4 Key Steps to Accountability that Gets Results
We’ve all been there: a day dominated by the small stuff—the routine admin needed just to keep things ticking over. Then, by 5 pm, you realise you still haven’t touched the things that really matter. You’ve been busy, but you haven’t progressed.
Being accountable – making a special promise about what you’ll do – can have a huge impact. Projects that have been stuck, too vague to move on, or which have seemed to be beyond your ability or capacity, can quickly resolve into tangible results. But how can you make this happen consistently? Making promises to yourself is a start, but it doesn’t usually cut it with the hard stuff, those important tasks you procrastinate over.
Being accountable works best when it involves others because when you make a promise to someone, you are putting your integrity on the line.
You can powerfully progress almost any project inside an accountability structure. It doesn’t matter if it’s a one-off result (like filing a tax return or writing a difficult letter) or a complex sequence of actions (like changing careers or finding a new job).
As career and workplace effectiveness coaches, we have seen time and again how accountability produces effective action. Here are the four steps that we’ve noticed give the best results.
Four steps to getting the important stuff done.
- Choose an accountability person: Having real-life support gets your project – what you want to achieve – outside your own head. When someone else knows about it, it is much harder to ignore on your to-do list. Ask a friend or colleague to be your accountability person. Explain what your goal is and their role. Their job is to hold you to your goal. Often, a simple “How did it go? What did you get done?” is enough. Avoid getting too much into the details of how you will do it – focus rather on what result you are promising. (This person may also want to have an accountability commitment with you as well. Mutual accountability structures also work well. Be rigorous with sharing the time.)
- Name and dates: Give your project a creative uplifting name and choose a deadline for it. Choose a name that has some motivational value for you personally. Be bold. You can have fun with this: not just the “career change” project, but perhaps my “new work purpose” project.
- Meet and set up ‘what by when’: Go over your project and define the first steps, and the time frame for subsequent check-ins. Fortnightly or monthly meetings can be a good start. How long you continue the structure depends on the scale of what you want to do; it could be a one off (get the accounting system sorted) through to several months (writing a book, launching a new business). Zoom meetings are fine but meeting face-to-face is better. Specificity has power. Describe exactly what you want to achieve and by when. Note that the result needs to be specific, but you can be flexible on the details of how you get there. Finally, it’s crucial to finish each meeting with “What I promise to get done for the next period is …” This is your promise to your accountability person; You are committing to doing something important.
- Review and adapt
At the next meeting report back on what you did. What has worked, what hasn’t, how did you need to adjust in the face of the unpredictable stuff that always happens. For multi-step projects identify what you will do next to progress or to solve whatever needs adjusting for the next round.
You’ll notice how you will shift from just being busy (which is easy) to being busy getting the right things done (which is harder).
We know that real life can be complex and fickle. If you get stuck in any way, please reach out to us. Contact us today to discuss how a structured programme of improving your self-management skills will measurably improve your performance and satisfaction with work. We can help you get the results you need.
Cheers to real work progress!
Frances and Max
No AI tools have been used in this post