Have you ever stopped to think about the gamification of your life? What if you could take all the ordinary daily chores you do and make them more fun? You’d constantly be earning badges, learning things about yourself, and competing–maybe against others, but maybe against yourself. What would that look like? Stick around, and hear my thoughts. And I’d love if you would add your thoughts, too. By the way, I’ve written about gamification before: the Gamification of Social Media. (Yes, that was back in the day, so to speak!)
Definition of Gamification
We do need some stinkin’ badges!
Remember when Clint Eastwood said he didn’t need no stinkin’ badges? Obviously he wasn’t thinking about gamification or he never would’ve said that. These days, Clint would earn badges for shooting people, and he’d get extra bonus points for saying that he got that quote from Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees! You can read about the history of that line and its misquotes here: This Day in Quotes: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges.
Points count in the gamification of your life
What kinds of activities earn you points? How about eating the right foods? Losing weight? Breathing and staying alive? lol Seriously, are there areas of your life that are so boring that maybe gamification would help you keep your interest? Maybe the gamification of your life would help you stay on track, especially for people who have difficulties with focus. Or maybe gamification would help you remember if you fed the cat or took out the garbage.
The Gamification of Your Life| Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay
The Gamification of your life on #DigiBlogChat
This week on #digiblogchat, we discussed gamification, with Larry Mount (@lazblazter) contributing half the questions. By the way, if you’ve never participated in our chat, here’s how: How to Join#Digiblogchat. Here’s a poll, below, on people’s favorite ways to gamify their lives (Exercise was winning 4 hours before the poll was over).
Gamification of Your Life on #Digiblogchat
People use gamification in simple ways to the more complex. John W. Lewis (@JohnWLewis) said “Ironing is something that I did gamify, for a while some years ago. I used to hate, and put off, ironing the 5 shirts per week that I needed. I realised that it was because I didn’t know how long it would take. So I timed myself and then did it against the clock.”
Benefits of Gamification
Thiam (@ThiamMeka2Gogue) mentioned that “Any good gamification process can be a source of emotions for players: a sense of belonging, satisfaction, optimism, desire to improve and/or confidence.”
What activities would you like to gamify?
There are so many activities that could help me, and maybe you, too. One that I’d like to gamify is brushing my teeth. My dentist would also be very interested in this idea. As of right now, I keep track on an Excel spreadsheet, and then bring the sheet into my dentist whenever I get my routine cleanings done. Then we nerd out together over what’s worked and what hasn’t. She particularly likes all the stickers I use!
Beth Staub (@AdventureGlass): “I need a dishwasher – from sink to dishwasher and then a dish put away-er. I will do laundry over dishes any day.”
First, I’m glad you shared that link because I was going to say something about Clint Eastwood & Mickey Dolenz not being the first to utter that line. lol
Second… although I’ve viewed my life a lot differently when it comes to gamification, for my adult life I’ve always seen myself as being a character in a video game. Can’t say I’ve been heroic or all that successful, but most of the time I’ve been ready to come back to life and try again. I figure that’s the best I could hope for.
Hi Mitch!
People are often taking credit for other people’s quotes, aren’t they? I had to look that quote up to figure out who said it first, so that was interesting.
That’s interesting that you see yourself as a video game character. Which one would you be? Too bad we don’t get extra lives every time we jump off a cliff or hit a brick wall with our cars, eh?
You know you’d win the step count, speaking of gamification. Don’t you walk around ten miles every day? I remember a video you did about that!
Thanks for stopping by. Maybe you’ll come back to Twitter now that a certain someone might not be involved in its sale?
Carol
Regarding Twitter, once it’s confirmed he’s not buying it (since the Twitter board’s trying to force him into buying it; ugh), I’ll be back since I didn’t shut down my account.
I don’t know the names of any characters besides Mario, and that’s not only a old reference, but I’m way different than he used to be. lol I haven’t played a video game since 2003, so I’m out of my range of experience. Since I played a few games beforehand though, the main thing I can identify is that they always came back whole the next time.
Hi Mitch,
We’ll keep our fingers crossed about him not buying it. Like a lot of other things in the U.S., sounds like the courts will decide what’ll happen.
I was thinking of Mario because there’s a Mario Kart racing event coming up this weekend. It could be fun! I always liked the goofy Mario music, and like you, haven’t played anything for ages! It is cool that you get to try and fail over and over, always reincarnating as the same person but with intact memories, which is very cool!
Thanks for being here.
Carol