The 3 Best Tools for Consistent Progress and Accountability

What You Use Depends on What You Need

I’ve been putting a lot of effort into creating systems for my students to use when they’re going through the Vision to Reality™️ program. And, of course, that means I need to be using the systems as well.

These are the three best tools I’ve discovered for keeping on track.

Anyone who has dealt with me lately knows that I have a love/hate relationship with Notion, the application that allows you to create your own interconnected network of documents, database, and multimedia. You can also complete forms and templates designed by others.

As with anything that has a lot of different capabilities, there is a learning curve. It’s fairly simple, if you have a template from someone else that you want to use. It’s pretty challenging if you have a very complex mental image of what you want to create.

Of course, I was trying to create interlocking, nested databases. Or KanBan boards with cards holding individual to-do lists. Not a plain document with headings. Which is why I both loved what it was capable of, and hated how difficult it was to implement those capabilities.

Where Notion shines, however, is that it allows you to create structure for your goals. It lets you create lists of subgoals, then associate those with larger goals. Or lists of tasks that can go inside the subgoals. Values can be rolled up from subgoals to larger goals.

By creating the structure in the template, it helps your thinking about your goals to be structured as well.

KanBan boards are an idea made popular in the tech world’s agile development frameworks. In the simplest model, sticky notes containing tasks are placed in columns on a white board. The columns are labeled Not Started, Doing, and Done.

The sticky notes can be color coordinated to refer to person, team, or type of task. Details about the task can be included on the note, or in additional documentation for the project, depending on the level of detail needed.

Advanced versions of the system add a column at the front, for “Planned” tasks — tasks you will do in future sprints, but not this one — and “Archived” tasks, which were done in previous sprints. Some also contain a subdivided Doing column, broken into “On Track” and “Late”, although that’s really only useful if you have month-long sprints.

The benefits of KanBan boards — whether you’re using low-tech sticky notes or a high-tech digital tool — is that you can see the status of your project at a glance. Managers, teammates, and accountability buddies can also see your status.

If you’re using Notion already, you can create KanBan boards in it.

For virtually any long-term project, there will be repetitive tasks. The tasks vary depending on your goals. You might be doing some form of outreach, or creating content, or performing physical tasks. But you will be doing the same basic thing over and over again.

You need a way to track whether or not you did the thing on any given day. After all, if you are doing basically the same thing, you can’t rely on your memory. You might remember doing the task. But do you remember doing it today, yesterday, or last week?

Habit trackers are excellent ways to simply tick a box to indicate that you did something today. If the box is unticked, you didn’t do it.

Some people use paper habit trackers, which can be customized for multiple habits. Others have apps on their phone, or programs on their computer. It all depends on which habit you’re tracking, and where you’ll be when you’re doing it.

Remembering to exercise most likely uses a phone app, because you’ll have that when you go on your walk or stop at the gym. Daily writing or outreach habits are probably best with a computer, since that’s where you’ll be performing them. The goal is to make the update convenient, so you don’t have to remember to do it later. Because then, you run right back into that fallible memory issue.

You can also include habit tracking in your KanBan board, or in Notion.

Many times, the search for the “perfect” tool is simply a form of procrastination. Pick a tool and start using it. If it doesn’t work for you, pick a different tool.

I made huge strides in my life and business by using a 1-year KanBan poster board pinned to my office wall. I used color-coded sticky notes for my three major projects. The sticky notes started at the left side of each monthly block, and migrated to the right as I completed them.

Whatever tools you use, they need to be:

• Visible reminders of your goals and undone tasks

• Visible reminders of successfully accomplished goals and tasks (celebrate wins!)

• Easily updated

• Convenient to update in the moment (don’t rely on memory)

Make it easy for you to regularly see your progress toward your goals. You’ll be much more likely to reach them.

Steve Shallenberger is a leadership expert and author of such books as “Becoming Your Best” and “Do What Matters Most”.

One of the ways that he encourages people to become their best selves, is by holding themselves accountable for their actions taken toward improvement.

The double-barreled message in this week’s quotation is that personal growth and success is a three-legged stool:

• You must take personal responsibility for your growth.

• You must set goals for your growth, and take action toward those goals.

• You must be accountable for your action or lack of action, and growth or lack of growth.

Then, because you are personally responsible for your growth, you refine your goals and action-taking process based on your results, for which you were accountable. If any leg of the stool is too short — lacking responsibility, taking action, or accountability — the stool will not support you.

The three tools recommended in the main article will help you to keep the metaphorical legs of your stool the same length.

To your continued growth and improvement!

Jennifer Dunne, Caribbean Compassion Coaching