Build → studying at the library
Studying at home leaks into scrolling, snacks, and the loop of 'I'll go tomorrow.' Lockin attaches a financial stake to skipping the library so the commute itself becomes the focus-mode trigger — and the dwell timer keeps you there long enough for the work to land.
Suggested starting contract
$3/day against missing your daily target of 1 library study session per scheduled day.
Install the app on iOS or Android, create an account, and connect a payment method. The whole process takes under three minutes.
Set your weekly target — for example, five library sessions per week, or three sessions on specific weekdays. Pick a cadence that fits your class schedule rather than an aspirational maximum, because every scheduled day either gets a session or forfeits the stake.
Search for the library by name or address — your university's main library, a specific branch, or a public library — confirm the location on the map, and Lockin saves a 50-metre geofenced perimeter. Each Location contract is tied to a single library, so pick the one you actually use.
Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the check-in plus the required dwell time must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone. Use the 24h time picker to lock in an earlier slot, for example 6:00pm to protect a morning or afternoon block before evening classes. The deadline is set once at contract creation and applies to every scheduled day; tighter deadlines unlock higher Locks and XP rewards.
Choose how long a qualifying session must run — 90 minutes is the default, but exam-prep contracts often go to 2 or 3 hours. For any dwell target longer than two hours, Lockin will prompt you to re-check-in every two hours so the location is re-verified and the timer continues; plan to keep your phone reachable during the session.
Decide how much money goes on the line per scheduled day. The stake is your accountability deposit — hit your target and it returns to you. Miss it and the bulk of your stake goes to your chosen charity, with a small platform fee covering payment processing.
Select a registered charity from Lockin's vetted list — categories include climate, mental health, animal welfare, and digital literacy. Review the contract terms, confirm your stake, and start. From this point, walking into the library and tapping the shimmering check-in button is what records the session.
From Lockin's data
Among Lockin beta users running library contracts, those who anchor sessions to a fixed slot — a 9am-to-11am morning block before classes, or a 7pm-to-9pm evening block — complete their contracts more often than those running open-ended schedules. Beta data also shows that contracts of three or four scheduled days per week tend to last longer than five-or-six-day contracts, because the lower-frequency targets survive a bad week without forfeiting the whole habit.
"I had been telling myself for two semesters that I would 'start going to the library more.' What actually got me through the door was knowing that staying in bed would send three dollars to a charity I cared about. Six weeks later the library is just where I work."
— Anonymous beta user, library challenge, 6 weeks active
Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the library check-in plus the required dwell time must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone. During contract setup you can tap Set deadline and pick any earlier time using a 24h picker — for example 6:00pm to protect an afternoon block before evening classes, or noon if you want to enforce a morning study slot. The deadline is set once at contract creation and applies to every scheduled day; you do not change it day-to-day. Tighter deadlines unlock higher Locks and XP rewards. Like other contract terms, the deadline is fixed for the active contract — you cannot edit it mid-contract, so size it to a slot you can realistically protect every scheduled day.
Library sessions often run past two hours, especially during finals. Lockin handles this with a re-check-in protocol: any contract whose dwell target exceeds two hours will prompt you to tap a re-check-in button every two hours so the app can re-verify that you are still inside the 50-metre geofence and keep the timer running. The prompt is brief and lives on your contract card. If you miss the prompt or step outside the geofence, the timer pauses and the session can fall short of the dwell minimum. Plan to keep your phone reachable, not buried in a bag, so the re-check-in does not catch you off-guard. For 90-minute sessions and below, no re-check-in is required — a single check-in at the start is enough.
Yes. The first step of the contract wizard asks whether the contract is For Myself or For a Friend. If you pick For a Friend, you choose the recipient and one of two payment models: sender_pays, where you fund the stake on their behalf, or recipient_pays, where they fund it themselves. The recipient is GPS-verified at the library exactly the same way you would be — they walk in, tap the shimmering check-in button, and the dwell timer runs against their contract. Each user runs an independent contract: your deadlines, dwell targets, and forfeits are separate from theirs, and one person hitting their session has no effect on the other's stake. Sender-side tracking — seeing your friend's check-in history on your dashboard — is a Pro feature.
The geofence is the truth, not where inside the building you actually study. Lockin draws a 50-metre perimeter around the library coordinates you pick at setup, and any time you spend inside that perimeter — quiet floor, group-study room, lobby, attached cafe — counts toward the dwell timer. The app does not (and cannot) verify whether you are reading, scrolling, or napping; that is your responsibility. The point of the contract is the commute and the dwell, both of which are strong predictors of actual focus work even when the verification stops at location. If you regularly sit in the attached cafeteria and consider that a study session, set the geofence on a building whose perimeter excludes the cafeteria, or pick a stricter library altogether.
Free to download. You set the target, the stake, and the charity.