Accountability: What it takes to get to the end

ACCOUNTABILITY

Could there be a more basic (and true) sentiment than:

“You can’t get to the end until you get started”

?

Those 10 words were among several phrases that I squirreled away the last week or two, feeling that they applied to some thinking I am in the midst of doing and/or that they would be good anchor concepts for a blog post.

The words were in an article about agile vs. lean management in the supply chain (I get to read some really cool stuff for work — and I’m not being ironic).

Despite the author’s intent that they be used to help a business figure out the sweet spot between just-in-time distribution and an agile approach, they also apply to the other ways we hold ourselves and each other accountable.

One of my goals pretty much every year has been “get better at Spanish.” I’ve tried this and that app/website, but have ended up not being consistent on any of them.

When Michael Paul Smith talked about Duolingo on the Hamilcast podcast (hosted by his wife, Gillian Pensavalle) discussing Gillian’s and his trip to Puerto Rico to see Hamilton (this episode and this episode), my inner fire to make tangible progress on this goal was sparked again. That was 38 days ago, and I haven’t missed a day.

Accountability is one reason why. The app has a function where your friends can congratulate you for passing various milestones. It matters when someone notices.

Likewise, I keep trying to figure out how it was (relatively) easy to go without sweets, fruit, wine and many other foods/drinks I enjoy during the week I did the Ration Challenge in June. I had thought after it was done, that all the clean eating would come naturally, but that hasn’t been the case. It made a difference that the people who had contributed to Church World Service to help Syrian refugees as a result of my Ration Challenge participation were counting on me to uphold my end of the goal.

*** end of five minutes ***

I have a few other things I want to focus on more intently in the upcoming months, professionally and personally.

I’m not sure if I’ll achieve those things. However, I know I need to enlist friends and peers in holding me accountable.

I also know I won’t get to the end until I start.

***

Note — one of the first things I read this morning was this piece of advice in Josh Spector’s For the Interested newsletter:

Pick a topic. Turn everything off. Spend a few minutes just thinking about it. Sometimes all it takes to come up with a great idea is to give yourself the space to do so.

I went outside, determined to do something I rarely do: Sit there with no radio playing and no input of any kind. I (thought I had) set my timer for five minutes. Eventually, I thought “wow this five minutes is taking FOREVER” and figured out I had not actually set the timer.

Not sure my time outside with just my thoughts led to a great idea, but I imagine the space and communion with nature didn’t hurt much. Thanks for the reminder to unplug, Josh.

Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via coordinator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.” (But I can’t resist spell-checking, as you can imagine (and I’d be lying today if I said I did not go back and edit a thing or two.)