Why I Built Accustom

I tried every app in the App Store.

I tried every method and tip from YouTube.

I even paid for productivity coaches.

They were actually good. The problem is motivation lasts maybe 3-4 days. Then you're back at square one.

I tried the radical stuff too. Same result. The vigor dies out after a while and you're right back where you started.

Somewhere in there I found Forfeit, Stickk, DietBet and Beeminder. I used all four properly, not just looked at the landing pages.

Forfeit's UI is genuinely great and their verification is strict, photo proof reviewed by a human or AI, which is more than most apps bother with. Stickk's referee and community setup works well if you pick the right people. Beeminder's philosophy, track a number and don't let the line bend, is the most honest thing in this whole category.

So I went and read the research behind commitment contracts properly. [Full breakdown here]

Two things jumped out.

First, 3-4 days was never going to be enough. Lally's study at UCL found a median of 66 days for a daily behavior to become automatic, with some people taking 254. The famous "21 days" number comes from a 1960 book about plastic surgery patients, not habit research. So the standard advice is telling you to cover two months of effort with a few days of enthusiasm.

Second, in every study where commitment contracts produced lasting change, the money went in first. Participants deposited their own funds up front, then earned them back by passing a verified test at the end. In the Philippines smoking study, people put money in an account for six months and got it back only after passing a urine test. That effect was still measurable in surprise tests at 12 months.

The cash was gone from their control at the moment they had to decide. That's the mechanism. Not the penalty, the precommitment.

Now look at how most of these apps handle money. Forfeit charges your card after you fail to verify, and their terms cap it at three charges in a row for the same commitment, so miss four days straight and you pay for three. Stickk holds a card and charges on failure too.

That's a penalty, not a deposit. It arrives as a bill after the fact, and bills can be disputed, declined, or bounce. At 6am your money is still sitting in your account either way. Nothing has actually left your control, which is exactly the condition the research says you need.

That's the gap I built Accustom for.

With a Personal Commit your stake goes into escrow when you make the commitment, not after you break it. It's locked in a smart contract before day one and you get it back by proving you did the thing.

Verification works the way the research does it. Every study that showed lasting change used objective proof: urine tests, gym card swipes, biochemical confirmation. Never self-reporting. So Accustom verifies through GitHub commits, Strava activity, photo and video evidence.

We also run group challenges, because the evidence doesn't actually favor solo. A 2013 trial at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found group-based incentives beat individual ones for weight loss at 24 weeks. Different tools for different goals, so we built both.

One more finding I designed around: in Lally's data, missing a single day didn't break the trajectory toward automaticity. Consistency is what matters, not a perfect streak.

If you want the research in full, [I wrote it up here].

Stop reading about it and put money on one. Pick a goal, stake what it's worth to you, prove you did it. Start a challenge →

Sources

• Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts & Wardle (2010), "How Are Habits Formed: Modelling Habit Formation in the Real World," European Journal of Social Psychology 40(6), 998–1009
• Giné, Karlan & Zinman (2010), "Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation," AEJ: Applied Economics 2(4), 213–235
• Royer, Stehr & Sydnor (2015), "Incentives, Commitments, and Habit Formation in Exercise," AEJ: Applied Economics 7(3), 51–84
• Kullgren et al. (2013), "Individual- versus Group-Based Financial Incentives for Weight Loss," Annals of Internal Medicine 158(7), 505–514
• Forfeit Terms of Service (three-consecutive-charge cap), forfeit.app/terms-and-conditions