Om Kadam

I realised reminder apps failed

I noticed something about my own behavior. I don’t struggle with remembering to drink water. I struggle with actually acting on the reminder. Every water reminder app I’ve tried has the same flow: Notification → Tap “Done” → Go back to work. The notification disappears, but nothing changes. After a few days, my brain starts filtering the reminders out completely. It made me wonder if reminders are solving the wrong problem. Maybe the real problem isn’t memory. Maybe it’s the tiny amount of friction required to interrupt whatever we’re doing. So I’m experimenting with a different idea: Instead of asking users to tap “Done,” the reminder only completes after they actually perform a small real-world action (for hydration, that means taking a live photo while drinking water). I’m not sure this is the right solution, but I find the underlying question interesting: Can accountability outperform reminders for habit formation? I’m curious if anyone here has seen research, products, or experiments exploring this idea outside of hydration.