????只是方法做了這樣一個小小的調整，效果之顯著令我羞愧。由于要向凱瑟琳匯報進度，我有了每周寫2,000字的動力，這樣我就能寫郵件告訴她我已經寫了。雖然不完成也不會真的導致什么后果，但在每周目標前，從上學時期就養(yǎng)成的按時交卷習慣還是占了上風。

????“寫2000字”和其他付費客戶項目一起列入了我的待辦事項列表。十周后，我已經有了足夠的文字(20,000)可以考慮一下這本書的后半部分如何規(guī)劃。我留出了一天考慮不同的部分應該如何發(fā)展，在那一時刻，寫一本真正的小說的強烈沖動促使我想寫完余下的部分。

????我把每周的寫作數(shù)量提高到了5,000字，甚至更多，而且開始每天一大早就動筆，而不是考慮寫小說怎么能成為我人生的一部分。到了4月15日，我已經有了草稿。

????當然，接下來還有很有編輯工作要做，但完善一件東西總比從無到有要簡單。互相監(jiān)督體系幫助我克服了從無到有的障礙。而且，正如凱瑟琳可能指出的那樣，這種方法比聘請職場教練的成本要低得多。

????如果你有一位互助伙伴，他能幫助你完成什么樣的個人目標？（財富中文網）

????勞拉?范德卡姆是財富網站的固定供稿人，她的新書《最成功的人工作時間干什么》已于4月23日發(fā)行上市。

????I'm almost embarrassed to say how effective this little shift in approach was. Being accountable to Katherine made me want to write 2,000 words, just so I could email her and say I'd written them. There weren't any real consequences to failing, but the part of my brain that learned to turn in papers on time in school years ago leapt to attention once it had an assignment.

????"Write 2,000 words" got a spot on my to-do list along with assignments from paying clients. In 10 weeks, I had enough words (20,000) to have a sense of how I intended to shape the second half of the book. I carved out a day to figure out where various chunks should go, and at that point, the momentum of having an actual story compelled me to write the rest of it.

????I cranked up to 5,000 words or more per week, and started beginning my days with novel writing, rather than figuring out where novel writing would fit in with the rest of my life. By April 15, I had my draft.

????There's still a lot of editing work to be done, of course, but I find turning something into something better much less daunting than turning nothing into something. An accountability system got me over the nothing-to-something hurdle. And, as Katherine would point out, it was much less expensive than a career coach.

????What project in your life could benefit from an accountability partner?

????Laura Vanderkam is a regular contributor to Fortune.com and the author of What the Most Successful People Do At Work, out April 23.