How I use accountability to combat procrastination and get stuff done

Accountability is something that comes up a lot in conversations with coaching clients and in the Quiet ADHD Club (we have a weekly accountability thread). It’s a funny thing – it can be helpful, it can feel like nagging, and it can invoke the rebel within us (particularly for those with oppositional defiant disorder).

I first realised that accountability is useful for me when I learned about Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies (she’s written a book of the same name). Briefly, she’s identified four tendencies (not types) that people lean towards:

• Obliger – can meet others’ (outer) expectations – you do what you told someone else you would do, but rubbish at meeting their own (inner) expectations – if it’s only for yourself it doesn’t happen
• Upholder – has no problem meeting outer and inner expectations
• Questioner – fine with meeting their own expectations but resists outer expectations unless they know why they should meet them
• Rebel – resists both outer and inner expectations (and gets v frustrated with themselves in the process)

There’s a quiz you can do to identify your tendency but many people recognise themselves from those brief descriptions. I knew I was an Obliger straight away but what’s even more interesting is how the tendencies overlap with some of the others. Obliger overlaps with Upholder and Rebel which means on occasion Obligers can meet their own inner expectations but also there are times when they completely rebel against everyone and everything and resist outer as well as inner expectations!

This really struck a chord with me because I feel it speaks to the obliging (see what I did there?!) good girl within us who has spent much of our unrecognised ADHD life trying to make up for feeling like we’re failing at life by people-pleasing and trying to make everyone else happy and approve of us.

Periodically our internal obliger becomes so resentful of this constant striving and exhausted from putting our own needs on the back burner that we can’t take any more, we rebel and refuse to do anything! Until the guilt makes us think we’re terrible people and the fear of rejection sees us dive headfirst back into the people-pleasing, the trying to meet everyone else’s expectations and abandoning our own.

Which is why many (not all) of my coaching clients over the years have recognised themselves as Obligers with moments of Rebel/Upholder.

Knowing that you have a tendency to be an obliger (with a little o or big O), that your people-pleasing means you can abandon yourself for others, gives you the opportunity to break the cycle, to create and honour some boundaries.

Knowing that accountability from someone else expecting you to do whatever you said you’ll do means that 9/10 you’ll do it, is information you can use to help yourself do what it is you want to do for yourself.

Accountability can take many different forms, here are three ways I use accountability to combat procrastination.

Ask another human to hold you accountable

This is the most obvious – external accountability through asking someone to hold you accountable. So I might ask my husband to check with me at the end of the day that I ordered the dog’s food or booked an appointment or wrote a piece of work. While it’s the most obvious form of accountability it’s not a failsafe.

You’re relying on the other person to remember to hold you accountable, it can feel to you like nagging or checking up on you and so create resentment, and it can make the other person feel like they’re having to parent you.

When I first realised that external accountability is useful for me I tried enlisting my husband but soon discovered that he would forget he was supposed to be holding me accountable so it didn’t work!

It matters who you ask to hold you accountable.

So while for me it doesn’t work with my husband, it does work with other people in my life such as my business coach and my friends. I don’t want to let down any of them or go back on my word so just telling them that I’ll do X is enough to get me to do it, they rarely need to check in to see if I have. As those relationships have a different dynamic to my marriage I don’t feel I’m being nagged and they don’t feel like they’re parenting me.

Another way this can work is to agree to do something with another person so if you didn’t do it they’d be negatively impacted. For example, if you and a friend agree you’ll go to circuit training together you’re less likely to pull out when you’re tired and it’s raining because you made a pact with your friend and you don’t want them to have to go on their own.

In the Quiet ADHD Club Community Chat each Monday morning I start a post where members can comment what they want or need to do that week. The following Monday I check in to ask how everyone got on so while I don’t single out anyone there is the accountability of knowing I will ask. And it’s a space to celebrate when you’ve done the thing you wanted to do!

Our body-doubling sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays can provide a form of accountability too because paid members know that if they choose to join me on Zoom they’ve making the decision to do a particular task (can be something fun and joyful, not just a dreaded job) in that time and I’m there with other members on screen with them as they do.

Tick sheets

External accountability doesn’t only come from other people holding you accountable – inanimate objects can provide the same service.

I find using a calendar or habit tracker super helpful for getting me to do the things I need to do even when I really don’t want to (I’m looking at you, strength weight training).

Seeing a tick or cross or dot or coloured in spot next to an action is proof I did the thing, I showed up and kept a promise to myself and it gives me a little dopamine boost. Seeing the ticks, crosses, dots or coloured in spots mount up and spread across the page compounds that feeling and keeps the dopamine popping.

I really dislike seeing spaces where I know marks should be and that is often enough to make me do the thing I’ve been procrastinating or just don’t want to do. Yes, it’s just a piece of paper with some inked marks but it works for me.

So, I have a monthly calendar page with a box for each day where I write a W every time I do some weight training (I’m well aware that intentional effort is now required to maintain my 50-yr-old muscles). I aim for three times a week so if there aren’t three Ws on a row of the calendar you can bet I’m going to make more of an effort the next week.

I ran an experiment for a month last year where I wanted to post on social media at least five days a week so I marked an S on my calendar every time I did so. As well as providing evidence that I was carrying out my intention it acted as a reminder (otherwise I’d easily forget to post or that I already had that day).

I have a separate habit tracker for my daily habits, partly because they’re actions I want to carry out every day rather than a few times a week, and also because the monthly calendar I currently use would get crowded with all the different marks.

I use this habit tracker for activities I really want to do on a daily basis like meditating, journalling and Lingvano – it’s like Duolingo for BSL (it has its own accountability built in in the form of counting streaks but I need a reminder to open the app in the first place). I tick the daily box to show myself I’ve done the action. Again, I like seeing a row of consecutive marks BUT if I miss a day I don’t beat myself up about it or think that’s ruined everything and proves I can’t stick to a habit. It just shows that I missed a day and there’s another opportunity to try again the next.

Making it public

A form of external accountability without enlisting anyone specific is to make it known publicly what it is you want or need to do. So you’re not asking a particular person to check in that you’re doing or have done a task but by telling people you know there’s a chance that someone could ask you about it.

The most extreme way I put this into practice was to write in the ‘About the author’ section at the back of my book, The 1% Wellness Experiment, that I was studying a MSc in Applied Positive Psychology. I wrote the book during my first year of the degree and I knew there was every chance I would struggle at some point to keep going with the two-year course and want to quit. By having it printed in the book which, hopefully, will be around for people to read for many years to come, I knew that would act as accountability for me.

And it did. There were times in the second year, when I was really struggling with the workload, it was no longer shiny and new, my RSD was pinged by critical marking (which I learned tons from but at the time felt awful) and I really wanted to jack it in. But, with the help of the line in the back of my book, “Gabrielle… is currently studying a MSc in Applied Positive Psychology”, I stuck with it.

The thought that someone, some day in the future, could ask how I got on with the Master’s and I’d have to tell them I quit was enough to keep me going. Admittedly it’s not the healthiest motivation but it worked and I am very thankful to past me for having the forethought to include that line in the book. (Of course no-one has mentioned it from the book – yet.)

I’ve also talked to several people about weight training (I posted about my dislike for exercise on Substack Notes and was reassured when several people replied that they feel the same way) so once more, the thought that it could come up again in conversation keeps me going with it.

Accountability as a support not a stick to beat yourself with

There’s a fine line between accountability feeling supportive and encouraging, and it feeling like an obligation and inducing shame if you don’t meet those expectations. Putting it in place and then holding it lightly rather than gripping on to it is the key.

The times when (not if because it will happen) you have to tell someone you didn’t do the thing, or you let someone down, or you have gaps on your tick sheet don’t automatically prove that you’re a failure, that you’ve no staying power, you can’t follow through and you’ll never form a new habit.

It doesn’t make you a bad or broken person. It makes you human.

And as a human with ADHD who’s grown up bombarded with good girl conditioning from a patriarchal society while not knowing about your neurodivergence until decades into your life, meeting expectations can be really blimmin hard. Doing what you need to do, even what you really want to do can be really hard because of how our brains work, not because of a moral failing.

So, when you enlist a form of accountability and you still struggle to do the thing, what’s needed is not your inner mean girl to tear strips off you but instead self-compassion. If the action you were supposed to do inversely affects others you can apologise, explain and make amends. It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person, you must self-flagellate and that you can never be relied upon. Perhaps that form of accountability isn’t the most useful, maybe it’s become boring or you’re too used to it. Or maybe you missed a day because you forgot, you were ill, too busy or you just didn’t want to.

Different forms of accountability suit different people for different actions in different situations and at different times.

I’d love to know in the comments, what is your relationship with accountability? What do you find helpful?