Life is Just A Game

Life is just a game, everyday is a game. But the amazing thing about this game is there are no winners or losers because everybody loses in the end. This blog is based on gamification. Turning small everyday things into a game, not against anybody else but yourself.

Gamification is something everybody will have done already but applying it to certain areas of your life can make difficult tasks easier. For example, when I'm bored making a mug of peppermint tea I will often try to throw the tea bag in the mug from across the kitchen. This is gamification.

While listening to a podcast last week one of the podcasters mentioned how he was “beating the sign 3-0 things week”. Adding some context, the podcaster arrives early to work each day, Drew early like 4:30am. So he decided to change the time on the electric sign outside the warehouse to 4:30am. Now everyday he has a competition with the sign to see if he can get to the warehouse before the sign turns on. This is gamification. He’s created a competition with the sign which if he wins he has inadvertently benefited from. If he loses against the sign he’s “late” for work, if he wins against the sign he’s not.

Parents do it a lot with children, if you do X or Y you get a gold star, and if you have 5 gold stars in a week you get a treat. It encourages positive reinforcement rather than negative punishment, something research has been shown to improve the desired outcome. Gamification encourages daily accountability where every day matters towards a large goal.

These games can be anything, beating a sign or your alarm,to be the first employee to work or student in the lecture theatre. Reading 10 pages of a book is 1 point, taking daily supplements is 2 more points. You can assign more points for things that have a great impact towards your goals like 8 hours of sleep 3 points, 7 hours of sleep 1. The goal of everyday is to achieve over 10 points so you can look back on your days each week and clearly see if your actions have accounted for enough points and therefore helped you get one step closer to your goal.

Tips for gamification is to try and create as many as possible for you vs you, not somebody else. This is to better yourself not to beat anyone else. Make the games small and fun so that way they can be achieved more easily. The last thing you want is to lose 20 games a day that's not going to be good for anyone's confidence.