
What I’ve started doing lately is to define and separate the concepts of work and play programming. Work programming is programming that I do because there is an external incentive, normally money, but it can also be just plain guilt — that is often how I get these episodes out on sunday night, because I know lots of you expect one to come out. Play programming, on the other hand, is programming that I do even though there is no external incentive at all, it’s just because I consider it worthwhile.
I didn’t know it back then, but I now know that there is a term in Psychology for this: The Overjustification Effect, where adding an external incentive to a previously unrewarded activity, will shift the motivation from inner to outer, undermining the pre-existing inner motivation.