In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport talks about Jerry Seinfeld’s simple system for getting work done. It involves putting a cross on the calendar each day he writes a joke and not placing a mark when he doesn’t. As Jerry tells it, once you get a row or two of crosses, you get to a point where you don’t want any blank spots on the calendar. So you keep writing jokes every day so you can keep your run of marks going.

This is how we can keep ourselves accountable.

I recently used this method to achieve my own goal. I wanted to go 100 days alcohol-free. On day one I started and put the number 1 in my calendar and then I put a box on where day 100 was. There was that box calling me to write 100 in it. I couldn’t let that box down. I had to do it.

And I did.

How can you use your calendar to keep you accountable?