The Best Accountability App for Writers

Writing Analytics is an editor and writing tracker that helps you write more. In this post, we'll show you why it's the perfect tool to keep you accountable as a writer.

Accountability for Writers

Many people dream of writing a book. Fewer start writing, and only a fraction of those get over the finish line. Accountability is part of the problem.

Writing often begins as an entirely self-motivated endeavour. You're working in isolation for months and years. If you give up, nobody will ever know. Many aspiring writers, unfortunately, do give up.

Authors are known to go to extraordinary lengths to get their words done. Neil Gaiman seeks boredom. When there's nothing else to do, writing becomes easy.

J.K. Rowling famously locked herself in a suite at the Balmoral in Edinburgh to finish the final instalment in the Harry Potter series.

When working on Indistractable, Nir Eyal promised to pay $10,000 to a friend in case he failed to finish the manuscript on time.

How to Stay Accountable as a Writer?

Expensive hotel stays and ruinous bets aside, here are the more common ways to stay accountable as a writer:

• Set specific and achievable writing goals and track your progress towards achieving them.
• Create a writing schedule and stick to it. Set aside dedicated time each day or week to work on your writing.
• Set deadlines for completing specific writing tasks or projects.
• Share your writing goals with others and let them know about your progress.
• Celebrate your accomplishments along the way, whether it's completing a chapter, finishing a first draft, or achieving one of your writing goals.
• Join a writing accountability group or work with a writing coach who can provide support and accountability as you work towards your goals.

Most writers benefit from using a combination of personal accountability tools as well as a form of external accountability.

Writing Analytics has both types built into the app. Here's how it works.

Tracking Your Progress

Our editor comes with a built-in analytics engine that tracks several metrics while you write.

The metrics include time spent and words both added and deleted. Writing Analytics measures how much time you spend typing during your writing sessions and how often you get distracted.

You can access the data through an interactive dashboard. This not only helps you to be honest about the progress you're making, but it also lets you discover patterns and trends in the way you write.

When are you the most productive? What projects take up most of your time? How much time do you spend drafting and revising? Writing Analytics has answers to all these questions.

Set Goals and Deadlines

A big part of staying accountable is writing things down – creating a plan, then setting goals and deadlines.

Our project scheduling tools integrate seamlessly with the editor. Set a goal and deadline, and Writing Analytics will schedule a daily word count for you to stay on track.

Build Streaks

Writing Analytics also has a built-in habit tracker. The best thing about it is that it updates automatically whenever you use the editor. You don't have to remember ticking boxes off anymore!

You'll find it at the bottom of the Overview. It shows the data from the past three months day-by-day, the current streak and your longest streak to date.

Share Your Progress

Sometimes, the only thing that can keep you going is the help of a friend or accountability partner.

Writing Analytics makes sharing your progress super easy. Create a link to the dashboard of any of your projects and send it to a friend or your writing coach.

They'll be able to see all your stats, while your drafts and sessions remain private. They don't even need a Writing Analytics account.

Write Together with Other Writers

You can also join forces with other writers and pursue your goals together. Writing Analytics has challenges — a way to work alongside other writers in virtual writing spaces.

Start a challenge and invite others to join, or join an existing one. You can set a goal for everyone to hit or leave it up to each participant to choose their own. You also have the option to make your challenge private so that only the people you invite will be able to join.

As you write, you'll see the progress everyone else is making in real-time. Seeing how everybody else is doing can be very motivating.

Challenges are a fantastic way to build momentum and stay accountable. You commit to hitting a certain goal. Others will see when you don't.

For those with a competitive streak, each challenge has a leaderboard where you can see how you're doing compared to the others. Although, it's not a competition... or is it? 😅

Final Thoughts

Successful writers use tools and systems to stay accountable and get their words done. In the age of infinite scroll and endless distraction, it's more important than ever to protect your ability to focus on your writing.

We're passionate about building tools and apps to motivate writers to fight back.

Writing Analytics is one of the best apps to keep track of your writing and stay accountable. Try it free today.