Thread by @dvassallo

People often ask me about how I keep myself accountable and work on stuff without anyone pushing me to do so.

My answer is that I don’t bother with accountability. In fact, I’ve been deliberately organizing my life to remove as much accountability from it as I can.

1/13

Over the last few years I’ve been reflecting on the things that I do (or imagine myself doing), and categorize them as:

1) things that I do only because someone/something is pushing me to do them;

Or

2) things that I do for their own sake.

2/13

Then I started designing my lifestyle in ways that would allow me to do as little as possible from the first bucket, and as much as possible form the second.

And it’s a continuous process. The mix is much better this year than last year, but I intend to keep improving it.

3/13

So whenever I find myself reluctant to do something, I take that as a signal that I should probably be spending my energy on something else.

I don’t fight procrastination; I embrace it.

4/13

Or course, that tax return is not going to write itself. I still do many things that I’d rather not do. But just being cognizant of what I’m able to do on my own intrinsic drive is enough information to help me evolve my lifestyle to better match my preferences.

5/13

It always surprises me when I see people who make themself accountable even when they have no obligation to do so.

I’m very careful to not do that, even by accident.

6/13

For example, people often publicly commit to do something, in an attempt to force themselves to reach their goal.

And even when they don’t commit publicly, sometimes they just commit to themselves.

To me, that hurts my motivation more than it helps!

7/13

Because I find it very hard to fool myself that something is important if I get a hint from my subconscious that I might be doing this just because I’ve made a commitment.

8/13

My intrinsic drive doesn’t want to make me write a blog post just because I’ve committed to write an article every week. It wants me to spend my energy diligently, so it makes me stop to reconsider the reasons I’m doing what I’m doing.

And I think that’s good!

9/13

I also take deliberate measures to minimize the chance that I accidentally fall into this trap. For example, on my website I removed the blog post dates from the home page. I didn’t want to risk feeling the pressure to write something just to fill a date gap.

10/13

Similarly, I rarely open my GitHub profile, so that I don’t feel obligated to do something just to fill up the gray dots with green.

11/13

Another thing is that I try to be very unambitious. I do my best to keep the complexity of what I set myself to do abundantly within my means. And I keep adjusting and reducing the scope even after I start.

12/13

I think by now I developed a good sense of how far the finish line needs to feel in order for my intrinsic drive to keep giving me free energy. And whenever it starts to feel it’s a bit too far, I adjust the finish line. 🏁

13/13