Worried You Won’t Follow Through? Bet Your Friends.
A recent study backed up a simple strategy for beating procrastination:
Research conducted […] shows that people who wrote down their goals, shared this information with a friend, and sent weekly updates to that friend were on average 33% more successful in accomplishing their stated goals than those who merely formulated goals.
The aptly named app Go F***ing Do It forces you to reach your goals, or pay if you don’t. The concept is simple:
Email your friend with a goal, a deadline and a price.
If you don’t follow through on your goals, you pay.
According to Dev Basu, it’s a bit like a swear jar, only better. The site records your goal and deadline. Your friend (called a supervisor) will check if you actually did it.
By putting your goal out into the world, you try that much harder to achieve it. No one wants to be publicly embarrassed for being unable to meet their goals. Especially with money on the line.
[via]
Update: Be forewarned that should you fail to reach your goal, the site itself gets the money. As worded in a statement by the founder Pieter Levels:
Another topic would be who should get the money when a person doesn’t reach their goal? Me, the (greedy) site owner? A charity? A third friend? That’s vigorously discussed on Hacker News now and I’ll keep reading their ideas and implement it when there’s a consensus.
