Digital Accountability Buddy

February 3, 2025

Are you aware of the Gym Buddy Trend? It is often recommended, when wanting to start going to the gym regularly, to find someone, a close friend usually, who does so aswell. So as to have someone who holds you accountable and just by their presence reminds you of going there even on days, you would have on your own decided to stay at home, because you didn’t feel like it. This, of course, also works in reverse, as your presence makes them more likely to pay the gym a visit.

This accountability is based on the fear of letting someone down and thereby humiliating oneself in front of others. This fear is natural, as your good old monkey brain operates on the assumptions, that you will only survive in a group and that it is thus not a good idea to have other group members think of you as not being trustworthy. Such fears aren’t necessarily useful in today’s day and age (see anxiety etc.), but they can be put to use and not only considering your regular gym vistis.

Thus, on a much greater scale is an accountability buddy someone you talk to about your plans, what you’re doing and what you want to achieve. You might even promise them to do something, although the promise is entirely unrelated to them. Typically an accountability buddy would be a friend or someone who does something similar to what you do, whatever your craft is.

In just the same way as digital likes (from people we don’t know) on social media speak to our need for group memberships, can an accountability buddy be someone unknown. Such a person or more likely even a group of people would be a digital accountability buddy.

Over the last 3 months, I made myself a digital accountability buddy by writing my Weekly Report a weekly newsletter which I started by describing what I did and thought during the respective last week. Just describing the past, however, was not or only a slight catalyst for my creative output. I was even uncertain, if the Weekly Report was even worth the effort. What then changed the effects drastically, however, was my switch to not only describing what I did, but also challenging, i.e. promising, myself to do some specific things or rather prioritzing in the next week.

One of my 3 challenges of my last entry was for example writing some blog posts. :)

I hope, I could inspire you to do something similar or at least think about some ways to hold yourself accountabile to the things you want to do.

If you are interested, read my first introduction to the Weekly Report, I wrote before starting the project.