Have you ever heard the term gamify? It’s turning something into a game. As you know, I love games, particularly video games. One of the things that keeps me going back to many of the games I enjoy, are the challenges. Gamifying something involves turning real-world tasks into games.
When I find myself losing motivation for something, I question it. Am I done with this particular thing for now, or do I need change how I approach it? Gamifying something adds a fresh take on whatever I am doing. Here’s how I do it.
We play games because they’re fun, they are challenging, and they result in a reward if we win. So, you take a task and you do the same thing with it. Let’s say I want to write so many chapters this week. Well, each chapter is an achievement that I can award myself for completing. If I want to write 5 chapters this week, I’ll get an individual reward for each chapter and a bigger individual reward for completing the weekly task. I like to eat, so my rewards are typically food, like a cookie, piece of candy, or a cup of coffee from one of our terrific coffee houses.
You can do this with everything, and your reward doesn’t have to be related to food. It could be a reward of reading something in your favorite book, watching an episode of one of your shows on Netflix, or even taking some time to listen to a great song on a streaming music service. The key to this is that the challenge must relate to something you have to do anyway. The rewards you give yourself depend on what you like.
So, here is yet another technique you can use to get what you need to get done, and have fun while you’re doing it. Have a great Monday, folks!
Until next time…
Dave
Daily Ramblings... 