I Gamified Procrastination!!
Everyone puts tasks off sometimes but as of 2010 almost 20% people in the US are chronic procrastinators [1]. It affects their daily lives, their long/short term goals and sometimes even relationships. So to make it fun, I decided to gamify doing household chores with minimum procrastination.
Intended Users & Context
People suffering from chronic procrastination that need help with making their household chores more interesting in order to get them done. The game requires only few seconds of players’ time everyday throughout the week, as we don’t want to inspire more procrastination with long term game sessions.
Investigate and Describe the Current Phenomena
As Author and blogger Tim Urban puts it, a procrastinator’s brain is driven by “the instant gratification monkey” [2] which sidelines the rational decision maker and takes charge. And when the deadline (or other triggering event) is nearby, the “panic monster” shows up and the monkey runs away, leaving poor rational decision maker to take care of things fast and effectively.
There are four types of procrastination-
● Decisional- relates to delay in making decisions that are bound by a time frame [3].
● Behavioral- is about delaying tasks to protect vulnerable self esteem [3].
● Arousal — the delays motivated by “last-minute” thrill of getting things done [4].
● Avoidant — the delay related to fear of failure or even success [4].
Ways to deal with procrastination:
1. Effective time management [5,6]
2. Set reminders [6]
3. Productive environment [5]
4. Setting realistic goals
5. Positive self-talk [6]
6. Start small [5]
7. Plan ahead for obstacles [5]
8. Get help from friends and family [6]
9. Create a rigid reward system to stay away from impulsive instant gratification [5,6]
10. Learn to forgive oneself [5]
With the combination of some or all of the above actions one can control bouts of procrastinations and be more productive.
Game Mechanics
Let’s consider a week’s task in a person’s life. For the sake of this game, I created a persona - Lazy Lucy. She is a young working woman who lives alone and is in a relationship, has her family living far away from her. She does her own cooking, groceries, cleaning the house, etc. She generally meets up with her boyfriend and friends on weekends.
So her list of chores for a regular week:
● Cooking breakfast /Dinner [Everyday]
● Doing the dishes [Everyday]
● Laundry [Weekend]
● Groceries [Weekend]
● Cleaning the house [Weekend]
● Meeting friends [Weekend]
● Unexpected tasks- car/house maintenance, extra preparations for a party/festivals [When need arises]
Figure shows 8 kinds of chore cards- dishes, groceries, cooking, laundry, cleaning, meeting friends, repairs, party/festival preparations.
Now let's divide the ten ways to control procrastination (that we saw earlier) into 3 parts.
Correct actions cards earn you points based on the solution categories. Incorrect actions make one lose points according to categories. Whenever the player performs any of the action in real life (correct or incorrect), she is supposed to draw its corresponding card from the stack and group it with the chore cards (based on which chore the action was related to). At the end of the game i.e. after completing one whole week, points will be counted. Each week the player has to compete with herself to do better than before. Dividing action cards on chores will help the player realize which kind of jobs bring out more procrastination related behaviour than others. It will help them deal with bigger issues than just household chores, in the long run.
How will it help solve the stated problem?
The game aims to achieve a two part goal. First part is inspiring players to do household chores by gamifying them. The point system is designed to encourage players do get chores done on time in order to get high scores. And it will also keep motivating them to top their own scores from previous weeks. The second part of the goal is to help player explore deeper issues regarding their procrastination habit. Such as which kind of work they avoid the most (clearing out, rearranging, compartmentalization, etc.). Also the game tries to help them assess three major ways of dealing with procrastination- internal/external/planning based solutions. So the player can clearly see where their strengths and weaknesses lay.
Resources:
[1] http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/04/procrastination.aspx
[2] http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html
[3] Joseph R. Ferrari, Dysfunctional Procrastination and its relationship with self-esteem,
interpersonal dependency and Self-defeating behaviours.
[4] Jean O’Callaghan, Ian Newbegin, 2005 — Prevalence of Procrastination in the United States,
United Kingdom and Australia: Arousal and Avoidance delays among Adults.
[5] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240262
[6] http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-procrastination.html
