Accountability Buddies

Here are some ideas for ways you and your buddies can support each other over the course of the programme (and maybe after too!):

Systems Geek-Out
Talk about how you organise yourselves. Play show & tell with your software, apps, planners, lists, notebooks, random scraps of paper and post-it forests. Give each other ideas. Ask each other questions. Figure out what works well and experiment with what might work better. 

Weekly Review
Do you mean to sit down each week to review your lists and priorities and not actually manage to do it? Maybe one of you has a strong habit of this and the other would like one? You might join forces – maybe a video-off Zoom every Friday at 4 pm or Sunday at 8 pm to sit down quietly together and do your reviews. Make it a standing date.

Admin Blitz
Do you keep putting off life admin, not allowing yourself to count it as ‘real work’? Plan a weekly, hour-long, joint admin blitz. Keep it Zoom-free if you like; just set the date and time, text at the start to say hello, text at the end to say we did it!

Gratitude Practice
Join forces to retrain your brains to focus on the positive. At the end of every day, text each other a list of three things you are grateful for. That’s it. Miss a day? Just pick it up again the next day.

Walk & Talk
Are you not getting out enough? Do you like chatting in your downtime? Are you tired of your podcasts? Set a regular date to get out over a lunch hour, take a walk, and chat with each other — in person, if geography permits, or while chatting on the phone.

Shut Up & Write
If writing is the priority that constantly slips out of the top spot on your list, then set a regular writing date with your buddy/ies. Put it on your calendar and build a fence around it: protected, committed time.

Commitments
Tell each other at the start of each week what your commitments are to yourself this week. For example, this week I will: 1. Write for 30 minutes Mon-Thurs. 2. Take daily walks. 3. Stop working by x pm. 4. Do yoga at least 3 times. 5. Practice gratitude and forgiveness every night. Then follow up at the end and, with a spirit of kindness and curiosity, ask each other, how did you do? Which did you keep? What affect did it have? Which did you let slide? Why?

Extended Time
Block out 90 minutes for each group coaching call instead of 60, and meet for an extra 30 minutes either before or after to share reflections, realisations, commitments, etc.

Your Own Ideas
I am sure you have fantastic ideas of your own for supporting each other! My biggest advice: make the space you share together different than your work space. Try phone rather than Zoom/Teams, or meet in your favourite chair instead of at your desk, or send each other weekly postcards instead of emails if that sounds fun. File in your brain under social rather than work; focus on the buddy and let the accountability take care of itself.