Will you be my Streaming Accountability Partner?
I watched a TED talk the other day that really resonated with me. Ted Urban was explaining how he is a Master Procrastinator, and as someone who has ADHD, I find that this message didn't just resonate, but actually rang the bell so hard it cracked.
Watch it later... or not.
The idea is simple. For everyone it can be difficult to get started on a project, and work on it evenly throughout the available time you have, for many the prime motivating factor is a sense of urgency. For those with ADHD it seems that Urgency needs to be an Emergency, in other words, the project must be due yesterday before your executive function deems it worthy to begin working on. While the talk is fun, and humorous, you can actually see it break down in quality as the talk progresses, ending in a kind of non-resolution. This decay in quality control is a hallmark of the kind of procrastination that happens due to last minute scheduling. Tim also talks about how difficult then it is to get things done when you are in an environment with no deadlines.
For almost 20 years, I had a boss. Moving from one job to another with at most a couple of weeks between each link in an unbroken chain of deadlines and accountability. This worked well for me, but I found myself tired of not control of my own destiny, and so 6 months ago (actually it's 8 now) I became my own boss for real, attempting to build software that I would enjoy making and sharing, my wife Tegan is doing well enough that we don't need my salary and so I can enjoy the luxury of what my friend Howard calls "A first retirement". While some may have enjoyed this complete unrestricted freedom, I have found it very difficult to get engaged (see prior posts and status updates) and I think the issue is the one that Tim brings up in his video. I now have no deadlines. No accountability. No boss. And so with no boss, and no executive function, I fall into holes, playing games, watching short video clips, and starting lots of little projects (like this one today), but only working on them as long as they remain new and interesting. Sadly, Tim provided no solution at the end of his possibly unfinished TED talk (I feel ya brother) for those of us who want to be entrepreneurs or Indie developers with ADHD. I've got a plan:
During my hours of scrolling YouTube shorts while procrastinating real projects the algorithm has caught on to my ADHD, and begun serving ADHD content. One of the creators brought my attention to the idea of "Body Doubling", the general concept of which is that if being observed or believing that you are observed it can be easier and more rewarding to stay on task. This was the case for me when I was working the 9-5 (at least when we were in the office), as I had little trouble being productive there. It doesn't take much accountability, but with no accountability I can't do much.
So I'm going to experiment, while I could join a body doubling stream or channel (I still might) I've decided to try streaming first, as I might even be able to clip out the videos afterwards and share some of the things that I've learned along the way for others to consume. In the meantime just knowing that someone could join, or go back and watch the recording will help keep me on task (or that's the experiment). I would like you to be my "Streaming Accountability Partner", if you've read this far, I appreciate you already and would love for you to drop in on me working, at my stream below, say hi, or just let me know that someone is there who wants me to succeed as much as I do. 😄
