I need to live under the threat of disappointment

December 4, 2008 9:25 PM

I'm a terrible procrastinator. I have an idea for a solution, but it requires other people. Does this sort of thing exist?

I was listening to the Get-It-Done-Guy podcast and it mentioned the idea of action days in a recent episode. Action days are occasional days when you have a lot to do and need someone else to be accountable to, so you stay motivated:

You and a few friends get a conference line. They’re free, they’re everywhere, and they’re wicked useful. You arrange to check in at a certain time each hour. For example, at 13 minutes after the hour.

Every time you check in, you briefly report what you’ve done in the last hour. Then you promise the group what you’ll do in the next hour. Once everyone has reported, you get off the phone and go for it!

Here’s a sample:

Stever: In the last hour, I’ve written 2/3 of a podcast. In the next hour, I will finish the podcast, make some soup for lunch, and write my daily blog post.

Al: I’ve written the executive summary of my report. In the next hour, I’m going to rehearse it for half an hour. If it’s all good, I’ll print the handouts and send them for duplication.

Pat: I sexed my pet frog. It turns out he’s male. In the next hour, I’m going to puree a pineapple, change the oil in my car, and write a love sonnet to my new beau.

This is just what I need! Except I don't need it occasionally. I need it every day. I never get anything done without the immediate threat of someone being disappointed or upset. It's actually kind of a big problem. I don't think I need it to be a group thing on a conference call; I just need one person to check in with. My partner would make sure I am keeping up with my tasks, and I would do the same for him/her. Does this sort of thing exist? Where do I sign up?

posted by Dec One to grab bag (12 comments total)

That's a great idea. Maybe we could do this on Metafilter?

Sometimes, this page helps me out; it's made under a similar basis of checking-in, except you do it with yourself.
posted by suedehead at 9:52 PM on December 4, 2008 [2 favorites]

Something like this?
http://www.phinished.org/
posted by tiburon at 10:49 PM on December 4, 2008

It's not quite what you're after, but https://www.stickk.com/ seems kinda similar.

The oversimplified description: You promise to do stuff, and they arrange for your money to go to undesirable causes if you don't.
posted by curious_yellow at 2:59 AM on December 5, 2008

This is another vote for stickk.com. In fact, even if you find the other system, I would back it up with a stickk contract so that if you hadn't written what you said you were going to write, your friends (referees) could report that and you would lose $20.

To add to curious yellow's description: You can appoint a referee who has to confirm what you said you did, otherwise you will lose your money. You can also appoint supporters who get to see whether or not you've reported success. And you can choose to have your money go to what they call anti-charities (i.e. causes you don't support), to charity, or to specific people via paypal.

The one drawback is that the reporting is weekly, not every thirteen minutes, or daily. I wrote to them about this and they said they were working on adding daily reporting. In the meantime, you could still have daily goals that you have to meet every day for the week in order to report success (e.g., I will write X pages per day each week).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:10 AM on December 5, 2008

I'm looking for a multiple-times-per-day check-in system, and I don't think StickK specifically offers that. The communities there might be a good place to look for others interested in participating, though. Thanks for the suggestion.
posted by Dec One at 5:32 AM on December 5, 2008

I'm watching this thread with interest as well. I have been thinking recently of posting a similar question. I have no problems meeting the deadlines in my work when I am accountable to others. It's getting things done on personal projects I find difficult.

Reporting at the start and end of the day would be perfect for me, hourly checkups is a bit too frequent.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 7:42 AM on December 5, 2008

Well since it doesn't seem like there's an organization that already does this, and since I've gotten a few MeMails from people looking for the same thing, and since 13 users so far have marked the question as a favorite, I might set up a group. MeMail me if you're interested in participating.
posted by Dec One at 8:09 AM on December 5, 2008

Procrastinators Anonymous sounds exactly like what you want--they have phone and e-mail meetings.
posted by mattdidthat at 10:04 AM on December 5, 2008

A great idea and it seems just as well to set it up from scratch as to search for an prefabbed solution (especially since the latter allows for more procrastination).

I would suggest, however, that you give serious consideration to the appropriate time interval and circle size. Although it will depend on the nature of your work (I know what an auditor does, but not what one actually does), I would expect that an hour of most workdays will hold fairly few tasks, and that many tasks will span more than an hour or at least straddle the hour. Do you really want to interrupt your work every hour, even for a good cause? As a lifelong procrastinator, I know that the worst thing is to be be detoured from a groove into a rut. Wasn't there a study showing that it takes 15 minutes to recover fully from a distraction?

Circle size presents a related problem. Sessions where 2-4 people provide updates could be pretty quick. Ten seems like it would be a problem.

The ideal, I think, would be to have a check in at the beginning of the day where everyone lays out objectives for the morning, then a mid-day check in to report on the morning and lay out objectives for the afternoon. The next morning's session would then include a report on the afternoon (rather than throw in a session when everyone's trying to finish up for the day -- not sure on this one, but just a thought). I would also suggest that you have a rotating job of recording others' objectives. Also, everyone would be encouraged to tell the group about time wasted.

If you go through with this, maybe all of the respondents (and I will probably be one) could complete a short questionnaire about things like work hours/time zone, type of work, and frequency of desired updates to come up with groups of 3 or 4?
posted by lionelhutz5 at 10:56 AM on December 5, 2008

Thanks for the post. I'm struggling with similar issues, and am following the thread with interest.

This slashdot article from '03 asked along similar lines.
posted by Hobart at 11:50 AM on December 5, 2008

Virginia Valian (author of Why so slow?) wrote an article called Solving a work problem (pdf) that describes her approach to what you are after. I just came across it yesterday and started thinking about finding a work buddy. In the article this is a trust relationship between friends working in similar fields, but your approach of just being accountable to random people on the Internet also sounds interesting.
posted by meijusa at 2:13 PM on December 5, 2008

You could hire a virtual assistant to call you. Provide a script for what they should say if you have been working, and a second script for when you´ve been goofing off.
posted by yohko at 8:22 PM on December 5, 2008