Creating a habit gives me a new tool for playing. This is what I am reading - and by the way, I want to make my newsletter/posts shorter and more dense like this one. Just enough to set me on an adventure but short enough to keep me from feeling tied down. There's a gift in sticking with a thing, to be sure, and yet- I sure love to fly!
So I will honor the gift of this newsletter by creating a new habit. I'm going to make my newsletters shorter. I will repeat the action of giving myself this challenge. I will game my writing by bringing in a new "rule" that I can "enjoy": shorter and more essential.
I used gamification differently. I didn't have a point-based system, so I never optimized for it. Instead, I could just redeem a reward when I did the task.
But lately, I just let my procrastination take over. Usually, it's a good indicator of stuff I am genuinely not interested in.
I'm listening to James Clear on Peter Attia's podcast. I'm thinking habit forming tricks and point based gamification are most useful for when you need to change your identity - when your identity is preventing you from acting. Otherwise, letting your subconscious guide you sounds like a good idea
I think there's a common misconception about gamification: that gamification leads to enjoyment. Like: if you make a game out of an activity, you'll make the activity more enjoyable.
I wrote in my newsletter about how an elementary school reading program killed my love of reading for a long time. Because the program insisted I read 10 books in a few months for the sake of a field trip at the end if I met the goal. That forced me to rush through books, which killed my love of reading.
But I do think there's merit to gamification. Like you said, I think gamification can push us to improve. But I think that works better *after* we "enjoy what we do" so to speak. If we enjoy what we're doing, we're more inclined to push ourselves. Then, we gamify our activity to hit higher targets to push ourselves further and improve.
All of that is to say, I think enjoyment leads to gamification, and not the other way around.
I had a similar discussion a couple days ago because of new years resolutions and James Clear habits. I feel like a focus on habits and point optimizing gamification are similar. They're good to get out of ruts and to improve. But there's a dose/response dynamic. The amount of dose causes different responses. In other words, too much gamification can be bad. Like your book example, when the focus goes to "number goes up" rather than "am I enjoying myself," it's probably time to reconsider the gamification.
Even a few years ago, I would have said that the game was not constructed well, that you have to make the point system reflect better incentives. But now I think that the gamification has a time and place for usefulness and it's also important to keep that in mind as you use it.
As a storyteller, I am fascinated by games. I recognize my picture of games and gamification is less about the system and more about the story—but I do think there is overlap with its relationship to "having fun". For me, enjoyment is too narrow. I think it is more about the sense of play. I can play and be sad about it. I can play and feel resentment. The gift of storytelling - in my experience - is that telling the story takes you out of the story just enough to narrate, but keeps you in the story deep enough to feel it. You feel it as if it is happening, WHILE dictating what is happening. This feels game-ish.
A related feeling is the thread and clickbait pushback. A lot of threads are optimizing tactics - what's more interesting to me is stepping back and looking at the bigger metapicture.
Creating a habit gives me a new tool for playing. This is what I am reading - and by the way, I want to make my newsletter/posts shorter and more dense like this one. Just enough to set me on an adventure but short enough to keep me from feeling tied down. There's a gift in sticking with a thing, to be sure, and yet- I sure love to fly!
So I will honor the gift of this newsletter by creating a new habit. I'm going to make my newsletters shorter. I will repeat the action of giving myself this challenge. I will game my writing by bringing in a new "rule" that I can "enjoy": shorter and more essential.
Happy new year!
I used gamification differently. I didn't have a point-based system, so I never optimized for it. Instead, I could just redeem a reward when I did the task.
But lately, I just let my procrastination take over. Usually, it's a good indicator of stuff I am genuinely not interested in.
I'm listening to James Clear on Peter Attia's podcast. I'm thinking habit forming tricks and point based gamification are most useful for when you need to change your identity - when your identity is preventing you from acting. Otherwise, letting your subconscious guide you sounds like a good idea
I think there's a common misconception about gamification: that gamification leads to enjoyment. Like: if you make a game out of an activity, you'll make the activity more enjoyable.
I wrote in my newsletter about how an elementary school reading program killed my love of reading for a long time. Because the program insisted I read 10 books in a few months for the sake of a field trip at the end if I met the goal. That forced me to rush through books, which killed my love of reading.
But I do think there's merit to gamification. Like you said, I think gamification can push us to improve. But I think that works better *after* we "enjoy what we do" so to speak. If we enjoy what we're doing, we're more inclined to push ourselves. Then, we gamify our activity to hit higher targets to push ourselves further and improve.
All of that is to say, I think enjoyment leads to gamification, and not the other way around.
I had a similar discussion a couple days ago because of new years resolutions and James Clear habits. I feel like a focus on habits and point optimizing gamification are similar. They're good to get out of ruts and to improve. But there's a dose/response dynamic. The amount of dose causes different responses. In other words, too much gamification can be bad. Like your book example, when the focus goes to "number goes up" rather than "am I enjoying myself," it's probably time to reconsider the gamification.
Even a few years ago, I would have said that the game was not constructed well, that you have to make the point system reflect better incentives. But now I think that the gamification has a time and place for usefulness and it's also important to keep that in mind as you use it.
As a storyteller, I am fascinated by games. I recognize my picture of games and gamification is less about the system and more about the story—but I do think there is overlap with its relationship to "having fun". For me, enjoyment is too narrow. I think it is more about the sense of play. I can play and be sad about it. I can play and feel resentment. The gift of storytelling - in my experience - is that telling the story takes you out of the story just enough to narrate, but keeps you in the story deep enough to feel it. You feel it as if it is happening, WHILE dictating what is happening. This feels game-ish.
like a metagame
A related feeling is the thread and clickbait pushback. A lot of threads are optimizing tactics - what's more interesting to me is stepping back and looking at the bigger metapicture.