motivation.jpg

10/25/2021 - This piece of paper on my fridge right now is as powerful as any motivation app on the market. You could easily make your own for free. My 10-year-old son made this one. It shows our combined progress on a challenge to do pushups for 28 days. He's the black dot, I am red.

Here's some of the amazing features of this app:

  1. ⚠ It prompts me to do it - I see the fridge all day, so this is better than an app notification. Prompts work in getting people do to things that they don't want to do. It's too easy to forget the unpleasant.
  2. 🥂 Better with a buddy - Exercise partners (AKA accountabilibuddies) work. Two dots makes this app a social network. (University of Aberdeen. "A new exercise partner is the key to exercising more." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 October 2016)
  3. 📍 KISS - It's a simple, clear, goal with specific start and end dates. The easiest way to achieve goals is to set achievable goals.
  4. 💪🏻 It's empowering - We write the dots. And “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” -Peter Drucker
  5. 📈 Streaks work - Hat tip to Jerry "Don't Break the Chain" Seinfeld and LifeHacker (https://tinyurl.com/24pcmthv). Once we had just a few dots, it hurts to not keep getting dots.

Some bonus motivators: posting this goal publicly and planning a fun dinner when we finish.

This might all seem obvious and somewhat rudimentary, but every single product out there is trying to change behavior in some way. It's always valuable to look your product and ask what intentional tactics is it actually employing to change behavior? If there aren't some intentional techniques to be seen, meh results will follow.

This is not an academic paper, but here are some sources that support the science behind these techniques: