Could Gamifying Your Work Week Make You Better at What You Do?

27 Apr 2026 · 36 min · 14 chapters

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In short

Whether gamifying your work week (using game-like elements such as points, streaks, challenges, and rewards) can improve performance and learning, and how to design a “game” that builds capability rather than compliance.

Guests

Helen and Sarah (hosts of the Squiggly Careers podcast). No other guests appear in the transcript.

Guest backgrounds

Both are career-focused podcast hosts who discuss “squiggly careers,” run learning sprints, and share personal productivity/learning habits (e.g., sleep/exercise tracking, lunch breaks, learning streaks).

Key claims

Gamification can motivate behavior and engagement by tapping self-determination theory (progress, autonomy, connection). It can also backfire if it turns into “hellish” compliance or steals joy. The hosts propose “play your own game” for two weeks, aiming to win as a learner.

Notable examples

Wordle (enjoyed without tracking); Peloton badge chase on New Year’s Eve (badge-only reward); fitness trackers and sleep/exercise streaks; sprint badges and “learning minutes” leaderboards.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Understanding Gamification

3:14 to 4:45

Explore the definition and utility of gamification in professional settings.

“We'll see where we get to at the end of the episode.”

Personal Reflections on Gamification

4:45 to 6:07

Sarah and Helen discuss their personal experiences with gamification.

Research on Self-Determination Theory

6:07 to 8:03

Examine how gamification relates to self-determination theory.

“I gamify exercise because I try to get like a streak.”

Control and Autonomy in Gamification

8:03 to 9:56

Discuss the balance between control, autonomy, and gamification's impact.

“I think you can do that stuff without gamification.”

The Dark Side of Gamification

9:56 to 12:26

Explore the potential downsides and excesses of gamification.

“one of the things about that theory is usually as humans, I think most of us are hardwired to want at least some level of control.”

Designing Personal Improvement Games

12:26 to 14:04

Consider how to create personal games focused on improvement at work.

“They said to me, the question to ask of every mechanic is, does this make people feel more capable or just more compliant?”

Designing a Gamified Work Week

14:04 to 16:49

Learn how to create a personalized game to enhance work performance.

“And so I was thinking, right, can I then design a game that is much more about me being even better at work?”

Gamifying Your To-Do List

16:50 to 21:20

Discuss methods to gamify your to-do list for better productivity.

“Or I guess if you're doing this as a team, you could have a team award.”

Exploring Personal Energy Management

21:21 to 25:31

Examine ways to gamify personal energy and well-being in daily routines.

Expanding Gamification to Relationships and Learning

25:32 to 28:00

Discover how to gamify relationships and continuous learning in work culture.

Show all 14 chapters

Gamifying Learning: Streaks and Points

28:00 to 29:10

Explore how to gamify daily learning and productivity at work.

“Oh, I think I saw that in the bookshop that we were in together in Boston.”

Team Gamification: Collaborating for Points

29:10 to 30:50

Discuss the concept of team-based gamification and sharing progress.

“I'd be like, how much friction am I fixing?”

Sprints and Learning Badges: Motivation in Teams

30:50 to 32:40

Learn about using sprints and badges to motivate team learning.

Reflections on Gamification and Personal Growth

32:40 to 33:50

Reflect on the effectiveness of gamification in personal and professional contexts.

“and actually quite a lot of people have told me that they've done those in small groups, not even as a team, where just three or four of them from different teams have just said, oh, should we all do this together?”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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0:39one size absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash smallbusiness. Trading at Schwab is now powered by Ameritrade, bringing you an expanding library of education with even more ways to sharpen your trading skills. Access new online courses, insightful webcasts, articles, engaging videos, and more, all curated just for traders. Plus, guided learning paths with content designed to fit your unique interests. No sifting to find exactly what you need, so you can spend your time learning to trade brilliantly. Learn more at schwab.com slash trading. Because we're borrowing brilliance from the world of gamification.

1:20I think my life is very gamified, and I haven't really thought about it. And I don't think I gamify anything. so I couldn't come up with a single example I think starting almost like with a frustration or a problem or something knotty gives you more of an incentive to gamify. Does this make people feel more capable or just more compliant? But I do like the idea of being more capable because being more capable is basically continual improvement is getting better This is not going to make me look good at all in anyone's eyes. Gamification gone too far Yeah

1:58Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance and turn that curiosity into useful action for you and your squiggly career. I'm excited about this topic because we're borrowing brilliance from the world of gamification.

2:18Sarah and I basically like sort of bounce ideas off each other for boring brilliance and sometimes we'll bounce them and build and sometimes we just I'm like we're just doing it we're just doing it and I could imagine when Sarah was reading this gamification one thinking oh I don't know Helen I don't want to do this but I feel like the more we've talked about this the more bought in you've become to the value of gamification in our careers um I don't know whether I mean I got halfway through some of the notes that you sent me and just thought no which we'll talk about when we get to it. And in lots of ways, I think actually the reason, I think I'm bought into the episode because I think it's helpful for us to have different points of view sometimes.

2:59And I think this is one where you and I, you and I are very, we have very different starting points. And so I think that's, I've become more interested in our differing perspectives versus being convinced by gamification. Okay. Okay. All right. That's my starting point. We'll see where we get to at the end of the episode. So as a starting point, maybe I'll present what gamification is and why I think it is a useful thing to us to apply to our careers. And then you can debate me along the way. Tell you why you're wrong. Or that. Sounds like a day in our lives, generally. Okay, so what is gamification?

3:36This is not my language, but to be accurate, it is the use of game-like elements, such as points, levels, challenges and rewards in a non-game context to motivate behaviour and increase engagement. What are we thinking? Yeah, you fine with that definition? Well, I mean, it's not a definition I've ever used. But you want to motivate behaviour and increase engagement, right? Motivate behaviour, I understand. When we say increase engagement, engagement in what? Well, I guess in the context of our career, it could be learning. so if you want people to um let's say a sort of interest like the engagement could be like sort of interest in it yeah and i think the um maybe the motivation to start something and then they're like the engagement to continue so let's say you were gonna sprints are probably a good example because a lot of our audience might have done them um gamification could be used as a way to get people to sign up to a sprint because maybe they get something at the start um lobster badges yeah um in our recent learn like a lobster skill sprint um and then it could also be used for maybe they get like a little lobster token each day or something that then they're trying to collect so they can complete like they're like the stickers along the way so i think the motivation is get started engagement is kind of keep people going with it yeah and i think it's interesting if you're listening to reflect on almost like how gamified is your life today that's a good that's a good thought um because i think about i was thinking about this in my work but also just in the rest of my life and i don't think i gamify anything so i couldn't come up with a single example so i do play some games so i really like wordle for example but i don't track it i don't do any streaks i don't do all of the gamification that goes around wordle i just do wordle because I like Wordle yeah um and I and I yeah I was at so I was thinking about lots of different aspects of I do exercise I don't gamify any of my exercise or collect any of that data because there's some overlap here I think as well with like data for your development and at work I don't have any trackers um like I know people who you know like will track habits um or sort of try to gamify themselves because they are trying to like do something different um so maybe at work you'd be thinking I'm going to try and do I'm going to try and take a lunch break every day for example and people might naturally like gamify that and I I don't do any of it today so I think I am starting from zero what about you I think my life is very gamified and I haven't really thought about it until you just like like pose that question because if I think about the amount of gamification in my life so I'll start with my ring so I like gamify my sleep but I find it so helpful I have like a sleep score and I'm trying to get my sleep better I get I don't even just gamify my sleep.

6:28I gamify my deep sleep. The percentage. I know you do. She keep telling me about it. I'm so happy about my deep sleep. I'm trying to get it even better. So I gamify that. I gamify exercise because I try to get like a streak. This week's been awful. I'm really annoyed about it. I'm really annoyed. My streak's been dreadful this week. But I really, and I find that really helpful for my health to do that because it really, to the point around, it motivates me to do it and it keeps me engaged definitely so those things like that streak and then i was thinking it was like oh there's also other things that i gamify i i gamify my diet like you know the the vegetable thing like my like 10 fruit vegetables a day yeah i definitely i know i don't actually track that but in my mind i will think okay because i mean how many are you supposed to have is it like five a day i don't know because i don't gamify my life i just eat what i want when Oh my gosh.

7:22Oh my, there's more steps. I've even gamified steps. Yeah. My life is quite gamified, but in a way I quite enjoy. As long as you're happy. I'm really happy. I'm happy. Yeah. So I think probably I can see why this would naturally for me to take this concept from my personal life into my professional life. It feels like quite a natural and enjoyable thing for me to do but if you're starting places I haven't gamified my life therefore why would I want to gamify my work if that's a starting place then I can see why you know might need some convincing can I give you some research to convince you yes and then I've got some research for you as well oh is it counter counter research you give me your research I'll give you mine okay okay all right so my research um is about the self-determination theory um which I think we covered on our I think we might have done this back in the day well do you know who talks about this i think we did and then i think bruce talks about it in fortitude oh maybe that's maybe that's i think we did do it originally to university because it's quite all research right yeah but he does he i think he talks about it in that book as well um so um this is a very light summary of self-determination theory but it basically says that gamification taps into the drivers of self-determination theory so you know people's desire to personally commit to something and that is because it taps into progress so people are motivated when they can see that they're improving my sleep's getting better um autonomy so i feel like this is something that i have control over don't have to wait for someone to do this for me i can get control of it and connection which i thought was quite interesting because i i'm probably not doing this with some of my things at the moment but motivating by sharing goals so if you are if you are gamifying in a in a group of people i that's actually less me so i don't need to compete or compare in that way that doesn't really do it for me um but i thought that was quite interesting about self-determination theory that there's an element of connecting with other people who are maybe also gamifying things so have you made the link that gamification links to self-determination theory so have you connected those two dots no it came up in some research that i was doing on this interesting why well well no i believe i believe in self-determination like those those three things but I just don't think you need gamification to achieve them.

9:42Oh, no, I don't either. Yeah. I think it's an and. Like, and gamification is one way. I think you can do that stuff without gamification. I think self-determination theory is a theory. I just think gamification taps into some of those things. Yeah, and I guess it does help you with, one of the things about that theory is usually as humans, I think most of us are hardwired to want at least some level of control. And I think one of the things about gamification, like when I listen to you, being obviously very open-minded, about what you're saying um I see that it sort of gives you a sense of control in a week where every week like for you would be full-on lots happening pulled in lots of different directions yeah something that you can control potentially as you'll sleep yeah it is you know like you can decide when you go to bed right you can create an environment where you're going to sleep well yeah you can control to some extent like the exercise you do how you exercise when you exercise what you eat so it's like it's an interesting way of kind of thinking everybody likes to have control gamification is is kind of one way to do that i read a couple of interesting articles and actually we both read these um so tim harford who writes for the ft yeah but you can also subscribe to his newsletter and often he'll summarize what he's written yeah um is it free yeah oh yeah yeah great um and it's funny because actually i end up uh reading them twice sometimes which I don't mind because I my partner has the FT so I don't mind sometimes a magazine you know with the coffee and I sort of read his and then that's there's not loads of the FT I read but that bit I do read and then I quite like coming back to the ideas in his in his newsletter so I'll be able to read these and he has reflected over the last year on um he started running and he talks about like gamification and he said um like running and using like fitness trackers and things how it has sort of helped him in one sense in that he talks about he's like never run so far yeah he's also like i have never behaved so weirdly and his sort of conclusion is like sometimes i'm doing things for the wrong reasons it's all you almost get so into the game and the and he describes it as like gamification it's sort of like fun and then he says but it's more hellish i have to tell you like a funny this is not going to make me look good at all in anyone's eyes gamification gone too far yeah i do remember there was on is peloton related there was a moment on a new year's eve a few like i don't know three or four years ago where i was really close to unlocking so they have this annual challenge on peloton where you have to like get a certain amount of minutes on the bike or something like that um and i was really close to getting like the gold badge or something for like 10 000 minutes or whatever that was measuring i don't even know what I was measuring it was just a badge um I was quite drunk on New Year's Eve and I and we also had friends over right so I got on that bike drunk even though there were people there in order to get my to get my badge what did the badge give you nothing I don't know just a badge joy short-term joy okay you don't get like free no there was absolutely no other reward other than personal pride and uh you know embarrassment many years on that I actually did that but to your point does it always was that the right thing to do right then probably not but to the tim harford point sometimes it probably gamification could go too far that would be my personal indication so i was trying to think how gamification can be useful yeah what would motivate me to start to gamify anything that i do at all yeah given my starting point is zero um and i was sort of playing around with some like ai prompts kind of using claude and he he oh look he's become a he Oh, he's become a he.

13:19Sarah's best friend. Hey. I don't know. I don't know what they should be. They said to me, the question to ask of every mechanic is, does this make people feel more capable or just more compliant? Okay. And so I actually did find that distinction quite useful because I don't think I like the compliant thing. I was like, I don't want anyone else to tell me what exercise to do or how to work because I think I really value freedom and variety. I think I feel like gamification takes my control away rather than gives me control. But I do like the idea of being more capable because being more capable is basically continual improvement, is getting better, is even better ifs.

14:04And so I was thinking, right, can I then design a game that is much more about me being even better at work? Because that I find motivating. yeah and so you may or may not need that depending on where you're starting from if you're listening but I just found that distinction useful um I think because I don't like I don't like the idea for example of a game like telling me off for not doing something that I've not done I'm like how dare you how dare you tell me off for not getting a star or not doing something as quickly and I I think my worry with it is always like say for Wordle I really enjoy it and it takes like three minutes and I'm like don't suck the joy from it don't take away something I really like that I just have zero need to gamify yeah but if an outcome is going to be at work a kind of game could help me perform better learn more build better relationships then then maybe there's something interesting yeah so we're gonna have a go together aren't we playing and deciding a game yeah so we've got some rules of the game okay um and we've got some ideas that you can include in your game yeah and i think what's important is that you you play your own game so the things that would appeal to me in my game are probably very different to the things that would appeal to sarah in her game so we're going to go through the rules of the game we're going to go through the elements of the game um and our i guess our guidance is to play play your game we will summarize this everybody in the pod sheet as well so um you should be able to get that if you go to the show notes you'll be able to get it there or just go to our website amazingif.com so that you can kind of use what we've got here and design your own game so rules of the game um choice play on your own or play together with somebody else so we're not going to kind of mandate that if you do play together and you're playing a game then there's probably you're introducing an element of winner of the game i think you know if you're doing it with someone else that's kind of the outcome right of a game there is there is a winner um and i don't think you want kind of this idea of win a loser i don't think that's helpful in what we're talking about i think you kind of want win a learner um so the person that wins the game and they get the most points for the elements we talk about what their requirement is is to share kind of well how how do they win what do they do what do they do well so that everyone can learn from it so it's not win a loser it's kind of winner winner learner but you can play on your own or play together um we would say uh play for two weeks so we're going to go through all the elements we would say pick one game at once so just going to pick one element at a time and play for two weeks and for the first week you're just going to do your normal thing and collect some points which is what we'll talk about and then you are going to reflect on your score and how you can improve and then week two you're going to play it with some improvement try and try and beat your score basically and and you can use our games as a starter or you can make up your own that's that's the rules that's the rules so quite a lot of flexibility in there so we're going to go through some potential games that you could play uh and we'll talk about the ones that are more more appealing to us uh shall i go first go for it okay so i think the first game that you could play so a two-week game with yourself or as a team is to gamify your to-do list i like this one so um i think you can set your own target here but i started with aim for 20 points a week to unlock a reward what's the reward gonna be you choose You choose your own reward.

17:27You choose your own reward. Or I guess if you're doing this as a team, you could have a team award. I don't know, a delivery voucher for£10 or something. You can pick what you want, but pick a reward. So here's how you get points in my game of gamifying your to-do list. So every to-do list item that you tick off equals a point. So you kind of, I'll be motivated, but I've got to get my 20 points. Got to keep ticking those off. Thinking about my list now and how many points I might have earned this week. and then a special one that gives you double points is you get double points for every tick you do before 10 a.m and so this is to start your day I think if I think about my week I don't always start my my days with what is on my to-do list I often start with what is on somebody else's because I'll probably look at a message from you and you'll be like can you do this about yeah sure or I'll look at my emails and I think I need to reply to that person and actually the first thing I do is not start my day with what I want to do.

18:23And so I think if I knew I was going to get double points for anything that I did off my list before 10am, that would motivate me to put my list first. What are you laughing at? No, this was a point where I nearly stopped reading. When I read this one, I was like, I don't know if I even want to do this episode, to be honest. Do you have a to-do list? Not really. What do you do? Not in the way that I think you have a to-do list. I mean, I have a file of facts i know you have a file of facts because we spend enough time together that i know um uh i suppose i have a system in my inbox so as in like i flag things yeah so i know that everything that's flagged i need to there's an there's an action okay so sometimes i will obviously sometimes i'll just work work my way through those yeah and then yeah i do i sort of but not in a really systematic way yeah uh i also block i time block in my calendar so to-dos become actions in my calendar so for example if I need to write a proposal yeah I've not got to remember to do that because I will have put it doesn't go on a list it goes on your diary yeah my diary sort of is my to-do list yeah and it's yeah we often yeah we often have like a phrase don't we if it doesn't go in the diary it doesn't get done yeah and I think for me that's really true yeah so even for when was it um last Friday I was in Denmark and I'd got a couple of hours before I was flying home and I'd blocked out time for actions and if you went into that there was a list of things that needed to do with like the links or like yeah with that kind of extra notes and so I'm not I'm not sort of referring back to something else I'm like in that time this is the thing that kind of needs to get done um that's that's the way that I work and also I I think it was this idea of oh you need to get every tick before 10am is double points and I was like well if something is really important to me doing it before 10 a.m is not a good idea because my brain is not at its best okay pre pre 10 a.m yeah your argument back to me when we were arguing about this beforehand was discussing discussing it's okay it was okay to argue um you were like oh but it's good to it's good to start with a win right and I was like oh actually that you know it's a good point right creating kind of some momentum but I wonder whether you You know, when you're choosing like what to gamify, whether you choose something that you want to get better at.

20:40Whereas I go, oh, I don't want to get better at my to-do list. I don't need to get better at my to-do list. I think I've got a system that in the main works for me. So there's sort of no point of gamifying it. Whereas I think if you pick something that's not working well for you and it might be your to-do list, then actually there's you know like the motivation to gamify it is go back to your point about um it'll drive behavior it'll drive interest and engagement i think starting almost like with a frustration or a problem or something knotty yeah gives you more of an incentive to gamify if it's not your natural you might be like well i could do it on anything because i just enjoy like gamification okay so if it's not your to-do list then yeah uh what what would your game look like so you were given me some suggestions i think to try and find to try and find one what game would you play um and i you know the irony is in in sort of real games like i love a real game i don't love sports yeah i don't want to play an actual game with you yeah whereas you like what's really interesting is like i like to win a sports game i like to win a game of netball or play tennis or wheelchair basketball or wheelchair basketball which to be fair you were actually very good at um but i just yeah it's interesting like that kind of games i really enjoy yeah it just doesn't translate to this but the one that did appeal to me was gamifying my energy so we sometimes talk about prioritize your energy sort of rather than worrying about time management which I do find useful and it's not my starting point for this is not that it's a disaster but that I'm inconsistent and I know that when I get this right I am definitely better because of it like my brain is better I come up with better ideas and I'm happy I'm happier and I'm sparkier yeah but at the moment that varies quite a lot like kind of day to day and so here I thought um okay maybe you could have one point for a half an hour lunch break every day so if you like stop for half an hour and have a lunch break I also spoke to somebody um who told me they hadn't had a lunch break in five years it made me really sad um and she was talking about culture and um where she might want and just there was just she was so she's eating but she's eating in yeah you know just sort of and i i i do remember that i've definitely had that before but to never have a well you're feeling like you're basically kind of always like eating on the go or whatever and it's like you probably don't even need to be having i think for me it's less about having the lunch it's more about having a break yeah so i was but you could do you could say like a half an hour lunch break where i step away from my tech and uh you know people talk about like mindful eating yeah you actually you are focusing on like the food you're eating and you're enjoying it how many chews that's so we'll do that then i thought um like going for a walk um and maybe even things like walking meetings walking walking and talking yeah could be like two points yeah so one point for a lunch break two points for a walk if I was doing this um for myself mine would always be two points for starting my day with a walk okay my my day is always better if I've been for a walk first thing yeah and I've had that hasn't happened to me once this week I haven't been for a single walk um I haven't actually been for a single walk and I haven't been for a walk first thing in the day and so I go oh okay so I'll be on zero points so it helps you to be like okay well that's interesting and then maybe there is something about gamifying your energy without putting your devices down so stepping away from tech yeah and again that might just be that could be to read a book or like you know you said previously about not not messaging in the evening or not going on your phone in the evening yeah you could give like the six which i actually would find really hard yeah so maybe that's like five points yeah or triple or triple bonus points i don't know something thing um I I was reading yesterday somebody talked about ah it was James I think from Tempest 2 he's been on the podcast before I think it was James he said he couldn't remember the last time he'd had 24 hours or even like a day I think he said like without devices yeah so like no phone no screen and stuff so he was like I think it's been more than 10 years since yeah I didn't have devices so I'm just going to do it for one day um and I was like oh that's and I'm someone who thinks I'm quite good at you know getting rid of distractions not having notifications and that kind of stuff but I was like I can't remember the last time that sounds like a fun challenge and I was like maybe that would be like 50 points I don't know but then I get a bit like I'm like oh I sort of don't need a game to do these things I'm just I'm just don't talk yourself out of it I like the ideas I just don't need a game to help me to do the ideas what's going to be your reward at the end of the week when you you hit your your points yeah maybe this is part of my problem because I think the reward is the thing is that doing the thing is the reward for me yeah so actually if you said to me every day next week you will go for a walk before you start work that that's enough yeah I'm like brilliant that's that's what I want in my life the reward is I've done some things that are important to me yeah maybe gamifications help me but I don't need extra no i don't need i think i need rewards rewards work for me when things feel hard or i've got to do some tough things and then i think oh but then after that i'll get a treat be a nice one of the week to share like that you'd you'd stuck with that you'd start that game on monday and you'd yeah i can imagine you sharing that with a team and that would feel like yeah it's a positive thing to share with people so and i think this this is like okay to say i'm still not convinced that i would game of gamify it it's made me think more about oh but those things are important to me like and i and i believe in those things and it's really easy to let those things go you know to like forget about them so it helps you to sort of re like remind yourself and kind of refocus um but it didn't make it still didn't make me think i'm gonna i'm glad it no um let me share a couple of other ideas just see if any of these other ones might resonate with you um and for people that are maybe more well i don't want to say open to game occasion because it's not that you're not open to it it's just that it might not be well not everything's useful for everyone and that's i think that's okay so i guess for people that think it could be useful i suppose that's a better thing some other ideas um you could gamify your relationships so to sarah's point i think if you're feeling like you're maybe a bit isolated in your career or you know you're just talking to the same kind of people and you need something to motivate you to do something different gamifying your relationships could work um so these would be connection points and that could be two points for messaging someone you've not spoken to in a while three points for making introductions between people and five points for having a curious conversation so the only agenda is to learn oh i've done that this week so i get five points you get five i mean it's just you're just ad hoc playing a game now just collecting random points you're allowed who is your curious conversation with um someone in one of the partners that we work with who has been in her job for 18 months not worked in public sector before um it wasn't a chat about a program or something we're delivering it was more just what she'd noticed what we were working on it just felt really curious and exploratory nice okay and so maybe there's something there and also gamifying your learning so that feels kind of very i guess on brand for us and squiggly careers so this here would be like you know you're aiming for a streak a learning streak um so you could ask a particular question in a meeting so if in every meeting or every day you asked a maybe a who who else could we learn from maybe a who question or a why question they can feel quite hard to ask but i think you can learn yeah learn a lot from you get a point for those questions um you could read listen or watch something new every day nice i think you get quite a lot of points for doing that you know every morning yeah i read a chapter of a book this morning uh like did you instead of scrolling on my phone i was like right i'm gonna read a chapter I'm reading a book called How Not to Die.

28:38Oh, I've seen that. It's actually really good. It's actually quite positive. Why have I seen that? Oh, I think I saw that in the bookshop that we were in together in Boston. It's a very chunky book. There's a reason I need to do a chapter a day. It's really, really chunky. So afterwards you'll be able to tell us all how not to die. It's quite a negative title maybe. I don't know. But it's actually quite positive about nutrition. You could write down one thing you'd learned today. So you're sort of learning by reflecting. That gives you some points. And then when you get your streak, you can get a reward.

29:02Or perhaps your time. that could be another thing you could gamify. So I was thinking, here you're trying to get some friction fixes. That was how, if I was gamifying my time, I'd be like, how much friction am I fixing? So you could get some points for cancelling or shortening a meeting. And to get a bit of time back with two points for that. And delegate something that doesn't need you. Get a point for delegation. Saying no to something that isn't a priority. I think that might be a five pointer. Yeah, that's a good one. Actually, that's on my, the no. Actually, we've done a whole podcast on saying no.

29:32So if that feels like hard to do, because it could be not now, not yet, not me, all different ways that you could say no. But that could be some extra, extra points for that. I wonder if you could do it as a team where, because I think competing as a team is not great. I can't imagine that ever working. Yeah, competing doesn't feel like the wrong, the right term, I think. But what you could do is you could all say your own games, right? and you could be like i'm gonna give myself maybe there's like one point for this three points for this five points for this so everyone has a one three and a five yeah and then actually you just play your own everyone just plays their own game so i pick energy someone else picks learning you pick relationships or time so everyone sort of plays their own game but then what you could do is come back you know you could be like right and in a month's time we've got a team meeting and in that team meeting you're all going to share like your experience of playing the game how many points you got and then it is quite interesting to then hear from people what helped them to collect those points so you know you might find that people were slow to start but then they kind of got momentum or they started to remove friction you know just like some observations and some learning yeah I can I think that could be that's quite a good team reflection the other one I was thinking about when I was trying to think how might I ever do this is when we look at our sprints that we do lots of teams join those sprints yeah together and you get a badge at the end which i think people like getting but you're never doing it just for the badge i think that is sort of team gaming and i think i'd be most motivated by that because that's not oh i'm sprinting better than you it's we are sprinting together yeah um and i think i would be motivated it wouldn't work in our company because we're not big enough but if we're in like a big company you know if like our team was sprinting and then other teams were sprinting yeah and it was like how many learning minutes have you collected across a week as a team yeah I would want my team to win yeah and I would be like oh let's all do that together and you know it's sort of like a learning leaderboard and then you could be like back to your point well this team has done a particularly good job of learning but what what are they doing well that's helping them to do that how have they sprinted so well and we already do that right when we do these sprints we will often say to teams that have done it before what has worked well in your company spotlight don't mean yeah what got in the way have you set up a team's chat and those kind of things so you could you could gamify learning together also as a way of like keeping up momentum like sharing as you go i think i i can imagine i would be more up for joining a game as a team yeah actually than i would be doing it as an individual also just shout out to the sprint because they are ready made and ready to go and they're free and they're free and they're all on amazing if.com there's a whole page now with all the sprints that we have done so far what's our most popular the ai one uh squiggly skills times ai yeah that is our most we've had over 10 000 people do that sprint so and then we've got one on learn like a lobster yeah and then we've got a couple where we just these were the first ones that we did where we just chose 20 day sprints we were like oh critical thinking oh curiosity questioning um so again you could you can pick those but you can download everything and actually quite a lot of people have told me that they've done those in small groups, not even as a team, where just three or four of them from different teams have just said, oh, should we all do this together?

32:55And then that's really nice. And I think that's like gamifying your learning a bit, isn't it? So final review on the idea of gamification and its relevance to your work and career? So I don't think it's for me. And that's the end of the podcast. I don't think it's for me, but then I don't think I am reflective necessarily of everyone clearly because you and I are starting from such different places um and also you know all those things that you've described are really really popular you know like streaks and measuring things and they're popular for a reason so I don't feel the need to gamify things in my work but I do want to get better and so probably what it's made me think of more is just the like being intentional about the things that matter or where things are inconsistent um I just think I probably don't need the points thing yeah what I like is the actually I should try and go for a walk every morning because I know that really helps me or take a look like those sorts of things yeah I found useful I just don't need the game I don't think the game yeah so we would love to know what you think about this are you pro This is what I hope, guys.

34:33Terms apply. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic. 99 % of people are pro gaming. I'd love to know. Maybe we should put it in our newsletter. We should definitely get everyone to do a vote. Yeah. Like how, maybe like would you gamify your work? Yeah. I sort of want, I actually want quite a binary vote. but you're like, are you more Helen or are you more Sarah? Well, not that. Because that's a bit weird. No, but as in like the, can you imagine doing this?

35:09Yeah, can you imagine gamifying or not? If you've listened. Yeah, maybe we'll put some kind of thing in the newsletter for people. Or if you don't see it, that's because we've not worked out how to do it. We can't work out how to ask the question. And you can just email us your thoughts at HelenandSarah at squigglycareers.com. But thank you so much for listening. I have had lots of fun talking to you about this. Yeah, I've had lots of fun. So if nothing else, it's been fun. But we hope that it's been useful for you too. Thank you, everybody. I'm back with you again soon.

From the publisher

Are you a "track everything" person or a "just do the thing" person? In this episode, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from the world of gamification — and have a genuinely fun debate about whether it actually works for your career.

Helen comes in as a convert (she gamifies her sleep, her deep sleep, her exercise, her steps, and possibly her vegetables). Sarah comes in as a sceptic. What unfolds is an honest, practical exploration of when gamification helps, when it doesn't, and how to design a game that works for you — not one that makes you feel judged by an app.

🎯 What You'll Learn

– What gamification actually is and why it taps into some very human motivations

– Four games you could play at work right now — from your to-do list to your energy, relationships and learning

– Why the question to ask of any game is: does this make me feel more capable, or just more compliant?

– How teams can play together without it turning into an uncomfortable competition

– The rules of the game: how to design your own two-week experiment

📚 Resources Mentioned

The Big Think

Tim Harford's newsletter

Squiggly Careers Skills Sprints

For questions about Squiggly Careers or to share feedback, please email: helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com

Need some more squiggly career support?

1. Download our free career tools

2. Sign up for our Skills Sprints

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