Struggling with Habits? An Accountability Partner Can Fix That

Are you trying — but failing — to form a daily habit, like exercising or journaling? An accountability partner bridges the gap between intention and regular practice. Here’s how to use one effectively:

✅ Create a WhatsApp group¹ with just the two of you, so that accountability updates don’t get lost among regular chats.

✅ Make verifiable commitments like “Drink 2 liters of water”, not subjective ones like “Drink enough water”. With the latter, you’ll wonder at the end of the day whether you drank enough, and tick it off anyway. Whereas a measurable commitment like 2 liters forces you to recognise that you drank only 1.5 and so makes you drink more, which is the entire point of accountability.

✅ Iterate on your commitments until they work. I’d earlier committed to “Drink 2 liters of water”. But I’d use that water to make tea or lime juice, making the measurement inaccurate. So I went back and updated the commitment to “Drink 2 liters of water, excluding water in cooked food, tea, or lime juice — only plain water drunk directly.” Another time, I committed to “Play tennis for 21 minutes.” But my partner wants to play for an hour. So we did — and I got body pain and so couldn’t play the next day. We ended up playing for an hour every other day. I still ticked it off but I then started making excuses for other commitments. Being flexible is a slippery slope. So I clarified the commitment to “Play tennis for 21 minutes daily. If I play more, it carries over to tomorrow.” When we define a commitment, it often won’t be quite right. That’s natural. So tweak and iterate till it works.

✅ Use implementation intentions. Take a “Drink 2 liters of water” commitment. My implementation intention was “Every morning I’ll put a full 2-liter bottle on the dining table, move yesterday’s leftover water in the kitchen to avoid mixing it up, and finish the new bottle by the end of the day.” An implementation intention tells you when you’ll do something (“morning”) and where (“dining table”). Before I set one, I was unable to drink 2 liters of water a day because I had partially full bottles lying around and so lost track of how much I drank. To prevent confusion, I decided to start fresh every morning by moving any partially full bottles to the kitchen and putting a full bottle on the dining table. This implementation intention is helping me drink 2 liters.

✅ Be explicit with multi-part commitments by saying, “I’m committing to all the following” or “at least one of the following” or “at least two of the following”. Explicit is better than implicit.

✅ Start small and realistic. When starting, we get excited and commit a lot: “I’ll jog 2 km every day!” and end up not doing it. Instead, be a realist, be self-aware, and commit to jogging for 1 km. If you’re doing it consistently and are feeling that the goal is too modest, then increase it — not before. Again, don’t get carried away and increase it from 1 to 5 km. Increase to 2. Avoid making two commitments to begin with like “drinking 2 liters of water and jogging for 1 km”. Or commit to “at least one of the following: drinking 2 liters of water and jogging 1 km”. “A or B” is an easier commitment to stick to than “A”, which is easier to stick to than “A and B”.

✅ You must give a daily update to your partner on each commitment, even if it was ❌ for all commitments. If you committed to A, B, C, D, E and F, and you did only A and B, your update shouldn’t be:

✅ A

✅ B

This amounts to ignoring items that weren’t done.

The following is also a bad update:

✅ A

✅ B

❌ others

Instead, grade each item:

✅ A

✅ B

❌ C

❌ D

❌ E

❌ F

When I do this, I sometimes realise that it’s not too late to do E, and then do it.

Don’t feel ashamed, go hide in the corner, and stop giving updates. That doesn’t help — just like it wouldn’t in the office. Your accountability partner is on your side. Share your problem honestly with him: “I wasn’t able to do any of the things I agreed to because… How do we fix this problem?”

✅ Any missed commitment requires a reason such as, “Didn’t jog because of foot pain”. “Didn’t jog” with no reason isn’t acceptable. My engineering manager at Google once told me: “It’s okay to miss a commitment if there’s a justifiable reason. Commitments are not absolute. But that doesn’t mean you can be negligent and casually miss them, either.” When I give a reason, I sometimes come with a solution. For example, I found myself typing “Didn’t jog because it was sunny” and I realised, “Wait a minute, why don’t I jog in the basement?” so I did it. The reason is a tool.

✅ At the beginning of every day, pin a TODO note in Google Keep:

When you’re done with an item, delete it from the TODO. This focuses on your attention on what’s actionable right now. When I saw this, as I was writing this, I went for a jog, thus completing the first commitment. Earlier, when I didn’t delete completed items, I’d look at the list, come across some things that are already done, so I’d close the tab and move on. Deleting the completed items from the note redirects my focus to what is needed, helping me do them. This may come across as overly prescriptive, but small things can make a big difference.

Pausing

✅ Explicitly pause the system when needed. If you’re not going to be able to meet your commitments for a week because you’ll be going on vacation, message your partner saying that you’re pausing the accountability and till when. Don’t just go silent. Would you disappear from work for a week without notice?

✅ If the accountability system isn’t working for you, sit down with your partner and discuss what it’s not working and what you could do instead. You might reduce your commitments, take a break for a fortnight, or try something else. Don’t unilaterally give up. This is the same kind of maturity any relationship that’s needed to make any relationship work, whether at work, with your spouse, or with friends.

✅ Explicitly stop. If you want to stop the accountability system, message your partner saying so and why rather than just neglecting to give updates, which is discourteous towards your partner.

1. I tried a Google Sheet, but it’s better suited for long-time record-keeping. But that isn’t the goal here — we’re not going to look back at what we did months ago. Plus, a Sheet is easy to forget, while you open WhatsApp multiple times a day.