Where this came from
The thinking
Almost nothing here is a new idea about behaviour. The ideas came from people who did the work, and this is where we say so. Along with the places we deliberately went the other way.
What it is built on
Tracking works better when somebody else can see it
Harkin and colleagues, 2016
A review of over a hundred studies found that monitoring progress toward a goal genuinely improves the odds of reaching it. And that the effect is larger when the progress is written down, and larger again when somebody else is told.
This is why there is a spotter at all. A private tracker is the weaker half of a finding we decided to take seriously.
One missed day does not undo the work
Lally and colleagues, 2010
The study usually quoted for "it takes 66 days". The more useful finding is buried: missing a single opportunity did not meaningfully set people back.
Anything at 60% or better keeps your streak alive. A bad Tuesday still counts. Not out of kindness, but because zeroing you for one miss would be inventing a problem the evidence says is not there.
All-or-nothing is what actually causes the collapse
Cochran and Tesser; Marlatt and Gordon
Sometimes called the "what-the-hell effect". Having broken a rule once, people tend to abandon the whole goal rather than pick it back up. The lapse is rarely the problem. The framing of the lapse is.
The same 60% rule, from the other side. A tracker that punishes one missed day is manufacturing the giving-up it claims to prevent.
People keep going when they chose it, can do it, and are not alone
Deci and Ryan. Self-Determination Theory
Motivation lasts when three things are present: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Take any one away and it decays.
You write your own commitments and choose which pillars count. The Day Score and the shape show whether it is working. And the whole product is built around somebody else being there. There is a pillar called Relationships.
Being watched undermines the thing it is meant to help
Plant and Ryan, 1985
People monitored while doing something became less motivated to do it, not more. Surveillance and support are not the same force pointed in the same direction.
This is why you decide what a spotter sees rather than the product deciding for you. You open the pillars you want open and you can close them again, and anything you mark private stays yours. The privacy is not a concession made to accountability. It is what keeps accountability from turning into the thing that stops working.
Make it easier than the excuse
BJ Fogg. The Fogg Behavior Model
Behaviour happens when motivation, ability and a prompt land together. Of those, ability is usually the cheapest to change.
Fifteen seconds. Nothing to type. A tap on your wrist so the phone never leaves your pocket.
Specific beats "do your best"
Locke and Latham. Goal-setting theory
Specific and challenging goals outperform vague intentions, as long as the person actually means it.
A commitment is a sentence, not an aspiration. Read twenty minutes. Not read more.
Where we went the other way
Four places this product does the opposite of the usual thing. Each one is a decision rather than an oversight, and each one has a reason.
A bad day does not break your streak
Almost every tracker zeroes you for one miss. This one holds at 60%. Lally and the what-the-hell effect, above. And because we would rather you came back on Wednesday.
There are no likes
A like is a scoreboard, and a scoreboard is something to perform on. The Corner has no reactions, deliberately, and it never will.
Your spotter starts with nothing
Accountability apps hand a partner the detail the moment you add them. Here a new spotter sees nothing at all until you open something to them, and you can close it again at any time. Not a setting somebody has to find and tighten: you are asked, and nothing is shared until you answer. A default nobody chose is the one that ends up wrong for the people who needed it most.
We track the intent, not the method
Twenty pages, a podcast on the drive, or a five-minute summary all count the same. That is a real departure. The habit literature favours consistent, specific routines, and consistency does build habits faster. We took the trade knowingly: somebody who quits because their routine stopped fitting their life ends up with no habit at all.