There’s a saying in football: “The tape don’t lie.”
Meaning, a players practice and game film are the singular source of truth of a player’s effort, hustle, and execution of play.
No one on or off the field can dispute what the tape says.
This empirical source of truth drives accountability and performance.
Jason Calacanis wrote: “If you want to claim you’re working ‘really hard’ to your boss, you might want to check if you have ever stayed past 7pm or worked a weekend first.”
But what would one check? A calendar? A todo list?
Not enough detail in either to make a case. Plus, you’d have to piece together disparate information from decentralized sources. That will be clumsy and inefficient.
Documenting action steps taken to complete tasks and assignments creates an empirical source of truth of work and effort.
Better is an Accountability Journal. A record of your work.
It’s productivity, time management, accountability, mindfulness, awareness, and journaling rolled into one.
Detailing specifics of your day for:
Fancy software, not required. My Accountability Journal lives in my daily note.
How: Take a moment to document what you’ve done and when. There’s no one way. Here is an example:
09:49 Just completed preparing the presentation for this afternoons pitch competition. NOW Write a blog post about documenting your work.
10:32 First draft of the blog post about documenting your work is complete. Will return to it in a few days. NOW Grade student papers for the Entrepreneurial Marketing course.
11:46 Entrepreneurial Marketing papers graded… they exceeded my expectations. Though question [a] needs to be improved for next semester. NOW email and then lunch.
The Accountability Journal is inspired by Interstitial journaling.