Accountability to write more

If you wish you were writing more and you keep pushing it ‘til later, then end up ‘running out of week’, I feel you! Writing any kind of piece in my own voice, like a blog or LinkedIn post, always carries an I can do that later vibe. Since nobody is waiting for the piece, the deadline is slippery. Later starts as after dinner (I want my daytime work to be billable); then gets pushed to on the weekend, which never happens because I resent sitting at a computer on the weekend. It’s awfully easy for later to turn into never.

There are all kinds of reasons we may avoid writing. Here are many reasons why writing is hard.

But sometimes it’s not hard, not for any of those reasons. Sometimes we simply, honestly, can’t find the time. But finding time isn’t really a thing, is it? We never get extra, surprise hours above and beyond our 24 per day. (There’s that one extra hour we get each year for daylight savings, but it comes at, like, 3 in the morning, so I sleep through it every time.) 

Whatever time you find, is time you’re not doing something else - like sleeping, or walking, or watching The Crown. Finding time to write means choosing time to write, and protecting time to write. 

First, choosing.

We’re not going to find extra, surprise time, so we have to choose time. Schedule it. Do you really want to write more often? A business coach I worked with ages ago used to say “Show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities.” If I look at your calendar, will I see dedicated writing blocks in there?

Last year, you could have looked at either my paper calendar or my electronic calendar, and you would have seen writing time blocked off. (Yes. 2 calendar systems… I need all the help I can get to remember what I’m supposed to be doing when.) 

My intentions to write were honest, and I would pencil in one afternoon every week to write for my own business. Except I’d inevitably be working on a client project or get a phone call, and it would extend through my writing time. That little pencil scribble in my calendar just wasn’t commanding enough.

So I moved my writing time to the morning when I could kick off a good flow before something else took over my brain. Of course, first I’d peek at my email, start answering an inquiry, and bang, writing time was gone.  All the electronic Start Writing and Stop Writing alarms didn’t help either.

Choosing was happening. Protecting was not.

Here’s something about me: I do this All The Time. I make a plan, then mentally shift it all around, renegotiate with myself and don’t follow through. I can’t tell you why. I hold other people’s plans sacred, hitting deadlines, picking up kids on time, bringing the dessert I said I’d bring. But my own plans kind of just drift off into nowhere. All my good intentions stay intentions. 

If wanting, scheduling, intending, and alarms didn’t force me to keep my commitment to myself, I wondered what crazy accountability I could set up.

Aha. Other people.

I started Almost Writers Club in October 2021. It was, I think, two other people who wanted to write more consistently, and we turned up on zoom every other week. Sometimes nobody turned up, but because I was leading the group, I had to be there. (Remember? Other people’s expectations are sacred?) I had to sit there, two people had paid me to sit there, with my zoom room open for latecomers, while I pounded away on my keyboard (I’m quite an aggressive typist).

Could I secretly have used that time to check email or surf facebook? If no-one showed up, could I skip off?  I guess. But I was at my computer, ready for my club, it was an official project, and joined the category of ‘non-negotiable’. Obligation to others was the tipping point that finally got me to write regularly. Since October 2021 I have posted 20 blogs to this site. Compared to the 2 I eked out the previous year. Not perfectly consistent; but unarguably more!

Also interesting: I’ve been exercising 5 days a week since mid-September. (You have to understand how anti-fitness I am. Long story short: I believe I’m above exercise and it’s my divine right to lounge on a divan drinking champagne everyday. Nobody else read this memo though, and it turns out I need to move around a little to keep my joints from seizing up. )

Anyway, I was introduced to a woman, Kerry Maher, who makes it mindlessly easy for me to work out. The timing is right, there are always adaptations to keep moves pain-free, and she’s hilarious so I’m entertained the whole time and don’t spiral into champagne-entitlement self-pity. She knows my name, and I know a few people who also turn up every morning, and that does it! I need to be there. It’s a group thing. We all turn up for each other.

This Accountability to Others hack seems to work for lots of things. I belong to a small business community and we have Most Important Thing time scheduled on zoom together every Tuesday. It’s scheduled, booked, marked in both calendars, protected, people-are-waiting time to work on our stuff, the stuff that will move our businesses forward. I’ve heard from clients and colleagues that they also turn up for groups and use that time to get their I'll do it later things done.

I’m not telling you that you need Other People to keep you accountable. If you’re choosing, and protecting, and getting it done, you’re golden. If you’re choosing but not protecting then it’s time for a strategy.

Guess what? We have room in Almost Writer’s Club for you. I would love new folks to join our weekly meetings starting January 4, 2023. In fact, I will be depending on you to keep me on track! It’s sacred writing time, writing review, and group accountability to publish 2x per month. More info is here if you want it.

Here’s the other thing that’s kept me writing (and exercising) when in the past I was unable to sustain the practice: forgiveness. I skip a workout. I don’t finish a blog. I miss a Friday mailout. It happens. The difference this time is, I don’t give it all up because I fell off the wagon. I don’t roll around in my failing. It’s a blip, not a ruination. Kerry Maher puts it best: “just show up more than you don’t.” 

What keeps you showing up more than you don’t? A goal? An alarm? Prizes? People? I’d love to know.