I have been experimenting with virtual co-working and accountability.
Not least during lockdowns, but generally for the self-employed, getting focused on productive and income-generating work is challenging.
It is generally acknowledged that clarifying to someone what you plan to do, and having them as a point of accountability, helps you focus on getting that work done. For those who work for an organisation, a boss or line-manager (should) play this role.
I have been experimenting with a service called Focusmate, which pairs you with someone to co-work with for accountability (rather than to collaborate). I have tried it once, being paired with a woman in Leeds who works as a software engineer, and in the 50 minute session completed work I may not otherwise have got down to.
Focusmate was created by US-based ‘productivity scientist’ Taylor Jacobson. It is currently free to sign-up and use, and it is not clear what its business model is.
One schedules a session online via Focusmate’s well-designed site and is paired with someone who wants to co-work then, and an entry is added to your calendar. Just before the time you log on to your session via a browser.
The protocol is that, having said ‘Hello’, one silently co-works with the other person, with video and sound on, as if they are in the same room or space.
As an aside, many years ago a friend told me about Paul Saffo of the Institute For The Future, who would remotely co-work with one of his collaborators – Roy Amara, perhaps – with a permanently-on Skype connection, so they could chat and bounce ideas around ‘as if’ they were in the same space.
In the Focusmate model, using the chat you ‘declare’ a task to your co-worker and note when you have completed it, then repeat.
It would be interesting to experiment with accountability co-working with friends and colleagues, not least as it would also be good to have a brief catchup and learn about what people are doing.
As such, I have created a Calendly ‘Accountability co-working’ session that would allow you to create a 50 minute with me. (Calendly will likewise add an entry to your calendar, and you will be emailed a reminder.) If you know me and you want to ‘kick the tires’, consider giving it a go.
I am still doing virtual co-working and accountability – please ping me if you want to find out how to join.
I have also been learning about Workflowy focus coach (https://workflowy.com/focus-coach/), which is another model of accountability in which a ‘focus coach sits with you live [online] to keep you on task’. The focus coach supervises a number of people and checks in with each coachee every 10 minutes or so, to get an update and, if appropriate, offer advice on how to approach tasks. The service costs $5 an hour.
As an aside, the service was started by the founder of Workflowy (https://workflowy.com/) which is a lovely tool for organising ideas, information and tasks. It was the first tool I found that elegantly allowed the filtering of lists based on tags, which is one of my favourite features incorporated into Roam Research (https://roamresearch.com/).