Who holds you accountable?

John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing just posted a really wonderful article about how to acheive your small-business goals called Who Holds you Accountable

I read through it, thinking that he hit me dead-on. I spend a lot of time in the evenings working on "Higher Ground Games" things, but never seem to get as much done as I need to.

Here are a couple of his suggestions:

• Start a mastermind group - Choose a select group of business owners from your local network of strategic partners or even industry peers and set-up a structure to share objectives and goals, critique marketing plans and materials and suggest ways to get better. Hold quarterly sessions as a group.
• [this could work for me with people like keebler/aba, itar, and the other Hirst Arts Liscensees... however, it may be a lot of work to set up and get running. I don't doubt the high level of accountability to a group like this, but wonder what other value there is in getting close to your partners/peers/competitors.]
  

• Track your time - Create time sheets and note how you spend your time each day. Assign a category of work, such as marketing, administrative, or sales. Then spend a minute or two at the end of the day and assign a value to that work - in other words what you would pay someone else to do it. You may be shocked at how unaccountable you are for the way you spend your day.
• [this one is a biggie for me... I know that I need to be at the casting table each and every hour, but I always seem to find one other painting/sorting/building/etc project that pushes that to 90 minutes or longer... then, before I know it I'm too tired to wait for one more round and I just go to bed with less done.]
  

I post here, in an obvious tie in to the fact that I could improve my uneasy feelings by simply recording data about what I do each night... simply put, better living through data!