The best $25 I’ve never spent
Spending $25 isn’t difficult to do. It’s a couple of burritos with sodas for lunch; it’s a new hardcover book at your favorite bookstore. For me, it used to be two classes at the Kettlebell gym when I could still go there before Covid.
It’s not a tremendous amount of money. Still, it’s been playing a pivotal role in helping me accomplish all of my weekly goals.
It used to be that on Monday, I would make a full list of things I wanted to have completed by Friday. Despite knowing what I wanted to accomplish, things consistently fell through the cracks each week and didn’t get done. They got ignored, put off, and deadlines got pushed back again and again.
I realized that this system wasn’t working for me when a workbook I was putting together for my published book seemed to be taking forever to finish.
If I couldn’t be trusted to complete all my weekly to-do items, I needed to get serious and turn to a method I knew worked.
So, just like pulling an outfit out of the back of the closet that you know will be perfect for a rare, special occasion, I pulled out a perfect two-step productivity tool that never fails; it just has to be used to be effective.
Step One involves a human, Step Two involves cash.
For Step One, I needed to get an Accountability Partner, someone to hold me to what I say I’m going to do. In this situation, a Partner was easy to find: I asked someone in the Entrepreneurs Mastermind to hold me accountable.
Step Two is where the $25 came in. On Monday morning, I sent my Accountability Partner a list of what I needed to have done by Friday afternoon. It’s important to note I didn’t detail the steps I needed to take, just the outcomes of what I wanted to have accomplished. The details of how that happened were up to me.
I then committed to paying $25 if I didn’t complete my goals for the week.
On Friday afternoon, I would send the results of my work to my Accountability Partner. I gave her the power to double-check my work if she wanted to make sure I had done what I said I was going to do. She was the one who would make the call if I had to pay the $25 or not. But it’s not like she had a vested role in getting the money.
If I failed, she wasn’t $25 richer.
When I put my list together on Monday morning, I also decided who would get my money if I failed to accomplish my goals. The key here, I picked someone I despised. Despise is a strong word I don’t use lightly, but it is the operative word for making this tool work.
The more I dislike this person, the more likely I am to make sure my work gets done, so they don’t get my money.
It’s difficult to give in to distractions and goof-off if I know someone I don’t like will profit from my procrastination.
This works best if I pick an individual from the political party I don’t believe in to receive my money. If I don’t subscribe to their beliefs, imagine how I would feel if I knew my cash helped bankroll those ideals. You could also pick a charity or an organization that sets your teeth on edge every time you hear them mentioned. Your choice just needs to inspire you to get things done.
So far this tool is working out great.
I’ve been using it for weeks, and I haven’t had to send $25 to anyone. When I hit a low-energy point in my day, and I want to doom scroll the internet or do something else distracting, I look at my list, and I think of my “person of the week” and I get back on track.
For the record, there’s nothing magical about $25. It’s just the amount I’ve chosen. You can pick any amount of money that inspires you.
How you handle the money is a decision you make with your Accountability Partner. You can give the money to them at the beginning of the week, so they have the power to send the money if you don’t hit your goal. Or they can roll it over to the next week if you’re successful with your list. You can give them money at the beginning of each week and have them accumulate the money (assuming you continue to be successful) and return it at a pre-determined interval. Just make sure to hammer out any money details ahead of time.
Why not start using this two-step tool today to get your weekly productivity in order? Find an Accountability Partner. Decide how much money you want to put up each week, pick the person (or organization or charity) that you don’t believe in, and then get going. When it comes to your productivity, this could be the best money you never spend.
