The Clutter Fairy Weekly #197
A Game You Can Win: Using Gamification in Your Organizing Process
Gamification is the practice of incorporating traditional elements of games—scorekeeping, rewards, social components, etc., to non-game contexts, such as decluttering and organizing. In episode #197 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, explores the pros and cons of gamifying your organizing process and suggests ways to set yourself up to win big.
Content in this episode is based on the results of audience surveys.
Some content in this episode is based on results of a survey of our audience.
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The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.
It’s So Easy When You Know the Rules
This week’s assignment is to gamify a task or project component:
- Identify a decluttering or organizing project or repetitive task on which you’re struggling to make progress.
- Design a simple game around the project or task. Elements may include:
- Scorekeeping: Give yourself points, check off achievements on a calendar or checklist, or place stickers on a game board.
- Rewards: Choose prizes to reward yourself, and decide at what breakpoints or levels of accomplishment you win each premium.
- Social components: Involve friends, family members, or accountability partners in your game.
- Play your game for a few days, then come back and tell us how it went!
For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.
I merged the Report Card Tittle and Gamification Tittle. I had set myself the little challenge (game) of adhering to One In, One Out during December. This is something I find helpful throughout the year, but then I forget about it in December with all the holiday hustle and bustle. The report card for this is a B for how diligent I was but an A for results. Even though I couldn’t keep this top of mind perfectly, my B-level performance kept the house reasonably tidy and left me with no big mess to clear come January 1. Finally, I have to say that actually doing the one in, one out was not hard, but remembering that I intended to do it seemed to be the bigger challenge for this old brain.
Linda – Pennsylvania