Submitted by Emma McLaren

Sometimes, a friend really isn’t what you need.

No, seriously. Let us explain. Have you ever had those times where you need to focus on something, and you enlist a friend to help you get it done, only… you end up chatting with each other instead? Or maybe you have something hard that you want to do, but your friend has no experience with it and doesn’t know how to help you get there?

In these situations and so many others, sometimes, the best accountability comes from somebody else: a support group member, a therapist or coach, or even, sometimes, a stranger. That’s because accountability isn’t a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. 

ACCOUNTABILITY EXISTS ON A SPECTRUM.

We started thinking about this more when we heard about Focusmate recently. Focusmate is an accountability platform that encourages people to get work done by randomly pairing them up with strangers for a set appointment time and a set duration. You check-in by video at the start, work quietly together through your set time, and then check in again at the end to talk about what you accomplished. It helps eliminate the urge to chat (well, unless you’re author Courtney Milan, who accidentally got paired up with a friend from high school recently!), but still gives you somebody who will see if you end up goofing around instead of working. 

Here at Myrth, we’ve been really focused on the idea of accountability buddies, especially because we believe accountability is a carrot, not a stick. We really like it when accountability is linked to long-term, supportive relationships. We recognize, though, that a good accountability buddy will look different for different situations and different people. You might even have multiple accountability buddies at the same time for different reasons!

Let’s take a closer look at some of the different kinds of accountability you might need: READ MORE