Lockin

Build → weekly squash sessions

Lock in your standing 7am squash match before it drifts again.

Squash habits live and die on a single recurring slot — the standing court time you booked with one specific opponent. Lockin attaches money to that slot and lets you send a Friend Challenge so your partner is on the hook too, independently.

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Suggested starting contract

$5/day against missing your daily target of 1 court session per scheduled day.

Why willpower fails to start this

Squash is a two-person sport with a one-person failure mode. Unlike running or the gym, you cannot quietly substitute a different workout when the day comes — there is a court booked, an opponent expecting you, and a ladder or league position that depends on actually showing up. The whole structure of the habit rests on a single recurring slot, usually a standing 7am Wednesday or a Sunday afternoon at a club where the courts are spoken for weeks in advance. When that slot drifts, the habit collapses, because there is no equivalent fallback. The drift starts predictably. One player texts the night before — "tough week, can we push to next week?" — and the other agrees, because rescheduling feels polite and the cost feels small. It is not small. Robert Cialdini's "Influence" (1984) frames commitment-and-consistency as one of the most reliable levers in human behavior: once a person has publicly committed to a course of action, especially in writing or to a specific other person, follow-through becomes psychologically much easier. A standing squash match is exactly that kind of public commitment, which is why it works at all — and why a single waived rescheduling quietly dissolves the structure that was keeping both players showing up. Phillippa Lally and colleagues at University College London (European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010) found that habits automate fastest when the cue is consistent — same day, same time, same place. Squash already has all three, which is its great advantage. The disadvantage is that the cue depends on a second person honouring it. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's 1979 work on loss aversion explains why a small financial stake is disproportionately effective here: the prospect of losing $5 to a charity feels roughly twice as motivating as gaining the same amount back, and "I do not want to be the one who flaked" sits right at the intersection of loss aversion and social commitment. James Clear, in "Atomic Habits" (2018), argues that lasting habits are votes for an identity. "Squash player" is a strong identity — it has a club, a ladder, a kit bag, a specific kind of soreness — but it requires the standing match to actually happen. Lockin's role is narrow: it puts a real cost on the standing slot so the rescheduling text never gets sent, and the sunk-cost illusion of an already-paid court fee stops being the thing you rely on to drag yourself out of bed.

How Lockin verifies it

Lockin verifies squash sessions using your phone's location services plus a manual check-in. When you set up a squash contract, you specify the squash club or court address. Lockin registers a 50-metre geofenced perimeter around that location. To log a verified session, you arrive at the club and tap the check-in button on your home-screen contract card. The button shimmers as a visual cue once your phone is detected inside the geofence, but pressing it is what records the session and starts the dwell-time timer. The default dwell for a squash contract is 45 minutes — long enough to cover a knock-up plus a best-of-three or best-of-five — and the timer must reach that threshold inside the geofence before the session counts. Walking past the club, swinging by to drop off a kit bag, or sitting in the carpark do not qualify because the dwell never accumulates. Squash sessions almost never run past two hours, so the standard re-check-in cycle (every two hours for longer dwell targets) rarely fires, but the rule is there if you book back-to-back court hours. Location data is used only during active contract windows. Lockin does not monitor your location outside those windows. You grant location permission when setting up the contract and can review or revoke it at any time in your phone's app settings. A check-in plus the required dwell time must complete before your daily deadline; missing the deadline forfeits that day's stake to your chosen charity.

Set up a weekly squash sessions contract in 5 minutes

  1. 1

    Download Lockin and create your account

    Install the app on iOS or Android, create an account, and connect a payment method. The whole process takes under three minutes.

  2. 2

    Choose For Myself or For a Friend

    The first wizard step asks who the contract is for. Pick For Myself to commit yourself, or For a Friend to send the contract to your squash partner so the standing match has accountability on both sides of the court — independent contracts, not a co-stake.

  3. 3

    Define your squash target

    Set your weekly squash target — for example, one court session per scheduled day, typically once or twice a week. Pick a target that matches the slot you actually have booked, not an aspirational one.

  4. 4

    Set your geofence around the squash club

    Search for your club or court by name or address, confirm the location on the map, and Lockin saves a 50-metre geofenced perimeter around it. Each location contract is tied to a single club, so pick the one where your standing match is held.

  5. 5

    Set your daily deadline

    Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the check-in plus the 45-minute dwell must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone. Tap Set deadline and use the 24h picker to lock in something tighter — for example 8:30am if your standing slot is a 7am Wednesday court. Tighter deadlines unlock higher Locks and XP rewards. The deadline is set once at contract creation.

  6. 6

    Choose your stake amount

    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 retained.

  7. 7

    Pick your charity and activate

    Select a registered charity from Lockin's vetted list, organized by category — climate, mental health, animal welfare, digital literacy, and others — then review the terms and start the contract. From this point, when you arrive at the club you tap the check-in button on your contract card; Lockin shimmers the button once your phone is inside the 50-metre geofence, which records the session and starts the 45-minute dwell timer.

From Lockin's data

Among Lockin beta users running location contracts on recurring two-person sports, those who anchor the contract to a specific standing slot — same court, same day, same opponent — complete sessions more reliably than those who leave the timing open across the week. Beta data also shows that contracts paired with a Friend Challenge to the regular opponent see fewer rescheduling-driven misses than solo contracts on the same habit.

"My Wednesday opponent and I had been rescheduling each other for a year — one of us would always cave first. Once we both had $5 on the line going to charity, the rescheduling texts just stopped. We have not missed a 7am in two months."

— Anonymous beta user, squash Friend Challenge, 8 weeks active

Common questions

What is the daily deadline and can I change it later? +

Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the squash check-in and the 45-minute dwell 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 the 24h picker — for example 8:30am to protect a 7am standing court. The deadline is set once at contract creation and applies to every scheduled day; you do not change it day-to-day. Earlier deadlines raise the difficulty and unlock higher Locks and XP rewards. Like other contract terms, the deadline is fixed for the active contract — you cannot edit it mid-contract.

Where does the forfeited money actually go? +

Forfeited stakes go to a registered charity from Lockin's vetted list. You choose the charity from categories including climate, mental health, animal welfare, and digital literacy when you set up the contract. The bulk of your stake funds the charity — a small platform fee is retained to cover payment processing and Lockin operations. The forfeiture is automatic; there is no appeal process, which is the point. Refer to the transparency page inside the app for charity-by-charity tallies.

Can I send this challenge to my squash partner so we both show up? +

Yes. The first step of the contract wizard asks whether the challenge is For Myself or For a Friend. If you pick For a Friend, you send the contract to your squash partner — and you choose between two payment models. With sender_pays, you fund the stake yourself and your friend just has to show up to the GPS-verified location. With recipient_pays, your friend funds their own stake when they accept. In both models the recipient is the one whose location is verified, the contract is independent of yours, and you each move through your own status flow (pending, active, completed, rejected, cancelled, or expired). You are not co-staked — both players run independent contracts on the same standing match. Sender-side tracking of how the friend is doing is a Pro feature.

How does the squash club geofence work — does my phone need to be on? +

Yes, your phone needs location services enabled and must be physically inside the 50-metre geofenced perimeter around your club when you check in. The geofence is drawn at contract setup. When you arrive at the club, the check-in button on your contract card shimmers to signal that your phone is inside the perimeter — tapping it is what records the entry and starts the dwell-time timer. The default dwell for squash is 45 minutes, and you must remain inside the geofence until the timer reaches that threshold. If you leave before the dwell elapses, the session does not count. For dwell targets longer than two hours, Lockin prompts a re-check-in every two hours; squash sessions rarely hit that threshold, but the rule applies if you book back-to-back court hours. Airplane mode or disabled location services break the verification chain, so the session will not be logged. Lockin only accesses your location during active contract windows.

Other habits people build

Stop deciding. Start staking.

Free to download. You set the target, the stake, and the charity.

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