An app that asks if you did what you said you would.
Daily accountability with one moving part.
Intention-setting apps stop at the intention. You write what would make today great, and nothing ever asks whether it did. After a year you have a pile of mornings and no idea whether you do the things you say matter.
Northern Sky closes the loop. In the morning you name one thing you'll do today. The next morning, before it asks anything else, it shows you what you wrote and asks: did you? You answer yes or no, and the answer attaches to yesterday. Then today begins.
Yesterday you said you'd call your mother. Did you?
Why the next morning
Asking at bedtime invites a story. Asking the next morning, with the day behind you and a new one in front, gets a plainer answer. It also means the app is only ever open once a day, for about a minute, which is the amount of attention a ritual can hold for years.
Why yes or no
Not a slider, not a mood, not a paragraph about why. A commitment has an outcome, and the honest word for it is short. Over weeks, The Past becomes a record of follow-through rather than a record of intentions, which is the only kind of record that can change what you do.
Both answers get the same treatment. The no is not shorter or emptier than the yes, because an app that makes the honest answer feel worse teaches you to lie to it.
What it is not
It is not an accountability partner: nobody else sees your answers. It is not a bet: no money rides on it. It is not a habit tracker: there is no streak, no score, and only ever one thing. It is a question, asked by something that remembers what you said.
The other question
Each morning also asks what you're thankful for. That one has no follow-up and no score, because gratitude isn't a commitment and shouldn't be graded. It sits in The Past on its own.
Northern Sky is a morning check-in for iPhone. Free. The front page · why there are no streaks · why one thing.