Accountability Partner Questions: 40 for Every Check-In

The most useful accountability partner questions ask about one commitment, in numbers. What did you say you'd do, what did you actually do, what got in the way, and what happens next, by when? Below are 40 of them, sorted by check-in: the first meeting, each work session, the weekly review, the monthly review and the week after a miss.

Why a question works better than a reminder

Being asked whether you'll do something makes you a little more likely to do it. Psychologists call this the question-behavior effect. Chantelle Wood and six colleagues pooled 116 published tests and found a small effect, d = 0.24. A correction for studies that may never have been published cut it to 0.15. The effect was largest for easy, desirable behaviors and in student samples: 0.31, against 0.12 in samples of non-students.

The wording matters too. Eric Spangenberg and three coauthors pooled 104 studies from 51 papers in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Questions that asked people to predict their own behavior, such as "Do you predict that you will recycle?", moved it the most:

Questions with a plain yes-or-no answer also beat ones answered on a scale, r = .17 against .12. So the strongest form is a prediction answered with yes or no, like "Will you finish the problem set by Thursday?" asked on Monday. Keep the limits in view: in these studies the questions came from researchers and surveys, not from a partner who asks every week.

Accountability partner questions for the first meeting

The first meeting turns a wish into something two people can check. Write the answers in a shared note you both open at every check-in.

• 1. What will be finished four weeks from now, and how will we both know it's done? A drafted chapter, 200 practice questions and five sent applications all pass that test.
• 2. Which number will you report each time: pages, problems, minutes or applications? A number can't be rounded up to "it went fine".
• 3. On which days, at what times and where will you work on it?
• 4. When do we check in, and how: by text, by call or on video?
• 5. How long should a check-in take? Agree on a limit, so it doesn't turn into an hour of chat.
• 6. What should I do if you don't answer for a week?
• 7. Do you want me to push, or to ask once and leave it?
• 8. On what date do we decide whether this is working?

Accountability partner check-in questions for each session

Ask three questions when a work block starts and three when it ends. Text works, but they're quickest when you're on video together.

At the start:

• 9. What's the one task for this block?
• 10. Will you finish it by the end time? Yes or no.
• 11. What will you do in the first five minutes?

At the end:

• 12. Did you finish it? Yes or no.
• 13. How far did you get, in numbers?
• 14. When and where is the next block?

Question 14 asks for a time and a place, and that small step has a well-known test behind it. In a 1997 experiment, Peter Gollwitzer and Veronika Brandstätter asked Munich students for a report on their Christmas Eve, written within two days (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). Half also chose when and where they'd start writing. Of those, 71% sent the report in time (12 of 17), against 32% of the rest (6 of 19). The groups were small: 36 reports could be matched to a condition.

Weekly review: 10 questions

Most check-in time belongs to the weekly review: a week is long enough for a plan to slip and short enough to rescue it. Ask in this order: the report, then the cause, then the plan.

• 15. What did you say you'd do this week?
• 16. What did you actually do, in numbers?
• 17. Which day went best, and what was different about it?
• 18. What got in the way, and on which day?
• 19. What did you skip on purpose, and was it the right call?
• 20. What's next week's plan, day by day?
• 21. Which session is most likely to slip, and what will you do when it does? The answer is an if-then plan: "If the library is full, I work in the café next door."
• 22. Will you hit next week's number? Yes or no.
• 23. What would make the plan easier to keep?
• 24. What can I do to help next week?

Monthly review: 8 questions

The monthly accountability partner questions step back from the weekly numbers and look at the goal itself.

• 25. Where are you now, compared with the start of the month, in numbers?
• 26. At this pace, when will you finish?
• 27. Is the goal still the right one?
• 28. Should the weekly number go up, go down or stay the same?
• 29. Which check-in helped most, and which felt like a chore?
• 30. What's one thing to stop doing next month?
• 31. Should we check in more often, less often or as now?
• 32. What will be done by the end of next month?

After a missed week: 8 questions

Say something kind before the first question. In a 2012 experiment at UC Berkeley, Juliana Breines and Serena Chen gave 86 students a hard 10-item test of GRE antonyms. Then the students could study for a second test as long as they liked (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin). Before studying, each read one of two messages, or nothing:

Only the gap with no message was statistically clear, and scores on the second test barely differed. Still, the kind message led to more studying, not less. So open with "You're not the first to lose a week", then ask:

• 33. What happened?
• 34. Was the plan too big, or did something else come up?
• 35. What's the smallest piece you can do today?
• 36. When exactly will you do it?
• 37. What would have to change for next week to go differently?
• 38. Do we need a new number, a new day or both?
• 39. Is something bigger going on, such as exams, illness or work, that moves the deadline?
• 40. Do you still want this goal?

Questions that backfire

Some questions push the wrong way. In a 2007 study, Gavan Fitzsimons, Joseph Nunes and Patti Williams asked 41 students to predict how many classes they'd miss that semester (Journal of Consumer Research). They asked on the first day of class. By the end of term they had missed 3.78 classes on average, against 2.95 for 40 classmates who were never asked. The authors' reading: asking about something people half want to do can feel like permission.

Some rooms ask one of these accountability partner questions for you. On StudyDuo, Study Hour gathers everyone at a fixed time each day for one hour of focus with no breaks. Then the app asks question 12: did you get it done? For one person who'll ask the rest, post a 1:1 with your task; the accountability partner page shows how it works. For the evidence on partners in general, read what studies found about accountability partners. If you're still deciding whether you need one, start with these seven signs.

Once you've agreed on the answers, put them in a one-page contract.