I was talking with my sister about writing projects, as she’s also quite the writer, herself. I talked about how I had all of these ideas for big projects that I can’t really just get out of my head. She happened to be stuck in a similar rut, and though she said she’d been wanting to get out of her writing dry spell, she managed to crank out a pretty great poem. That’s the thing about her, though; she has ideas, and she immediately guns for them. With my ideas, I can often find it hard to stay in the present.
She mentioned at one point that she wanted to collaborate with more people for the ideas she had, and one part that stuck out for me is that she wanted to do it for the sense of accountability. There would be someone else working with her who’s depending on her input, so if she falls short in getting the work done, it’s not just failing her, but will also be failing someone else. I’m certain most of it is because she actually enjoys working with others to get to a common goal, but the accountability part struck me as particularly interesting, because I can’t say that I’ve ever thought of it, that way.
I’ve always been interested in collaboration with others, but always fall short in knowing just what I should do to initiate it. Like, I know what a good approach for collaboration sounds like, but my mind is always telling me “Ooh gurl, you gonna get REJECTED.” That’s not really the best reason to discourage myself from it, but hey, we all have our battles with insecurity to face. I know plenty of talented, hardworking individuals who put out some amazing work, and I know our talents combined can be a force to be reckoned with, but…I don’t know. I suddenly feel like I don’t know what to offer when I approach them, which I’m aware is a defeatist attitude that has no place in my line of work. However, I just get too into my head comparing my own talents with the talents of others, and start feeling like I don’t have much to offer. Neat! (Not.)
Anyway, if I can work through my imposter syndrome with my talents, I could actually ask people about collaborations, but this got me thinking about which ways I actually do hold myself accountable, for the projects I take part in. I committed to releasing a blog post every Tuesday, I have a set schedule for when I stream on Twitch, and I have certain rewards on my Patreon that I make sure get put up in a week (on a good week. I do realize I need to get better at regularly updating on there). Aside from that, I try to use sheer willpower to commit myself to write at least 500 words of something every day, but even then, it doesn’t always happen. It seems like, for the things I know people are expecting of me each week, I can get those out without fail. But when it’s something I have to hold myself accountable for, I’m suddenly at a loss. There’s no fountain of infinite productivity. It’s just a bowl of stagnant water.
While I can’t collaborate on every single project that I do, it does get me thinking about how I can implement similar ideas to hold myself accountable. Whether that’s rewarding myself for staying on track, only doing “relaxing” things after I’ve gotten a good amount of scheduled work done for the day (and actually making a schedule of tasks I want to get done), or something along this lines, I think I’ll be able to find a sense of accountability. I have too many projects, and too many things I want to accomplish, so finding a way to make sure I take the responsibility needed to achieve those goals is not just desired, but necessary, at this point.
What ways do you keep yourself accountable for getting work done? Leave them in the comments! I’d love to hear about how you keep yourself on track!