How to stay busy without losing your mind

A client recently told me that his favorite thing about working with me was the accountability it gave him. We created a new management plan, rolled it out to his employees, and then structured his management meetings. 

While he enjoyed all this work, the knowledge of upcoming meetings with me, and knowing that the work was getting done, was what made him the happiest. 

Accountability is more than ideas

I know you have ideas. You started a business, after all, you are a person of ideas. 

There are new projects, and initiatives, and plans, and intentions rolling around in your brain, competing for attention and space. My client did too. For a long time. 

The challenge for most small business owners is to work on those ideas. People generally lack the time, the resources, and the simple bandwidth to address everything the new ideas would bring. 

And so the projects, initiatives, plans, and intentions sit on a list – real or imagined – that keeps growing and growing. 

Accountability is more than education

My client had also spent time trying to work on these ideas himself. 

He had bought self-help and training books, he had been to a bunch of seminars, he had downloaded dozens of templates, he had listened to all the top speakers. 

He learned a great deal. And at times he would even get started on a new initiative. 

But he never made it very far. 

Accountability is action

Those first two steps are important. They will help with everything that comes afterward. And may even be enough to get started. 

Where most people struggle, is the “keep going” part. 

What my client meant when he spoke about accountability was the fact that he could outsource that accountability to me. Our meetings created deadlines, and my follow-up reports gave him the specific “next steps” he needed to take, without having to think about everything that came before and after. 

How far ahead do you plan when you begin a new initiative? How do you break your projects down into single steps? And within all this work, how do you keep your promises and manage your time?

What next

Start right now. Tomorrow morning, first thing, make that list of ideas and initiatives. Then pick one. Just one. Write each step, and plot them on a timeline. And to outsource the accountability, drop me a line to schedule 6 months of monthly meetings.