I know that for a lot of us, whether we’re determined to keep a schedule or not, life gets in the way. And it’s so true that there are times where you just can’t focus on anything else but whatever it is that has your attention. Stopping to write a weekly blog is not easy when you have a crying child, or a bad stomach bug, or you have four new clients that all need to see you on that day.
Yet, I know a solution that works for me…
Recently, I’ve been setting aside time with other people as an accountability day. These days are booked into my calendar as if I had client meetings the whole day.
The first method I’ve been doing is a day a month set aside with a call to check in every hour and a half. During that check in, I talk about what I want to achieve for the next time block and what I achieved from the last block. The only rule of the day is:
That any work set is for my business and no one else’s.
So, if I am writing blogs, they must be for my site. If I am editing vlogs, they must be my vlogs. Any social media scheduling is for my own profiles.
And I love this type of thing. I get to spend time just on my business which I often find is the last thing I do, despite it also being one of the most important things I do.
The second method is one I am trying out tomorrow for the first time.
I’m doing an accountability session which will be fast paced, with a set goal in mind. It’s going to be interesting to see how I go with it and if I enjoy it as much as the other version.
Why accountability?
I find that when I set myself a goal, depending on how I set it is whether I get to it or not. If I verbalise a goal, but there is no one around me to hear it, it’s easy to brush aside. If I write down a goal, I’m a bit more inclined to do it but it’s still easy to push it aside if other things come in. If I tell someone, who then questions me about how I am progressing…
Then I have to push myself to do it. To meet the restrictions of the time frames and anything else.
Both of these versions of accountability days have me reporting to someone how I am doing in reaching my goal.
What does this mean for content?
The first day I did an accountability session, I focused on my instagram. For the first hour and a half, I looked up quotes that I liked both for business and motivation, that I could use. The second hour and a half, I found backgrounds and fonts to use with the quotes. The third hour and a half was spent creating them into images. Then the final block was spent scheduling them in Buffer so I could access the images when I needed to on my phone to post them.
I managed to get three months of Instagram quote images completed.
The next accountability session I did, my aim was to focus on my blog. So the first time block was setting the goal of 10 topics to write or talk about. The second time block was spent researching some of the topics I wanted to delve into a bit more. The third block was to begin throwing the content together in an order for publishing for when I could do what. The final block was to set time aside for actually developing the content.
I came up with over 11 topics, and I know which ones are written and which are going to be vlogs and when I will have the time to do them.
The session I am going to tomorrow, will allow me time to focus on getting through one section of social media for my business for the next three months.
That’s right. I won’t need to worry about working on that section of social media for three months. That will save me so much time down the track just with one day of accountability.
How would you feel if you knew that you didn’t need to worry over something within your business for that long?
Do you struggle with accountability?