You have probably heard it said that you should make a to-do list in order to not forget the things you have to do (like things you need to pick up from the grocery store), but have you considered the benefits of using such lists as tools of both organization and positive reinforcement in other aspects of your life? Let’s look at hitting ‘Start’ on gamified living!
Earlier this year, I started making to-do lists for things that don’t intuitively come to me as fun tasks to complete. One such example is cleaning the house. No matter how many times you clean the house, after a certain amount of time, you can’t even tell it’s been done!
After each task was completed, I would take a moment to pause and mark it off the list while celebrating the fact that one small task out of several had been completed.
How Does It Work?
Consider the way a slot machine dings and flashes even when you net a loss of $0.37 on a $0.50 bet. That’s because they understand how we’re wired! That type of response encourages us to keep pushing onward. But it doesn’t have to just be used to get you to gamble away money.
Every popular game going back as far as I can remember employs similar strategies: positive reinforcement that comes rapidly in the beginning, and then exponentially less (i.e. leveling up). When you hit that goal, there’s often a satisfying feedback that you can come to anticipate, especially if there are visible progress bars. Developers refer to this as “engagement”.
Unsurprisingly, I found this having the same effect on me to be able to check off a series of tasks and build up momentum. Sweeping and mopping individually take longer than doing dishes, but by starting with dishes and checking it off the list, the dopamine hit of watching the task fall to the bottom of the list on my Notes app with a filled bubble made the idea of completing the next task a goal worth achieving!
As a bonus, simply having a task to make your bed every morning gives you that boost first thing in the morning, and ought to help you push through accomplishing the rest of the day. While it doesn’t seem like a big accomplishment, you are starting the first few minutes of your day having already completed one task, of which many will surely follow. Psychologists refer to this as manipulating your dopamine levels by accomplishing small tasks.
Where Do I Start?
Let’s not get carried away, though. Gamified living is a marathon; not a race. Start off slowly. One or two tasks, or if you have a list, start off with a low number (i.e. saying that in a list of ten, three have to be done. That’s 30%!) and gradually work your way up.
Not unlike the concept of leveling up and how it takes exponentially longer with each level, you can add more and more tasks to these streaks as you become more accustomed to the tasks you’ve set out to do before. We often think of exercise as something to be done at the gym, but exercises can also be a series of actions carried out with a specific purpose in mind. Similar to the workouts we should all be doing, you will find that you can add more and more things as you build up endurance and proficiency. Not to mention, in the example of cleaning a house, it’s easier to maintain than to have to start over from the ground floor each time.
Conclusion
To wrap things up, there’s a reason that video games are so popular among all walks of life: there’s a reward system with rapid rewards in the beginning that start to become less and less frequent once you’re engaged. The thrill of the challenge and the achievements for succeeding naturally gives us the drive to push forward. By adding a similar type of reward system to your everyday tasks (especially the most mundane ones) you too can experience gamified living!