How To Be More Productive With An Accountabillibuddy
Today, we’re going to talk about ACCOUNTABILLIBUDDY. I’ve always been a fan of people. I’ve always wanted to work with people. I’ve always wanted to interact and build a team, and even in business I always wanted to have a group of people; group of employees around me. As an introvert, that’s hard and a little scary because people are scary. You don’t actually want to go outside, you don’t actually want to interact with people. But people are valuable.
As much as I wanted to interact with people, the number of people that I interacted with in my early days was minimal. And that always bummed me out because there’s a meme on the internet about how it is to be an introvert: You want to go to a party so bad and when you do go, you wish you were home. That pretty much described me. I wanted to help people so much but when I’m around them, I really don’t feel comfortable and I’d much rather be at home playing video games or something.
I knew the value of people. I knew that I needed people in my life. I knew I needed to connect with people in order to be successful. I need them for inspiration, for motivation, to keep me on track and hold me accountable for whatever. That’s when I discovered the concept of an accountabillibuddy. I don’t know if this is a real thing or it’s just something that I’ve done. It’s basically finding someone that’s on a similar path that you’re on or they’re doing the same things that you’re doing. Or they could be from a different world as you—maybe they’re writing a book or something while you’re working on a game. But you can hold each other accountable to get things done like for writing new chapters or building levels; for finishing the book or finishing the game—-whatever it is.
I found that being accountable to someone is the number 1 motivator, for me personally, out of anything else I found. I have never found anything in my life that will motivate me to do something more than having to avoid sitting down with someone tomorrow and telling him, “Yeah the thing I told you I was going to do last week, I didn’t do it.”
It’s just so motivating. That’s probably why a lot of people hire mentors; it’s for that accountability aspect. When I did consulting for business and marketing, a lot of people would hire me for the accountability. They knew that they needed someone to tell them, “Hey! What are you doing?” Even though they knew what needed fixing, there was no one there to point it out to them. There’s no accountability.
I think that accountability is a big thing. A lot of us when we’re in our programming caves, when we’re sitting home alone all by ourselves on our computers using the internet, there’s no accountability there. If you don’t work on your game today nobody knows. If you don’t work on your game for the next month, nobody knows or notices.
Having an accountabillibuddy will keep you on track. It will keep you moving forward. The way that I like to set this up is awesome. I shout-out to my brother because he is my accountabillibuddy for life. He and I go way back and seriously, without him, I don’t know what I would do. There’s so much stuff that we share and that we hold each other accountable for. We keep each other on track and it’s awesome.
The way that I like to set this up that works the most effectively is I recommend meeting at least once a week. It can be once a month but it’s less effective. It doesn’t need to be in person, it could be over Skype, it can be whatever. However, I recommend that if it’s virtual, you do a video call so you can see each other’s face. The more that you remove yourself from the human interaction of face to face, the less is the sense of real connection.
You guys meet and talk about your goals, what you want to achieve for the next week, what you want to get done, what you want to complete. Then you set up a meeting for next week and then all do in the next week’s meeting is to go over your goals, figure out if you did it, and talk each other through your struggles.
If you didn’t meet your goals, why didn’t you meet your goals? Set new ones. Just go through that stuff with each other, hold each other’s hand throughout the whole process and make sure that both parties are getting what they need out of it. That’s it.
This is not some big, complex, crazy thing from a factory. It’s not some crazy piece of technology. It’s about you finding another dude that wants to do something awesome, you work with each other, and hold each other accountable.
I highly recommend this method if you have trouble with discipline. If you are struggling to get off your ass and when you don’t feel like doing something or get shit done. You won’t get anywhere if you don’t go the extra mile and get things you need to get done. I recommend that you get accountabillibuddy.
Your next question is probably, “Tim, where do I find an accountabillibuddy?” Well, one of the best places to find them is actually in your own life. If you have the support of people in your own life, chances are they probably have their own path, their own goals and aspirations. And talking to them heart to heart, having a conversation with them, sharing what you want to achieve, and sharing where you want to go could be beneficial. You can describe to them the concepts of accountabillibuddy and see if they would be interested.
I think that that’s the best place to search because if supportive people are already in your life, chances are they’re going to stay in your life and that’s one less relationship that you have to build. Relationship building is hard and as an introvert, it’s super scary. So I recommend you start there, but you can also go on forums, or on Facebook groups so you can meet people you can be friendly with and talk to.
YouTube is a great place to look for an accountabillibuddy. There are plenty of cool people there that are posting about the game they’re developing, their development logs or whatever. There different online communities that you can join to meet people. You can check out the GDU discord group or even Game Dev Underground itself.
There a lot of game developers that would love to hang out with you. My goal with this blog is to explain the concept and give you a better understanding of it. I hope that it will awaken something in you and you can take that next step and actually find your own accountabillibuddy. Having someone to be accountable has seriously changed the course of my life. Without that accountability from another person, I wouldn’t have done so many things.
There are so many companies that wouldn’t have started, so many things that I wouldn’t have gone out and done, and I cannot stress this enough. I said I grew up without real discipline anywhere. I grew up as an undisciplined person. I was unmoderated and uncontrolled.
Growing up with anxiety and all those emotions running around your head, and no discipline to speak of can be a very scary place to live in because you don’t have control over yourself. I think the number one thing that I was always terrified of more than failing, was letting someone else down.
I used that to my advantage. I took that weakness, in a sense, and turned it into strength. From then on, I really had someone hold me accountable. I knew that if I didn’t achieve what I wanted to achieve, I would let them down. They would be bummed out because I didn’t get my shit done. I’d be like, “Damn! Now I have to fail in front of someone that I care about and cares about me.” In a sense, it’s not even a real failure. It’s just that I have I don’t want this person to see me being lazy—it was because I was so lazy this week that I didn’t get my shit done.
That was something that I never wanted to happen. That thing lit a fire under my ass and got me off the ground running because I never want to look stupid in front of other people. I never wanted people see me as lazy. I would go into that accountability meeting with someone with twice as much done. I’d be like, “Hey, look at what I got done. I’ve been on it; I’ve been doing my shit.” I’ve never looked back and I can’t stress this point enough.
My recommendation to you is to find an accountabillibuddy, work out a schedule to meet once a week, and be held accountable for the shit that you’ve got to get done. If you can’t hold yourself accountable—which I know is really hard—- finding an accountabillibuddy is the best thing you can do.
If you have any comments on this, leave them below, I would love to hear from you.
