I Increased My Productivity 10x - By Turning My Life Into a Game

When I was younger I used to play a lot of video games.
But as I grew older, they started taking too much time from my other activities.
For this reason, I started to gradually reduce the time I spent playing them, until I eventually quit.

But recently, I decided to incorporate some more down time into my schedule. And I gave video games another shot.
This is when I remembered just how fun video games can be.
It wasn't long before I was looking forward to the end of the day, just so I could hop on the computer and play. But this also got me wondering.

What exactly made those games so compelling?
And could I somehow apply those game elements to other areas of my own life to make them more desirable?

This is what I've learned.

Ending song:  Whitesand - Alchemy of Life
You can find it here:

[podpodpod]

Life is the ultimate RPG, so realistic that we forgot that this was all for fun

[cuteasduck]

1. Set your ultimate goal. Break it into smaller targets and focus on these from then onwards
2. Write down your achievements and think of these as level ups
3. Find a reward that rewards you back
4. Make slight variations within your routine to keep it interesting
5. Start at level 1 and gradually increase the difficulty

[ForeChin]

5 elements of a videogame-like life

1) Have a clear objective you are working towards and break it down into manageable achievements
2) Make your progress visible, you need to be constantly aware that you're consistently getting closer to completing something: Track your achievements / daily activities.
3) Reward yourself for your effort with something that rewards you back into continuing progress. Find a reward that rewards you back, or at least make sure it doesn't sabotage your progress like it usually does
4) Incorporate something new into your playthrough.
5) Challenge yourself by gradually increasing the difficulty. If something is too easy try to set a time limit or increase the challenge in some other way

Your quest is to incorporate all 5 elements into your playthrough.

[jbear]

Sometimes I'll pretend my errands are quests. It takes me out of the situation and makes me more of an observer and it's less scary so I can get it done

[BULLTGAMNG]

Him: "repeating the same level eight hours a day everyday for years is boring"

Speedrunners: ಠ_ಠ

[quazar]

WARNING: This advice works best for RPG, strategy, simulation, tycoon, thinking and 3X games! Turning your life into a shooter or horror game is not adviced!

[ProcrastinationChannel]

It’s so funny how I started making progress in life when I started looking at boring tasks as main storyline quests that I have to do, and the fun/procrastionation things as side quests. I can do them after I have made some progress on the main storyline to advance enough to have credits and resources to explore the side stories and quests. 🙌🏻✨👏🏻

[christopherjolly]

I’ve understood a lot of these concepts for a while without motivation to implementing them; but the thing that made a profound shift in my mind was when you said that we don’t measure our progress as 0.7% of Level 100, but 70% of the way to Level 2 ❤
And that our rewards should benefit our goals not hurt our progress ❤

[CHEH_tf]

7:45
"Find a reward that rewards you back, or at least make sure it doesn't sabotage your progress like it usually does"
That might single handedly be the best advice ever. Thank you

[avithedev]

Me, a junior game developer, taking notes on how to make an interesting game

[Prophet]

I remember a moment very vividly where this same perspective changed a great deal for me.
I was driving and the thought popped in my head. "Treat life like a game and play to win."

[KayFlowidity]

2:15 Dopamine Trail (Goals)
4:05 Visible Progress
5:45 Rewards (Efforts)
8:05 Variety & Novelty
10:15 Challenge (Difficulty)

[sreeragrthampi]

As someone said, obstacles are not meant to stress you out, they are only the features of the game that makes it all the more interesting and engaging. Same goes for life. This is my most favourite analogy.

[clairet]

I like to make easy tasks challenging by putting a time limit. This is especially helpful for cleaning up the room. Picking things up and organizing can feel so mundane as to feel pointless but if you give yourself a timer for 10 minutes and see how much you can get done in that limit, it feels so good to see how much better things look after such a short time.

[advguilhermecarneiro]

I ways thought about my life as a videogame, but usually tried to get this habit away as it seems to be strange and not enough "adultly". Knowing that others think like me and that this can be helpful somehow opened my mind. Gonna adapt this in my life again, in a hope to get back my productivity and get away from depression a bit

[ghost]

My attempt to sum up:
• Clear Goals (achievable milestones)
• Visible Progress (track what's done)
• Rewards (with relevant gifts)
• Variety (something new occasionally)
• Gradual Difficulty (brake difficult tasks, focus on the easiest parts first, set some limits when feels too easy)
• Competition (social aspect)
• Music (and other motivation gainers)
• Autonomy (sense of control)

[timefliesaway]

Or turn it into a show/cartoon/anime/etc.

I’ve seen a good quote once relating to that, “if you feel sad or bored, imagine you’re the main character of a book/movie. People would love you and your life, no matter how imperfect you are.”
Think of your fav fictional character, then think of how imperfect and flawed they are but how you still love them very much.

[QuietlyMagnetic]

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” I wish this was true!

[viktorrot]

The hardest part of life is the lack of objectives, that's where self evaluation and management resolves in these kind of problems

[peka]

But only is this content worth spreading, but also the presentation was clear, fun, just ideal! Great work you're doing there!