This semester I really have to crunch to get things done. I only have classes on one day of the week, but I have to do A TON of work on my thesis.

Introducing my productivity buddy, Sarah --->

She also has a crap ton of work to get done with no one to monitor her.

We both suffer from the downward spiral of lack of progress discouraging us and creating more lack of progress. I came across the idea of a productivity buddy on the podcast No Meat Athlete Radio. On one of the podcasts he talked about how he gets together with a friend/productivity buddy every week and they talk about what they got done and failed to do the previous week and what they need to do next week and how they can do it better.

This sounded like a great idea to me. I really benefit from having a coach anytime I’m trying to accomplish anything - whether that’s a mentor or peer at work, a trainer at the gym, or a coach on an athletic team. I hate letting people down. I called up Sarah, because I knew she had mentioned needing motivation and we met for our first meeting last Wednesday. We went to a vegan chain restaurant called the loving hut, ate delicious food and talked about our goals for the week. Each day we text each other in the morning what we want to get done and in the evening we send each other a progress note. This is probably the most productive I’ve been for a while. I’ve done things that have been waiting for me for months.

On top of meeting with Sarah, I’ve been keeping a productivity journal. Every evening before dinner I try to take 10 minutes to write about the positives an negatives that day in terms of work and productivity. Then on the next page, I write my to-dos for the next day and identify the “frog” for the next day. http://www.briantracy.com/blog/time-management/the-truth-about-frogs/