Category Archives: Self-Gamification

Self-gamification is the application of game design elements to one’s own life.
Self-gamification is a self-help approach showing you how to be playful and gameful.
In self-gamification, you are both the designer AND the player of your games.

Free Speaking Game for the 5 Minute Perseverance Game

Self-Gamification, , , , , , , , ,

***

Here is the first blog post in a new series featuring videos on YouTube, where I read a short paragraph from one of my motivational books and use it as a prompt to speak freely. This idea was inspired by the free-writing exercise well-known among writers.  I used dice and timer to turn this free-speaking exercise into fun games. I hope you enjoy watching them and maybe trying out this gameful approach for yourself and tasks you want or need to tackle today.

In this video, I read from my book, 5 Minute Perseverance Game: Play Daily for a Month and Become the Ultimate Procrastination Breaker.

I am reading a paragraph from the chapter “Duration of the Game.”

Here it is if you want to read along, prior, or afterward.

***

The prompting paragraph from the
5 Minute Perseverance Game

You might have guessed — from many hints above — that according to the design of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game, each round takes one month. When you join in the game, you play every day of the month, including the weekends and holidays. But it is a game, and having FUN is one of the main goals here. So, what better way to spend 5 minutes on a weekend-day than having fun playing the 5 Minute Perseverance Game!?

***

Special news

I hope you enjoyed watching me play this little spontaneous creativity game.

Before I finish this post, here is a reminder of the special piece of information I announced in the post “How to Persevere With Joy Instead of Effort.”

I am about to publish the 2nd (5-Year) edition of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game this year. I have to read it one more time, and then it will be good to go. So, I expect it to hit the online bookshelves this or latest next week. The new book will have fifty percent more content, updates, a template for a scoresheet, and links to multiple articles on turning life into games I published on Medium.

Here is its description revealed for the first time:

***

Premier of the description for the new edition of the
5 Minute Perseverance Game

5 Minute Perseverance Game
A Self-Motivational Game to Help You Melt Your Procrastination
2nd Edition

Is there something you would like to do but feel you don’t have enough time or strength of will to achieve?

Is there a book you want to write, an instrument you want to play, a language you want to learn, or something completely different that you’ve wanted to accomplish for as long as you can remember?

If you really and seriously want to succeed in this dream project of yours, then play a game. Not a serious game. But a fun 5 Minute Perseverance Game. This short, personal and humorous game will help you melt your procrastination and win any challenge you face.

So, don’t wait any longer. Read this book and invite your procrastination to a round of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game. This little book has helped many turn a procrastinated project into a fun and engaging game.

This 5-year Edition offers even more. The text has been edited and enriched, several tactical variants added, and you will find a scoring sheet for the game you play with your procrastinating self.

In addition, most numbered chapters and sections offer links and short introductions to articles on the art of turning life into fun games. Together these articles have become the 5 Minute Perseverance Game “Wiki.” With this additional knowledge, you can transform this little game into a series of fun self-motivational games you can play and develop further every day.

***

A special offer

So, here is my offer to you.

If you buy the first edition of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game before the second is published and send me a copy of your receipt, then within the week of the second edition’s launch, I will send you a link where you will be able to download the second edition of the book as an e-book in a format of your choice. The new book will be more expensive than its first edition through the considerably larger amount of content. So, I highly recommend that you use this offer if you would like to learn more about the 5 Minute Perseverance Game and other possibilities of turning your life into fun games.

Please send me your receipt to vib@optimistwriter.com or in a personal message through one of the channels listed on my contact page.

***

Where to buy the book

To take a look at the 5 Minute Perseverance Game and buy it on Amazon, click on its title or this image:

If you want to see where else you can buy it, then go to the book’s page on this website here.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to my page, Optimist Writer, on ko-fi for $5 a month, and besides supporting what I do, you will also get access to all my motivational books, which I share there once a month or each time a book is out. Right now, you can get access to five of my books there — one upon subscription or one-time support and four in the posts solely for subscribers. The first edition of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game is already available, and the new one will appear shortly after its publication.

***

Have a beautiful and gameful day! ?

Motivate Yourself by Turning Your Life into Fun Games

Self-Gamification, ,

***

The above is the promotional video for my online course Motivate Yourself By Turning Your Life Into Fun Games, published on Udemy in 2018.

Self-motivational is a solitary task. No one can motivate yourself better than you. Others might offer you tools, but those tools will have no chance and no effect if you resist using or at least trying them out.

Creating this online course was an experiment in itself, which I am happy to have done. So far, I didn’t create other courses, but I am happy I have created that one. Without it, there wouldn’t be almost two hundred students on Udemy who enrolled and profited from it, and my book Self-Gamification Happiness Formula: How to Turn Your Life into Fun Games might not have existed or had been much different. I suspect it might have been of much poorer shape and substance.

To the most part, the book follows the script I created for the course and builds upon it. I had added more material when I published the book a year later, but the first draft and the core concept were created in this course. This is where I described and defined the Self-Gamification approach in its fullness for the first time. I am thrilled that the course continues attracting those who search for motivational courses on Udemy.

***

The next step

I invite you to check out the course and make use of the following offer.

I have created a coupon to enroll in my online course Motivate Yourself By Turning Your Life Into Fun Games on Udemy for only $9.99 instead of the standard price of $154.99. You save over 90%. To take advantage of this coupon, make sure you redeem it before March 8, 2021, 10:43 PM PST. Click on the title of the course above or the image below to enroll with this special price:

Image by Alice Jago

Here are the coupon’s data for your convenience:

  • Code: E8F941CB6E995ACE4F15
  • Expires March 8, 2021, 10:43 PM PST

If you have questions, then please contact me either by e-mail or on social media. You can find the list of channels where you can find me on my contact page.

One Minute Read from the Turn Your No Into Yes

Business, Gameful Project Management, Self-Gamification, , , , , , , ,

***

Here is the eleventh and last (for now) blog post in a series featuring videos on YouTube, where I read from one of my motivational books for one minute. Next week, I will start sharing another series of videos featuring my books.

In this video, I read from my book Turn Your No Into Yes: 15 Yes-or-No Questions to Disentangle Your Project.

I am reading from the short chapters titled “9. A Checklist for Your Project” and “10. Free Space in Your Checklist.”

Here it is if you want to read along, prior, or afterward.

***

Excerpt from the Turn Your No Into Yes

9. A Checklist for Your Project

Question 9:
Have you created a checklist for your project?

If not, do it. By now you will have gathered enough information to do so. And remember this checklist is a living document. Keep it close at hand and update it as soon as you think it time to do so. Don’t leave it for later. Follow your first impulse. The short updating of one point takes much less time than trying to get all the points together later. And it is always more accurate.

10. Free Space in Your Checklist

Question 10:
Have you left space to add more items or make changes?

If not, find the best format suitable for you and your customer and rewrite the checklist, allowing for the possibility of additions and changes.

And remember that along the way you might discover a new way of doing it. Don’t judge yourself for not having thought of it earlier. Just do it. Even returning to an earlier approach is a step forward, not backward.

***

The next step

To take the next step in boosting your entangled projects (and we all have those once in a while), I invite you to read Turn Your No Into Yes. To look at the book and buy it on Amazon, click on its title above or this image below:

If you want to see where else you can buy it, then go to the book’s page on this website here.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to my page, Optimist Writer, on ko-fi for $5 a month, and besides supporting what I do, you will also get access to all my motivational books, which I share there once a month or each time a book is out. Right now, you can get access to four of my books there — one upon subscription or one-time support and three in the posts solely for subscribers. Turn Your No Into Yes will appear later this year or sooner upon explicit request from the subscribers.

I wish you a beautiful, productive, fun, creative, and gameful day!

One Minute Read from the Take Control of Your Business

Business, Self-Gamification, , , , , ,

***

Here is the tenth blog post in a series featuring videos on YouTube, where I read from one of my motivational books for one minute.

In this video, I read from my book Take Control of Your Business: Learn What Business Rules Are, Find Out That You Already Know and Use Them, Then Update Them Regularly to Maximize Your Business Success.

I am reading from the chapter titled “T – Terminating Your Product or Service, When and How to Do This.”

Here it is if you want to read along, prior, or afterward.

***

Excerpt from the Take Control of Your Business

This business rules type is often forgotten or ignored. Not many want to think about terminating the existence of their product or service, hoping it will be there forever.
But it won’t. At least not in its very first shape or version. Besides, the updates might be so crucial that at some point you will have something entirely new and different than merely an upgraded product or service.

I can guarantee that sooner or later you will need to discard one (and most probably more) of your products or services or various parts of them.

What do you have to know then?

In this case, as before, the answer becomes clear as soon as you focus your attention on your customers’ interests.

When you do this, the following important question appears:

How will the termination of, or a significant change in, your product or service affect your customers?

***

The next step

To take the next step in maximizing your business success, I invite you to read Take Control of Your Business. To look at the book and buy it on Amazon, click on its title above or this image below:

If you want to see where else you can buy it, then go to the book’s page on this website here.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to my page, Optimist Writer, on ko-fi for $5 a month, and besides supporting what I do, you will also get access to all my motivational books, which I share there once a month or each time a book is out. Right now, you can get access to four of my books there — one upon subscription or one-time support and three in the posts solely for subscribers. Take Control of Your Business will appear later this year or sooner upon explicit request from the subscribers.

I wish you a beautiful, productive, fun, creative, and gameful day!

Happy Spring 2021

Self-Gamification, True Story, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
My little Martisori treasure chest (Image courtesy of the author)

***

I am taking a little break from my series of blog posts and readings from my books today to honor a Moldovan tradition — Moldova is where I originally come from — and to wish you a happy Spring!

***

Mărțișor — A beautiful Moldova tradition

We celebrate this day by giving little signs of love and friendship to members of our families, friends, teachers, and colleagues. These small tokens are called Mărțișori (singular: Mărțișor). In the picture above, you can see my current collection. Some of them I got from my family and especially my sister — she once brought a whole bag of them for me to share and keep. The other I made myself over the years and kept one from each year’s collection as a token to remember and maybe to reproduce at another time.

Here is how Wikipedia defines Mărțișor:

“Mărțișor (mərt͡siˈʃor) is a celebration at the beginning of spring, on March the 1st in Romania, Moldova, and all territories inhabited by Romanians.”

I featured this tradition in my first book, a novel based on a true story of my late father, Mihail Ichizli, The Truth About Family:

” I remembered well how we would all sit together braiding red and white threads into strings, and making little men and women or flowers from the same wool to bind to the ends of the strings. We would give these special talismans, or little Marches, to each other and the teachers on the first of March. Our teachers would have a host of Mărţişori decorating their jackets and sweaters for the whole month.”

***

This year’s Mărțișor project

In the past years, I created various designs for the Mărțișori I gave as little gifts to my family. This year, I tried something different and turned it into a little art project. I took a coloring block of postcards and colored only some of the fields with red color, leaving all other white. Then I added one or two Mărțișori on each card.

Here is the result:

This year’s Martisor project/art (Image courtesy of the author)

***

Capture your family traditions in a story

We all have these beautiful traditions from where we come from. If you ever considered writing a memoir or a fictional story based on your family’s or your own story, then I invite you to feature those traditions inside. They will add color to your creations and bring light to the whole story.

***

If you need help

Sometimes it can be daunting to start a project featuring your family’s or your story. A memoir can appear daunting to write. I feared writing one for many years, although the wish was significant.

A novel based on a true story might get you going. It did help me. The Truth About Family was a blessing to write; it healed many wounds and brought my mother and me even closer together.

Whatever style you choose, here are a couple of resources that can help you:

 

If you would like to work with me to help make your memoir or novel describing a personal to you story a reality, you can reach out to discuss how we can collaborate through one of the channels listed on my contact page.

If you are interested in checking out my experience with writing memoirs and novels based on a true story, then take a look at these:

***

Happy Spring

All there is to say now is to wish you Happy Spring 2021! We all need the hope the Spring seems to bring with it in these insecure times.

Here’s the little Mărțișor picture I created for my mother this year. And here it is for you!

Happy Spring and Happy Mărțișor!

Martisor, the symbol of the Spring (Image courtesy of the author)