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.

One Minute Read from the Gameful Project Management

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Here is the fourth 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 Gameful Project Management: Self-Gamification Based Awareness Booster for Your Project Management Success (Book 1 in series Gameful Life).

I am reading the extract from chapter (day) 11, “Gameful Project Management versus Project Management Gamification.”

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

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Excerpt from the Gameful Project Management

When I first embarked on my adventure with Gameful Project Management, I couldn’t find many resources on approaching project management gamefully. I was searching for the following combination of words: “gameful project management.”

A bit later, still unable to believe that there could be nothing written on it, given how many gamified software solutions for project management there are, I searched for “project management gamification” instead. And sure enough, there were many articles, at least one master thesis, and various books addressing the topic of project management and gamification one way or another.

I started reading eagerly, determined to learn from, and quote as many of the sources as possible.

But the more I read, the more I felt I was moving in the “wrong” direction. A quote by the award-winning authors Ariel and Shya Kane, whom I have quoted previously, came to mind. They once said, “We have come to realize if we are not having fun, we are moving in the wrong direction.”

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The next step

If you want to level up in turning your management skills to gameful and playful, and with that save your company, team, project, family, and yourself the costs of seriousness and drama, then read Gameful Project Management: Self-Gamification Based Awareness Booster for Your Project Management Success. 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. Gameful Project Management will be one of the next books I will share there.

To discuss the possibility of one-to-one or small team coaching, contact me through one of the channels listed here.

One Minute Read from The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Turning Life into Fun Games

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Here is the third 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 The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Turning Life into Fun Games: A Compressed Version of the Self-Gamification Happiness Formula.

The extract I am reading is from the chapter titled “How?”.

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

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Excerpt from The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Turning Life into Fun Games

1. Self-Gamification is a lifestyle

So far, we have considered all the five “W” questions — those starting with the words “who,” “what,” “when,” “where” and “why.”

The remaining question is how to turn something or anything into games.

The answer is multi-faceted, and in a way, the whole book is about how to do it, because the “how?” embraces the answers to all the “W” questions: “who?”, “what?”, “when?”, “where?” and “why?”.

But the most important facet of how to turn our lives into games is that the gameful approach to life, Self-Gamification, just like those for our health, well-being, and happiness, is not a one-time pill to fix a problem once and for all, but a lifestyle. Because:

“Happiness is not a destination. It is a way of life.” — Anonymous

2. What is Self-Gamification?

So, what is this new approach to increasing self-motivation and bringing ourselves back on our happy path? And why the need for a new term?

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The next step

To take this game to the next level, I invite you to read the book. To look at The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Turning Life into Fun Games and buy it on Amazon, click on its title or the 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. The Self-Gamification Happiness Formula is one of the three. The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How of Turning Life into Fun Games will be one of the next books I will share there.

Enjoy answering any question you receive or ask yourself in a gameful and joyful way!

One Minute Read from the Self-Gamification Happiness Formula

Self-Gamification

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Here is the second 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 the Self-Gamification Happiness Formula: How to Turn Your Life into Fun Games.

The extract I am reading is from chapter 11, “Seeing and Designing What We Do as Games,” section 2, “Why game design is essential for everyone,” on page 251.

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

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Excerpt from the Self-Gamification Happiness Formula

And here is another assignment for you: If you use a calendar, a planner or project book in paper format or have all of your to-do lists under one heading, then open it at the beginning and write your name, followed by the words “Game Book.” Feel free to have more than one game book, depending on what you record there. I use three paper planners, two of which are game books (which I will address several times more [in this book. For example,]):

  • “To-do Game Book,” where I record and maintain to-do lists daily (the previous name for it was “Deadlines and Plans Game Book”), and
  • “Points and Stars Game Book,” where I develop and fill in the feedback system for my self-motivational games.

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The next step

To take this game to the next level, I invite you to read the book. To look at Self-Gamification Happiness Formula and buy it on Amazon, click on its title or the image below. Please note that you can buy the book as an e-book, paperback, or audiobook:

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. Since the beginning of February, the Self-Gamification Happiness Formula is one of the three. ?

Enjoy your day and let it be gameful!

One Minute Read from the 5 Minute Perseverance Game

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Today I start a series of blog posts featuring videos on YouTube, where I read from one of my motivational books for one minute.

Here is the video where I read from the 5 Minute Perseverance Game: Play Daily for a Month and Become the Ultimate Procrastination Breaker.

The extract I am reading is from the chapter “About the Game.”

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

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Excerpt from the chapter “About the Game”

Procrastination means putting off something which needs doing, whereas perseverance is to keep on doing the task whatever it takes.

So procrastination is bad and perseverance is good. Do you agree?

You do? Have you ever tried questioning this statement?

Quite a few people on the Internet do question the supposedly negative side of procrastination by organizing pro-procrastinating fan groups. They rebel and fight the procrastination fighters.

And what do the others, the pro-perseverance say? Many say you need to work hard to achieve something. They search for those inspiring figures throughout history and the present, who achieved amazing heights in various areas, in spite of challenges they might have faced or still face.

You want the same, badly. You want to achieve something, you have a dream. But on the other hand, you like what procrastinators and writers of “Be lazy at work” books say. You want fun, not hard work.

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Special news and a special offer

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,” published a week and a half ago.

Here is what I shared there with you:

I will publish the 2nd (5-Year) edition of the 5 Minute Perseverance Game this year. I sent the revised manuscript to my editor this week, and I hope in March, I will publish it.

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.

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

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Where to buy the book

To take a look at 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.

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Enjoy playing your perseverance, voluntary procrastination, or any other self-motivational and uplifting games! ?

Sometimes It’s Just a Matter of the “Right” Question

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(Image courtesy of the author)

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Our lives are full of questions. We get many from those who surround us in our lives, and just as many, or probably more, we put ourselves.

And the latter are often huge and quite unanswerable. Especially in times of crisis, these questions tend to be simply overwhelming instead of helping.

“What should I do to clean up this mess of my life I have?”

You will agree that such a question is not only helpful, but it is both much too dramatic and utterly unproductive.

I recently discovered the following fun quote in a fun book about game design by Justin Gary with the title Think Like A Game Designer: The Step-by-Step Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential:

“There are no sure answers, only better questions.”
— Dick Van Dyke

So, what are the right and better questions?

I find the following quote gives a brilliant clue:

“Your brain wants to play! A question wakes up your brain and delights it.”
— Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

So the clue is to make the questions fun.

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Two-choice games

But the next question is how to make them fun. ;D

Here is an idea.

Have you ever played a two-choice game? I came up or probably recalled from the experience, where this wasn’t called a game, with a little game for my children when they were upset and felt stuck before making a decision and when they feared to make a wrong choice.

I then tell them, “I will give you a choice of two words, and you pick one without much thinking. Just pick one word.” Then, I assure them that there is no wrong answer. The clue is to make a choice quick — whatever comes to mind first.

And so we start. I say, “Blue or green, chair or table, game or computer, Superman or Batman, white or black, chocolate or ice cream, chocolate or computer, …” and they make their choices. In the process, their faces light up, and they relax.

Right after playing that little game, I offer them to go back to their challenge and see if they have a choice there too. I again remind them that there is no right or wrong, just right for them. And we are all delighted when that choice is made with great enthusiasm.

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Yes-or-No questions and their power of a simple choice

Yes-or-No questions are such two-choice games. And if we don’t judge ourselves for saying either Yes or No, but simply look at their essence, we can then turn the card with the answer to the one leading us in the direction of our goals and dreams.

Our lives are made out of many projects — both at work and in our personal lives. To help others and myself disentangle a stagnating project, I came up with 15 Yes-or-No questions to help us find a way out of being stuck. I summarized them in a little book called Turn Your No Into Yes: 15 Yes-or-No Questions to Disentangle Your Project.

Here is what one of the book’s readers wrote in his review:

“This little book is just the tool for ending procrastination for any kind of project! Just reading Victoria’s questions shifted my resistance to my working on a play I’m writing. The book is easy and fun to read and got me back on track very quickly.”
— Michael Hanko in review on Amazon.com

Here are these 15 Yes-or-No questions:

Have you:

  1. Taken some time off?
  2. Created an elevator pitch?
  3. Identified what your customer wants?
  4. Identified what your customer needs?
  5. Compared what you can offer with their wants and needs?
  6. Estimated what you will need to invest (time, money, etc.)?
  7. Considered your feelings about the outstanding tasks?
  8. Talked to your customer about possible changes?
  9. Created a checklist for your project?
  10. Left space to add more items or make changes?
  11. Shared the checklist with your customer?
  12. Devoted enough time to the tiniest details?
  13. Stopped to realize that your project brings value?
  14. Asked your customer what value the project provides?
  15. Considered what completing the project means to you?

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To take the next step

To learn more about these fifteen questions, I invite you to read this little book, Turn Your No Into Yes, which costs only $0.99 in e-book format. Click on the link with the book’s title above or on the image below to view and buy it on Amazon:

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 upon explicit request from subscribers.

But you can also get an earlier version of the book for free if you subscribe to my blog or newsletter. You can do it here.

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Enjoy playing the above and developing your very own Yes-or-No games, and turning your challenges, projects, activities, tasks, and anything else in your life into fun games! ?