod) go to this link.

But Paul, what if someone buys a gift from another website?

Amazon can still be updated. However, it does require someone to click "buy it somewhere else", and then they can mark the item as purchased.

This gets your friends and family an up-to-date list all the time. Also, as the season moves along, you can make updates to the list, and they will automatically have those changes when they go to check it out. It really is the best solution available!

What does it look like?

Simple enough, my link is below, so you can see what I am wishing for, and also to see how it works.

Paul's Amazon Wish List

There you have it - the newest in my arsenal of tools!

Save Hours a day by Getting rid of Time Wasters

I hate wasting time.

I didn't used to hate it...in fact, I used to love wasting time. I was addicted, and I couldn't get enough of it. And I bet you love wasting time too.

I bet you always say "I just don't have enough time". Uhh, yes you fucking do. You have more time in your life than Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and a whole host of phenomenal people did. You have the time, you're just not using it the way you should. You are spending a whole chunk of time on stuff that is pointless (time wasters) instead of what you should be spending it on.

We give "time wasters" different names, of course:

1. "I'm staying informed"
2. "I'm just relaxing"
3. "I love this show"
4. "I worked all day long"
5. "I don't want to miss something"

And there's of course a hell of a lot more. Here's the breakdown of some timewasters

1. Watching the news
2. Reading pointless e-mails
3. Deleting unwanted e-mails
4. Watching TV
5. Checking Facebook
6. Reading news articles
7. Reading internet comments
8. 4,264 other things

Watching the news is not staying informed, it is mental masturbation. If something truly important happens in the world, I promise you will hear about it. Someone will tell you about it. "But Paul, I love politics". Politics is pointless - you don't need to follow it unless you are a true uninformed, undecided voter. You aren't going to change your mind, and you aren't going to change other people's minds.

Reading pointless e-mails - People do this to feel busy. They want to feel like they are accomplishing something. You know how many e-mails I get in a day? 5-10, and they are all relevant to me, and I actually desire to read them all. 

But DON'T just delete the e-mails, unsubscribe, so that you don't spend time and decisions every day to figure out whether to delete an e-mail. Don't worry, if you really miss the e-mails, you can easily resubscribe. 

If you have to login and do work to unsubscribe, just filter it out with your e-mail program.

Watching TV - This is okay, but you must make the conscious decision that you are watching TV. This actually makes the experience better - you are giving yourself permission to watch TV. I highly recommend, however, deliberately choosing a TV show that you will watch. If you give yourself permission to watch a TV show, you will realize that you are not wasting time, but are consciously deciding to relax, and give a mental break. (Just don't let this turn into 4 hours of channel surfing). 

Here's a tip that people somehow don't realize (I went 18 years without realizing this) - It is okay to have the TV off

Checking facebook - You can go on facebook, but don't use facebook as a random excuse to spend time. You need to have a reason to check facebok.

Reading News Articles - See "Watching the News". You don't need to read pointless articles unless there is a real justification. If you are researching something, then sure, read the articles, but be aware of the moments when you are simply doing something to use time. 

Reading Internet Comments - It's an easy trap. Don't fall into it (I still do sometimes). We want people to validate our beliefs, and we want to argue against people that don't agree with us. Don't do this - it's a stupid waste of time, and you are better than that.

So what the hell can I do with my time?

Okay, so it can suck to have actual free time. You know why? Because people don't know how to spend their time. They don't know how to be productive instead of just using up their minutes until they die.

Sit there and think

One super easy thing to use your free time for is to sit there and think. Some of the most successful people in the world do this (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, etc.) Sit down, get comfortable, and just allow your mind to wander. You'll be amazed at what you realize, and how much clarity you can find in your world just by allowing your mind to find the clarity.

Start a business

So...do you want to start a business? You don't need to get to Point Q, where you have established processes, offices, products, etc. You need to start at Point A, which is the idea...or Point E where you are actually validating your idea (See NevBlog for more information)

Clean

Uhh, I don't know a single person in the world who couldn't stand to clean up some of their shit. Either mentally or physically, clean up your life!

Improve yourself

You could watch videos about productivity, learn a new task, learn a new skill, read a book, spend time with your kids, or even try to begin automating your life.

Speaking of videos...stay tuned for a video by me about this very topic!