????和很多碼字的人一樣，多年來我一直沒把寫小說的事太放在心上。我的這本小說中有不少文字還是前些年我不太忙的時候?qū)懙?，寫的是一支小?zhèn)的中學(xué)籃球隊，一次錦標(biāo)賽和一個謎。2011年，我就開始潦草地規(guī)劃怎樣收尾。但我就是動不了筆。我確實寫了點，然后就一連幾個月拋在一邊。

????我知道原因是什么。我希望寫作能有回報，希望能有人讀我的作品。寫小說意味著要投入大量的精力和時間，但將來小說能不能出版還是個問題，更別提什么收入了。如果沒有來自外界的肯定，要完成這件事需要很強的意志力。這是個問題，因為上天賦予我的意志力大部分都被我用在了如何克服自己每個小時都想從家庭辦公室旁邊的廚房里拿點點心的沖動上了。因此，總是會有一些別的人或者別的事吸引我的注意力，小說就落在了待做事項的最末一項。

????我得想出一個辦法把它提到第一位。

????很多人都面臨著這樣的問題，我在規(guī)劃自己最新一本書的工作日安排時認識到了這一點。我們對于自己將來的職業(yè)前景都有恢弘的設(shè)想，但眼前的最后期限、會議或干勁十足的同事總是會在周一早晨占據(jù)了更主要的地位。內(nèi)在動力是強大的，但對自己說“不”總是要比對其他人或整個世界說“不”更容易。

????那么，成功人士是怎么做的呢？他們?yōu)樽约合胱?、但在生活中被擠在后面的事創(chuàng)造出了外部動力。他們創(chuàng)造了互相監(jiān)督體系，使得一些重要而不緊急的事務(wù)得以進入優(yōu)先事項。在互相監(jiān)督體系中，如果沒有按時完成，會讓人非常尷尬。高效人士知道，一旦成功看起來是最容易的選擇，我們就成功了。

????比如，擁有新澤西社交媒體營銷公司Ghost Tweeting的妮卡?斯圖沃特。她也是一家互助團體7-Figure Club的成員，7-Figure Club得到了女性企業(yè)家網(wǎng)絡(luò)Savor the Success的資助。每周一，各個企業(yè)家都會在網(wǎng)上提交本周目標(biāo)，它們應(yīng)該反映個人年度目標(biāo)的推進進度。等到周五，每個人再在網(wǎng)上公布，是否達到了既定目標(biāo)。假如周一斯圖沃特分享給這個團體的本周目標(biāo)是發(fā)出10份提案，她告訴我，“到了周四晚上如果我還沒完成，我可能就得熬夜趕進度?！睘槭裁?？她很看重這些人的看法，不希望自己在這些人面前看上去很懶。

????我知道自己需要一個互相監(jiān)督機制，否則我的小說可能永遠也寫不好。去年晚些時候，我讀到了凱瑟琳?雷諾茲?路易斯在《財富》雜志(Fortune)上的一篇文章——《選擇職業(yè)教練的四大誤區(qū)》。我給凱瑟琳寫了封電子郵件，祝賀她這篇文章的發(fā)表。我們聊到了她會不會聘請一位職業(yè)教練，以及這對于我是不是個好點子。她告訴我，“我不想付給什么人錢，然后聽他/她告訴我做些什么來推進我的職業(yè)目標(biāo)，這些我自己都知道...只是沒有意志力去做。我想我真正需要的是一個寫作伙伴，能讓我對自己設(shè)定的目標(biāo)負責(zé)?！?/p>

????感覺到這是個機會，我立刻提議，你愿意做我的寫作伙伴嗎？她欣然接受。我們討論了我的目標(biāo)(完成小說)以及我打算如何實現(xiàn)這個目標(biāo)(每周寫2,000字)。每周五我會報告我是否完成了目標(biāo)。

????Like many writers, I've been kicking around an idea for a novel for years. I wrote a chunk of my tale -- about a small-town high school basketball team, a championship, and a mystery -- during a less busy time in my life years ago. I'd been jotting down ideas on how to finish it since 2011. But I couldn't build momentum. I'd write a bit, then abandon the project for months.

????I know why. I like to get paid for my work, and I like my work to be read. Writing a novel means investing serious time in something that may or may not ever result in publication, let alone revenue. Finishing it with no promise of external validation would require serious willpower. That's a problem, since I already expend most of the willpower the universe grants me trying not to grab snacks hourly from the kitchen next to my home office. Consequently, with other people and projects competing for my attention, the novel always fell to the bottom of my list.

????I needed a way to get it to the top.

????This is a problem many people face, I learned while writing about workday schedules for my recent book. We have grand ideas for where to take our careers someday, but immediate deadlines or meetings or aggressive coworkers always seem to take precedence on Monday morning. Internal motivation is powerful, but it's easier to say no to ourselves rather than the rest of the world.

????So what do successful people do? They create external motivations for things they want to do but that life has a way of crowding out. They create accountability systems that boost important but not urgent items to the top of their priority lists -- ideally in a way that makes failure really uncomfortable. Effective people know that we succeed when success seems like the easiest choice.

????Nika Stewart, for instance, owns Ghost Tweeting, a New Jersey-based social media marketing business. She's also part of an accountability group called the 7-Figure Club, which is sponsored by Savor the Success, a network of women entrepreneurs. Every Monday, each entrepreneur checks in online to set a weekly goal that will advance her toward her annual goals. Then on Friday, everyone checks back in to say if she did or didn't meet her goal. If Stewart's weekly goal, shared with the group on Monday, was to send out 10 proposals, she tells me, "Thursday night, if I didn't do it, I might stay up and do it." Why? She doesn't want to look lazy in front of people whose opinion she cares about.

????I knew I needed an accountability system for myself, or my novel would never get written. Late last year, I read a Fortune article by Katherine Reynolds Lewis called "Career coaches: When are they worth their salt?" I emailed Katherine to congratulate her on her article, and we got to chatting about whether she'd ever hire a career coach, and whether it might be a good idea for me. She told me, "I don't want to pay someone to tell me to do the things I know I should be doing to advance my career goals ... but haven't found the willpower to do. I think what I really need is a writing buddy who will hold me accountable to the goals I set."

????Sensing an opportunity, I proposed. Would she be my writing buddy? She accepted. We talked through my goal (finishing the novel) and how I intended to accomplish that (write 2,000 words per week). I'd check in on Friday to say whether I'd done it.