Gamification as a way to improve productivity

If you don’t know about Gamification, what is that? It’s the application of game stuff to other fields, typically as a technique to promote engagement with the product or service. For example, if you wash your dishes at work, you earn 5 points, and you beat your coworker Rick this week.
If you want a more real example (unfortunately we don’t have this kind of competition at work) some social networks like Goodreads and TV Time allow you to mark your progress as you read books or watch TV shows, you can compare how much time you spent in front at the TV in TV Time or how much books you have read this year in Goodreads with your friends.
A lot of apps use gamification for making us addictive to them, increasing our dopamine and be pleased for a while. That’s why games are so addictive, they give reachable rewards all the time, now more games are adding weekly challenges (or even daily) so you have to play them very frequently. Here’s an good explanation about how dopamine works from “Bigger Leaner Stronger” by Michael Matthews:
That’s its carrot that it dangles for us. It has a stick too: when dopamine is released, it also triggers the release of stress hormones that make us feel anxious. This is why the more we think about the reward we want, the more important it becomes to us. The more we think we have to get it now.
Not all of them are bad for us, some of them are health engagement or education like Duolingo. I will talk about a specific portion of the good ones, the productivity ones.
I have been using Todoist since 4 years ago, it’s weird that I haven’t changed the todo app, since there are a lot of them and I try a lot of apps frequently. It brings a feature called Karma, which allows you to track your productivity, you can set a goal of how many tasks you complete per day/week, and the app tells you how many points you score for completing and non-completing (you loose in that case) tasks, you can even unlock levels like taekwondo belts.
Forest allows you grow plants and tress while you don’t check your phone, that improves your productivity and educates yourself in order to avoid keeping you using the mobile phone. Another app is Today, which isn’t directly a productivity app but helps to create a good habits, like Todoist, if you maintain your habits every week, you will earn badges.
I just mentioned a few apps that contribute to our productivity with gamification, but there are ways that you can do it without your phone, just using your imagination, like if you wake up every day at 6 a.m., you can have a piece of chocolate when you go to bed as a reward, but you have to be consistent! Some psychologists encourage rewards over punishment when you have to raise your kids (using persuasion is even better), so don’t penalize yourself if you don’t reach your goals, but neither gift you rewards too much, otherwise you are lying to yourself.
