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IDEA: Control Freak - living in the game

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nudone:
do you get enough done? are you a hardcore 'procrastinator'? have you read loads of 'self-motivation' blogs and felt inspired to become more organised and productive only to become disillusioned after your life didn't change the very next day? then read on, we may be able to help each other...

my IDEA revolves around using 'gameplay' or 'competition' to help oneself get things done - the things you keep promising yourself that you'll do but because there isn't someone standing over your shoulder with a whip, you just keep finding other things to do.

i've not fully fleshed out what is required so this IDEA request is as much a plea for other like minded people to jump in and offer suggestions to make the 'game' work.

my belief is that one way of getting things done is by using peer pressure or by incorporating a competitive element. so, in order to get the things done that you keep putting off for absolutely no good reason we make a kind of pact - we vow that we'll play by the rules of the game i'm about to outline and by doing so, your incentive will be to do well in the game, which is as a direct result of your non procrastinating efforts.

the basic idea for the 'game' is this:

you outline your tasks for the oncoming week (or whatever time period - the game can accommodate this) that you wish to accomplish. you assign a value for each of your tasks, maybe something as simple as 1 point for a completed task and 0 points for task unfinished - perhaps even negative points could be incorporated into the rules of the game.

your planned 'task list' is then made public to the other people playing the 'game' - your task list does not have to be descriptive it can simply be a list of 'task 1, task 2, task 3, etc, etc.', providing the task numbers represent something real to you then you can keep them private.

throughout the week you then keep score of your activities - earning a point for each successfully completed task. there would be no point in cheating as trying to distort the truth of your activities would obviously mean you are merely continuing to procrastinate - the only real victory comes from the knowledge that you have honestly awarded yourself the correct points to the tasks you said you would complete.

the points and finished tasks are then posted to the 'gameboard' which keeps score for all of the players. this could be updated daily or weekly - or perhaps there could be separate categories for different levels of procrastinator to enter into.

trivial planned tasks that are solely created to earn easy points would not be allowed - again, this is simply down to the individual player to decide upon - they are only cheating themselves if they are not overcoming 'real' procrastination.

throughout the game the players may post comments on how they are performing and encouragement may be given by other players - perhaps the game rules could be designed in such a way that other players could award points to another players successfully completed task - bonus points for a particularly 'procrastinatory' task.

now, as i said, the main reward is the fact that the player is overcoming stagnation and getting things done. the 'fun' incentive is to earn points and move up the 'control freak' scoreboard and have a bit of fun by participating against fellow procrastinators - these being your 'virtual' peer group.

there isn't really any 'coding snack' involved for the project idea - well, it would be nice to have an online scoreboard and means of posting comments for proposed task lists and words of encouragement.

obviously, a lot of this is already going on here at DC and at other forums - i'm merely trying to create a 'game' dimension so that there is hopefully another incentive level to do things.

i could just start playing 'Control Freak' the game myself but it's really not going to be anywhere near as much fun as playing it with a group of people - like most games.

of course one would have to 'embrace' the philosophy of the game - rather like one might embrace Luke Rhinehart's 'The Dice Man' http://www.lukerhinehart.net/books5.html#anchor

potential players/contestants please announce yourselves...

Eóin:
I like this idea and could certainly see myself participating. I've alot to do, a reasonable amount of time to do it in but.... well actually there really is no excuse for why I don't get things done :) .

nudone:
welcome, Eóin, you are now on the 'official' players list.

mouser:
i like the idea too!
maybe we could figure out some more automated script way to keep track..
where's allen  :tellme: :tellme: :tellme:

btw this reminds me of
http://www.nanowrimo.org/
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

ps. vrgirl here on this forum actually wrote a full novel in 2003 at this site.

nudone:
well, i was thinking as this is still a coding snack then perhaps there could be a little utility that you entered your details into - like a very simply planner/calendar - this would keep track and then upload the information to the scoreboard when you clicked 'send'.

this isn't really necessary i admit - instead of the little util, a players score could just be kept on a piece of scrap paper until they entered the information to the online scoreboard. maybe a little util thingy would make it more fun?

the scoreboard is the most worthy feature to automate so i assume this is what you were referring to, mouser. i've no idea about php or whatever would be required but i guess there are ready made bits of code already out there just waiting to be edited(?)

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