Public meeting / talk / Focus and goals / Personal observations about Focusmate and aspects helping with productivity

Reference

  • Reference meeting: "talk — focus and goals — Summary of FocusMate for Edwin Locke f4b8cbd3-7aa3-4b0f-a892-8f49e5f73060 Thursday, April 23⋅4:00 – 5:00pm"

  • Parent project: Course OKR and culture / "index: talk: okr e2662d0f-9209-40b9-be2f-93c1514ef419"

  • Parent project: Focus and Goals / "sub-index: focus and goals 7e3a62c2-94d3-4e09-b899-c5fef39bd61b"

  • Participants: Marcio S Galli

  • Text language: en-us
  • Tags: OKR, Goals, Communication, Feedback, Planning, Reviews, Peer Alignment, 1:1, Objectives and key results, Willpower, focus, productivity.
  • Document status: Copyright, draft.

Explaining Focusmate to a professor that works with goal theories

This startup idea made me think of you, your work. I think you will love it, in case you don't know them yet:

https://www.focusmate.com/

Here is my summary of what they do, described with a few statements in my view:

They use a videoconferencing method to help a user, that is alone and working in front of a computer, to produce more and avoid procrastination, to focus and commit to their own goals.

How it works: Two collaborators that don't know each other, at distant locations, will meet through this platform. They will schedule a videoconferencing session to create a mutual commitment zone.

Each individual will work on their goals. As the session begins, they will share their plan to the 50 min session — usually takes 1-2 min. Then they commit to share what happened after 48 minutes have passed.

I am using their solution for 3 months already, and I wanted to let you know since I have started. By now, however, I have a better understanding of the aspects that seems to be helping me:

The act of sharing goals — as we verbally share our goals for the session, we seem to enter a zone that we make ourselves more accountable.

The sessions are small - the 50 min session works great because it's like we have 10 minutes to reflect, to share, to prepare to the next.

Mutual support oriented to the performance — the two participants engage in sharing and limited conversation about key deliverables, not in judging. There is also an element of compassion.

You are not alone — not being alone, and being next to another person that also needs to work, seems to help to create a distraction-free environment. In other words, it's a connection element that brings us back to the topic.

You are on record — with the camera there, and a real person on the other side, we put ourselves into a mindset of being organized, centered.

The commitment and the meeting — once you schedule a session with the other person, they will also commit to you. This mutually scheduled meeting creates a good reason for you to explain to others (and to yourself) that you have to work.

Apologies if these points are not making correlations with theories. By the way, I wrote this e-mail in a Focusmate(.com) session.

As far as I know, they are a company startup from New York.

Sincerely,

Marcio