Committing out loud
An informal experiment on whether telling someone what you’re going to do helps you get started.
What I wanted to know
I wrote a book about getting unstuck. One of its core ideas is setting your own rules, and that raised a question: do those rules hold when nobody’s watching, or do we follow through more when someone is waiting on the other side? Instead of answering it from theory, I put it to the test.
How I did it
In August 2026 I sent the same instructions to 48 people, 24 I know directly and 24 referred by them: do four activities within two weeks. Two had to be something they enjoyed and two something tedious. From each pair, they told someone before one and told no one before the other. After each activity, they filled out a form.
What I found
Starting is the cost: The tedious activities sparked far less desire to start than the enjoyable ones. But once started, they went almost the same: similar challenge, time and distractions.
Telling mattered little, the relationship mattered more: Telling someone didn’t make people follow through more. What determined who got started was the relationship: 71% of referred people didn’t respond, versus 25% of direct contacts.
Note
This is an informal experiment, with few people and self-reported data. It shows trends, not proof.
All the numbers and what I took away, in the report
I’ll email it to you in a few minutes. It’s in Spanish.