Build → swimming regularly
Most swimming routines die after the second visit — not because the practice failed, but because swimwear, locker rooms, and cold water compound faster than identity forms. Lockin attaches a real financial cost to skipping, bridging the gap until the pool becomes a non-decision.
Suggested starting contract
$5/day against missing your daily target of 1 swim 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 swim target — for example, two swims per week on Tuesday and Thursday, or three swims on a flexible schedule. Pick a cadence you can realistically protect given your work calendar and recovery needs.
Search for your pool — community pool, YMCA, university aquatic center, or hotel lap pool — confirm the location on the map, and Lockin saves the geofenced perimeter. Each location challenge is tied to a single facility, so pick the pool you actually swim at most often.
Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the check-in plus the 45 minute dwell time must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone. Tap Set deadline in the wizard and use the 24h time picker to lock in an earlier slot, for example 7:30am if you are committing to a 6:30am masters swim. Tighter deadlines unlock higher Locks and XP rewards. The deadline is set once at contract creation and applies to every scheduled day.
Decide how much money goes on the line per scheduled swim 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.
Select a registered charity from Lockin's vetted list, organized by category — climate, mental health, animal welfare, digital literacy, and others. This is where your money goes if you forfeit a scheduled swim.
Review the terms, confirm your stake, and start the contract. The practical flow at the pool: check in at the entrance or lobby before you hit the locker room — the shimmer cue confirms you are inside the geofence — then leave your phone in the locker. The 45 minute dwell timer keeps running while your phone sits there and you swim.
From Lockin's data
Among Lockin beta users running swimming contracts, those who anchor swims to a fixed slot — a recurring 6:30am masters swim or a Saturday morning lap session — complete their contracts more often than those who keep the schedule open. Beta data also suggests that two scheduled swims per week is a more durable starting cadence than three or four for first-time contract holders, given the 90 minute total time cost per swim.
"I had bought a YMCA season pass three years running and used it maybe ten times total. Once skipping the Tuesday swim meant funding a charity I cared about, the cold-water dread stopped winning the argument at 6am."
— Anonymous beta user, swimming challenge, 8 weeks active
Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the pool check-in and the 45 minute dwell time must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone — end of day. During contract setup you can tap Set deadline and pick any earlier time using a 24h picker, for example 7:30am to protect a 6:30am masters swim. The deadline is set once at contract creation and applies to every scheduled swim day; you do not change it day-to-day. An earlier deadline raises the difficulty and the reward — 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.
Swimming is the one Location habit where the obvious flow does not work, because phones stay out of the water. The expected pattern is to check in at the entrance or lobby before you head to the locker room. The shimmer cue confirms your phone is inside the 50 meter geofence; tapping the button records the visit and starts the 45 minute dwell timer. Your phone then sits in your locker for the duration of the swim. For most pool facilities the lockers and pool deck both fall within the 50 meter radius, so the timer keeps running while you actually swim. One caveat: if your pool is in a basement or a heavily shielded part of a building, GPS signal may struggle and the timer can pause unexpectedly. We recommend doing a no-stake test run at your pool before activating a real contract — leave your phone in the locker for a typical session and confirm the dwell timer fills the way you expect.
Lockin contracts are intentionally rigid because flexibility is where most accountability systems collapse. There is no pause feature and no exception for illness or injury — once a contract is active, every scheduled swim day either logs a qualifying visit or triggers the forfeit. Swimming carries some specific risks worth planning for: ear infections from frequent chlorine exposure, shoulder injuries from poor catch mechanics, and seasonal colds that make it unsafe to be in cold water. The right move is to plan rest days into the schedule from the start: if you can realistically protect two swims a week, pick those two specific days at setup so the other five are simply unscheduled rather than missed. Size the schedule to what you can hit on a bad week, not a good one.
The geofence and dwell timer verify presence and duration, not strokes. Lockin records that your phone was inside the 50 meter perimeter and remained there for the 45 minute dwell window — it does not have a way to confirm you got in the water rather than sitting in the lobby or sauna. That gap is intentional and consistent with every Lockin Location contract: the verification is structural, not surveillance. The system works because the contract you write is the contract you keep. If you set the contract to mean swimming and you spend 45 minutes at the pool reading in the lounge instead, you have technically satisfied Lockin and quietly failed yourself — and you are the only one who knows. The accountability is real but it relies on you writing an honest contract, then living it.
Free to download. You set the target, the stake, and the charity.