A Free Accountability Tool For Improved Focus and Concentrate
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
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A Free Accountability Tool For Improved Focus and Concentrate
Podcast Transcription
Hey guys, it's Matt. Hope you're doing really well.
On today's episode, I'm going to share a free online accountability tool that will help you to focus and concentrate better, and I think you're going to absolutely love it, I share it with my clients all the time, and every person I've ever shared it with has loved it and raved about it, so let's do it.
The big question we all face every morning is this: How can we focus more time on the projects, activities, and relationships that are most important and meaningful to us and less time on the stuff that doesn't matter so we can actually move closer to our goals and dreams?
That is the question, and this podcast is the answer. My name is Matt East and welcome to the Goal Achievement podcast. I'm so glad you're here, now let's dig in.
Hey, guys, how are you? It's Matt, hope you're doing really, really well, hope you're ending the year strong, hope you had a great holiday season so far. So I'm recording this on the 29th. So what, a couple of days, a few days left in the year as we wrap up 2020 and head into 2021, I'm really excited for, for the New Year and a lot of positive stuff going on and I'm, I'm excited, really excited for 2021.
But today I have a very specific question, so we have a listener question. So thanks so much for sending this in, one of my clients sent this in. So the question is, Matt:
I Lose my focus easily... Do you know of anything that would help me concentrate more during the day?
So if you're a long-time listener of the podcast, I'm sure you've heard me mention this in passing, but I've never done a full episode on it, so my love has only deepened for this solution then I'm going to mention. But yes, I do have a recommendation that I feel strongly about and it's called Focus Mate.
So focusmate is a free resource that connects you with a virtual accountability partner, and it's perfect for, you know, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and just about anybody at this point that's trying to get work done at home, so that's most people, and according to the Focus Mate website, it helps 95.5 percent of the users that use it increase their productivity and reduce procrastination.
And I've personally recommended this so many times to clients and to people when we meet for the complimentary 15-minute introduction call that I do, coaching session than I do, and the percent I've seen are like 100 percent of people like I think every person I've ever recommended this to loves it, and it's free for a few sessions a month, that used to be, I think, unlimited free, but now there is a small charge for unlimited sessions, it's I think it's 5 dollars a month, but you can do 3 sessions for free.
So it's focusmate.com so f o c u s m a t e .com and it's awesome, and I should mention I'm not affiliated with focusmate in any way, I just stumbled upon it, stumbled upon it when I was trying to focus on writing I think it was, and I loved it, that was like a couple of years ago and it's amazing, it's an amazing tool.
So I pulled some questions and answers off of their website to answer them, because whenever I talk about it, I get a ton of questions and I just figured I would actually read exactly, basically from their website for the questions that they get asked a lot, because I'm sure you're thinking the same thing.
So what does focusmate cost? I touched on this, but focusmate is free for three sessions, they're 15 minutes each, you can't adjust the time, they're all 15 minutes. So you can do 3 free sessions every week and you can do unlimited sessions, it's I think the upgrade is called Turbo and you can go to a Turbo level for 5 dollars per month, both really good deals.
The other question is what equipment do I need to use focusmate? And all you need is a computer with a camera and a microphone and I guess an Internet connection, so they strongly recommend using chrome.
The next question is, what if I don't have a camera? And if you don't have a camera you can't use focusmate, so a camera is necessary to use focusmate because you're basically looking at your partner as you start the session, you tell them what you're going to work on and then you dive in, I know it sounds kind of weird, as I describe it here, but it's amazing, I guarantee, if you try it, listen, if you've never tried it, try it and email me. I would love to hear what you say about her, love to hear your feedback on it ok?
Another question is, what's it like working with a stranger? So that's a question people have asked me a ton when I've recommended it, and their feedback is most users say their partner didn't feel like a stranger once the session got started. Also, keep in mind, you aren't hanging out or collaborating with your partner, you say hello at the beginning, declare your tasks and you say goodbye at the end, it's very simple.
Next question, do I need to keep the video on the whole time? Yes, so you do have to keep your video on working with video on is mandatory.
Do I need to keep the audio on the whole time? Though not required, we encourage you to try keeping your mic on during the appointment, we know it sounds weird, but trust us, hearing your partner working will boost your productivity and make you more accountable. However, if you are watching a video, listening to music or making a phone call, etc., please mute yourself, it's interesting.
I think I've done a lot of sessions and I think I've always, I think the person, I think we both muted every single time we've muted each other because I always listen to, like, music while I'm working. And I think that's pretty consistent, maybe once or twice we didn't.
Anyway, how long is a coworking session? So a focusmate coworking session is 50 minutes long, this allows you to take a 10-minute break if you want to do multiple sessions in a row. And that's always worked out really well that, a cadence of 50 minutes feels about right.
Next question, what if I don't get a partner? So you, you know, you find your partner on the focusmate website, what if you don't get a partner? They say over 99 percent of bookings gets matched with a partner, on the rare occasion that you do not receive 1, you can book a session at the next timeslot 15 minutes later. I've never had any issues getting a partner and seems like most people that I've recommended have always had no issues at all, I mean, the site is very widely used at this point.
How is accountability enforced? So they answer that by saying accountability is enforced by focusmate, and its community members, if you're late or don't show focusmate can detect it and your attendance score will be reduced and your account can also be frozen. If your partner goofs off during the sessions, you can report it using the reporting button on the appointment card in your dashboard, no goofing off. I will say I've done a ton of sessions and I've never had any like Riff-Raff in there, so I'm sure it happens, but I've never experienced that.
It says, can I chat with my coworking partner? It says, no, talking with your partner is only allowed at the beginning and the end of your session at the beginning you're encouraged to say hello to your partner and share what you plan to work on. At the end you should check-in and ask your partner how the session went, if you'd like to talk to your partner more, you can suggest or offer it at the end of your session, please bear in mind no selling or business by law. Yeah, so no chatting.
What can you work on? What kind of work can I do on focusmate? They say as long as you stay on camera you can use focusmate for most kinds of work, computer work, cleaning, cooking, art, music, writing, reading, even at home exercise, that would be a little distracting if I got on there and somebody was exercising. The main thing is to set up your camera so that your partner can see you while you work and then, yeah.
Can I listen to music? Is the last question, yes, however, if you plan to listen to music or watch videos, make sure to mute your microphone, not sure if I already answered that one.
Anyway, focusmate, focusmate is amazing, and I'm only growing more confident in it because I have some incredible clients who have started using it like a lot recently and they just love it and their clients that are incredibly effective already and really amazing. So it's fun to see them use focusmate, to take things to the next level.
So this was just one big focusmate commercial, I didn't mean to make it that way, but it's definitely turned into that. So focusmate, is the bomb, and if you need a tool to increase your focus and concentration, it's definitely worth trying out one time. And, and that first time can feel a little weird since you're you've never done it before. But, you know, it's no big deal, you'll, you'll figure it out and feel a little weird that first time. But by like the second, third, fourth time, it's it's awesome.
So check out focusmate. That's it, guys, I do have an incredible offer right now on my website. If you're thinking about coaching, I am offering seven days of digital productivity coaching for free, no cost. And I mean, once you actually want to cost something after seven days, it's only 29 bucks, which is just ridiculous.
Is that the best deal ever or what? it's awesome.
So, yeah, if you're interested in making 2021 amazing and you want some accountability, you want somebody to help you when you get stuck and keep you accountable and keep you focused and all that good stuff, check it out. You can go to, you can see the details of that deal under the pricing tab on my website and my website. Matt and the little dash and East .com, probably just Google the easiest way to just Google Matt and productivity or Matt East and productivity, and I should pop right up or productivity coach Matt East or whatever.
That's it guys, this is going to be my last recording before the end of the year. So I hope you guys are doing amazing, I hope you're feeling positive about 2021, I hope you're thinking about your goals for 2021, I'm doing a lot of that right now, and I host a mastermind, and where everybody's in there talking and thinking about their goals and that's been fun, but yeah.
Let's make 2021 amazing, let's come out of 2020 which has been a weird year for everyone, and let's make 2021 incredible. I can't wait and I'm feeling optimistic and I'm ready to make it a great year.
So that's it guys, try focusmate. If you try it and you like it or you don't like it, I would love to hear about your feedback, either way, so let me know what you think.
That's it bye.
