How to manage your work and stay accountable

No one in XR UK is managed day to day. You have a mandate, which means real authority — and real accountability. Your team’s Internal Coordinator (IC) needs enough visibility of your work to coordinate across the team, offer support when you're stuck, and flag when priorities need to shift.

The good news is that this needn’t take a lot of effort.

Keeping on top of your role

Keep a list of your current tasks and projects. Whatever format works for you is fine — a notebook, a spreadsheet, a to-do list app. The point is that it exists, that it's current, and that your IC can see it when needed. Then both of you will be able to trust that you’re focusing on the right things for the team as a whole.

For each item, try to capture:

• Priority — is this urgent, top priority, low priority, on hold?
• Progress — not started, in progress, near completion, complete?
• Blocks — waiting on someone, lacking capacity, need input from another team?

Reviewing this with your IC regularly keeps you both on the same page, and makes it easier to spot where you need support or where something is stuck. It allows the IC to keep track of and coordinate the work across teams and roles.

Feedback and learning

Your task list isn't just about accountability to others — it's useful to you. Keeping track of what you're doing and how it's going helps you see what's working, what isn't, and what needs to change. This is how we improve — not just as individuals, but as a movement.

For any significant project, start by being clear about what success looks like. Then, as you go, work around a simple loop:

• Try an idea.
• Did it work? How well?
• If it did, keep doing it — and ask whether it could work even better.
• If it didn't, ask why, then come up with a new idea.

It sounds obvious, and in some ways it is. But it's easy to keep doing what feels familiar rather than stopping to assess honestly. Recording your work, honestly assessing it and adjusting as you go is what accountability looks like in self organising.

Meetings — when to show up

You don't need to attend every meeting. But before each one, check the agenda and ask yourself:

• Does something in my work need input from, or affect, another team or role?
• Is there an agenda item relevant to my work or mandate?
• Is a governance decision being made that may affect my work?
• Has the IC asked me to attend?

If any of those are true, you should be there. If none are, you don't have to — though you're always welcome.