I will finish writing this article in 15 minutes. It is now 23:44.
My friends and I have been working on a Edutech startup on the side for a few months now. The premise of the startup is to provide a tool that helps people learn better, faster and smarter. For us to figure out the specific value proposition of the product and service we would build in the future, we have been undergoing a phase of “Customer Discovery”.
Practically speaking, we have interviewed over 40 people in the past few weeks. We wanted to understand how did people learn, and what was acting as hurdle towards their own personal development goals. We analysed the patterns and from there, we uncovered insights on people’s behaviours when it comes to acquiring new skills.
This was one of the observations we found;
Many people are motivated to acquire new skills. People do not find it difficult to start the process of learning something new, but the issue lies in the consistency to finish reach their learning goals. Many stop half-way or are inconsistent in their efforts to pick up the skill.
A proposal to solve this lack of consistency could perhaps be found in this tweet:
Set a time and reputation pressure.
In other words, put your goals out in the open to be observed by other people for accountability. This will trigger a pressure for you to protect and live up to your reputation.
And for efficiency sake, put a time deadline out in the public too. This is so that you force yourself to find focus and creativity in delivering towards that deadline.
If you find yourself not being disciplined towards a goal that you have set, then think of Time-bound Accountability. That could just be the catalyst you require.
It is now, 23:58.
Publish!
Ruiz