The art of booking a meeting just to force you to do a thing

In this week’s edition of guerrilla productivity, let’s sneakily use other people to get stuff done!

It’s hard to fail with abandon when you have people counting on you, so find some people to count on you. The trick is making it valuable for them too.

• If you want to learn about something but you can’t find the time, find a couple interested people and book an hour a week to work through a course together.
• If you want to read a book but you’re struggling to be consistent at it, make a little book club with some people. Read a chapter a week and book a weekly discussion meeting.
• If you’re procrastinating a scary or boring coding thing, ask if anyone wants to pair on it and schedule a session.
• If you want to write more but it never feels like the top priority, book a weekly “writing hour” with someone. Both of you can share your screen and silently type the hour away.

Whatever it is, figure out how to involve someone else and you’ll get it done.