Lesson Tokens

• Ready made stir fries and sauces not always up to my taste
• Make sure to clean the oven between uses especially if using it for meat  
• Nothing to measure if you've never done something before.
• Need interest (demand) first, then manufacturing 
• I am capable of cold calling a distributor to see if they are interested in working together.
• Don't expect that everyone will go with me, but concentrate on those who will. Could
  also measure the rate of reaction like a proper marketer would.
  
• When I don't pressure a result on myself I am more focused on work and solutions. Results happen as a bonus. Perhaps a review of the Epic Win should be in place 
• Imagine each event with an uncertain outcome as a pixel in a large mosaic, and looking for ways to understand(, see, complete?) it in the most effective way
• If anxious before such event, imagine the worst outcome I can come up with and become comfortable with it
• Try to learn from each new person rather than forcing my view on them 
• Keep the path to the goal short
• Don't undervalue myself, believe in myself - otherwise I take longer routes or feel bad about taking money for goods and service that really bring value to the customer.
• Facebook ads require several weeks of testing and an extensive budget to be able to choose the best ad variant
• Always run a test of concept before investing time and money into producing i. Facebook is a good platform for it because it's cheap.

Cooking Fail today

Bought ready made veggie stir fry and a sweet and sour sauce for it, cooked some noodles, but it was too spicy, too sweet and generally not very good.

Chicken legs are in the oven so perhaps will get a point for cooking those later, but +1 for doing the stir fry and nothing for cooking it. I should revise this though - I have cooked, I have DONE it, so I should get the point.

This will be placed in the new rules.

Lesson learned: Ready made stir frys and sauces not always up to my taste.

Core Game Design

The game needs a core design, and as I play it I learn more about myself and about what motivates me and helps me do more.

The rules as they are keep changing by means of additions, but what I'm looking for is a design of a workflow that helps witgh decision making for that extra push along the way.

Lesson learned

Adding a new metric: Lesson Learned.

Cooking +1 - preparing dinner together with my Other Half

Life Force +1 - Was using the oven and something started buring. Had to turn it off and vent the entire flat. Instead of giving up, I cleaned up the oven from a coal like burned fat and reset the dish.

Lesson Learned: make sure to clean the oven between uses especially if using it for meat

Using my Life Force superpower

Today for some reason I have lost access to all my websites and hosting control panel.

I've contacted support and now have to wait for them to sort it out. I could still do some work on my wife's machine but it's late now. I've done all I could for now. If this is not resolved by tomorrow I'll use a different machine but for now +1 Life Force for facing adversity.

I believe there is another superpower that I can add to the list and that is resourcefulness. I've fired up my other machine that usually keeps playing up and this time it is working. It's good to have a few. +1 resourcefulness.

By the way, all this is me working on a different project not listed as a quest yet, but it's related to this blog. Not telling anything else for now, it's a surprise.

Levelling up!!

Yes! I've levelled up in doing and networking and also earned a point in creativity!

Completed bonus mission in Quest 1 - side competition with the local community, and it's already producing results!

I'm totally excited, euphoric almost but not showing it, but that's just me.

Fantastic!

Practicing my superpowers

Course plotted! I took a side mission at my first quest. It will help with the business exposure. A friend has a Facebook group of locals (+1 networking) and he will post a message for us. It will be a small competition to drive local traffic to our Facebook page.

I've delegated

A small but mundane data entry job to a friend and he helped me with 80% of it, so got very little left of it, +1 delegating for me.

Also, mission accomplished! Quest 1, bonus mission 2 complete, form sent off, now waiting for some response I guess and there is a couple of small things to do and of course admin and accounting follow up. I don't even know what I get for this, but +1 doing for sure.

Level 1 for doing, as this is a completed mission.

Making my own decisions is hard

I find that a challenge for me is making my own decisions.

There is no end to the internal debates and this fuels procrastination. I've been deciding on one element of the photography thing for my wife for two years... says all.

How can this game motivate me? I need something exciting, cool, really rewarding, silly, whatever you call it. What will it be: a Mega Power Up, a Superpower - Course Plotting, yes, the name is terrible, but says it all

Added:

Once the mission is available/assigned it needs to be executed. I currently feel no pressure and the completion drags out in time. At my day job, my pressure is called the Manager + chance of losing the job. I've never/rarely put deadlines on my goals (in other words S.M.A.R.T was missing th "T")
AAAARGH! The pain of making up my mind!

This game will give me all the motivation I need, and so the challenge is in its design.

No problem speaking to the distributor today

It was a bit of a back and forward with the distributor today as first I couldn't speak to them because I was on the road, and then they couldn't pick up their phone, but finally we spoke, and there was no nervousness present, +1 courage though and +1 doing.

Now it's a matter of meeting the right person and hopefully this will move forward.

Friday is quest 1 day...

update: more going back and forward with the distributor and my one client so far. This is up to them now, and it may take until second part of September until these two sort things out. In the mean time I need to start looking for other distributors as well. Or clients, or both, or marketing to clients so that distributors take notice. I don't like this as it means less clarity and faffing about with ideas instead of doing things.

Much easier today

When I started typing the phone rang and it was the distributor. Expecting another phonecall later today or tomorrow.

I get +1 courage because I phoned earlier and left a message and +1 for keeping cool on the phone when she rang.

Phew, job done for now, I can do other stuff for now...


edit 4pm: +1 doing. I've tidied up a messy cable by nailing it to the wall.... small thing, took a few minutes to complete, but I would have procrastinated ad infinium.

Sh*****g my pants today

Quest 2: Mission 3: There has been no reply from the distributor, so I phoned the contact I had, and asked for the sales rep phone number +1 for courage and +1 for doing. Then I phoned the sales rep twice, but only voice mail came up. I don't like to leave voice mail; it's better to speak in person, +2 courage. I was nervous, but easier with each phone call. After this mission is over my courage level will be up by one - it gets easier, but I am pushing my limit of comfort, therefore I deserve the level up.

Quest 1: Mission 3: I phoned the charity rep to make an appointment to meet together with my wife who will obviously be taking the photos. They need to meet each other, as I am hoping this will allow her to contact the charity rep on her own in the future. The other reason for the meeting is to find out if he has a contact in the local gallery. This is a bonus mission to number 3: if the gallery gets involved, we will gain more credibility with the headmasters, and the kids will have another reason to join. +1 for doing definitely as I wouldn't be able to meet with him without making this phone call. On Friday I will be able to add +2 for networking.

A little bit of living

I did my groceries yesterday and made a veggie and chicken stir fry - yum: +1 cooking, +1 doing. Today, I spent a lot of time teaching myself to make soy alternative to minced meat. Lots of work, but I think they came out alright. +1 cooking, +1 doing. Also Magda changed the living room around and I finally improved the cable mess behind her desk. There's more room for improvement still, but I don't know how to do it yet. The fact that I did it lets me add another point for doing, because I was supposed to have done it ages ago...

Options for rolling it out to multiple users

Everyone creates their profile on which they run their thread of the game. Other users are encouraged to view the threads and provide accountability and motivation to the thread owner.

Some tool ideas for achieving this:

Facebook group

Facebook app

Android / iPhone app

forum

social networking community

The why

At this stage of development the method is for proving the concept for me personally.

• to motivate to reach my goals
• to add meaning, purpose to otherwise unexciting areas of life
• to beat procrastination
• to build a success bank to draw upon
• to get a bigger sense of achievement

For the "multi player" version, there is an added list of "whys"

• get external motivation (supplied by other players - their support)
• motivate others to grow your reputation (points, levels, the whole lot)
• work with others and grow your reputation (same as above, all measurable, sort of like feedback on eBay)
• to encourage collaboration
• to encourage doing through positive feedback
• to achieve greater good

Added 29th August 2010:
To receive +1 in living is to realise a dream, make an idea into a reality, challenge oneself (or others) and achieve.

Why not?

I've cooked something

Actually it was a failure. +1 for doing it though, nothing for cooking this time.

+1 for doing - I've updated the budget sheet. The goal is to find savings in my budget and to know what I'm spending where.

Rules

Doing points are given for beating procrastination

Networking points are for asking to be introduced, organising together with another business or person

Courage points are given for doing something "scary", uncomfortable, pushing my limits

Delegating points are there because I used to do everything on my own and this pushed my limits and will allow me to grow

Level ups upon completing missions.

What is NOT doing:

• checking email
• reading
• watching videos

Superpowers: We all posses superpowers that make us into supermen (and women;), and some of these are:

Course Plotting: We need to navigate through the stormy waters of life and often make decisions, set waypoints on our path. The moment we make a decision about our course in life we make use of this power and with each use it grows stronger.

Urgency: When a waypoint is set, we have a glimpse of where we're going, therefore we must make haste (but not headlong) towards it. waste no time and thus give ourselves a chance to complete our quest faster. The more we use this power the faster we realise our dreams.

Life Force: Often along our journey there are things that want to slow us down or throw off course, unexpected. These adversities give us a chance to use the Life Force superpower which allows us to push through adversity and often change it into an opportunity.

Resourcefulness: Ability to find an alternative solution when we're not able to use the one planned previously.

Quests - current

Current quest worked on offline

8th August 2010

+1 Doing for starting this blog
+1 Creativity for coming up with the name of this blog.

Score will be kept in the first post. It would be nice to keep that post on top, but I don't know how here. I know it can be done in Wordpress, but this will be fine for now. There is a link to the first post in the right hand tab.

The reason for this blog is to create a success bank to draw upon, battle procrastination by using a reward system and promoting this approach to other would be entrepreneurs out there so that they can pitch in and help build this into one giant social enterprise. We (well I for now) will create rules as I go.

The Old Score Card

This score card is now defunct as of 05 September 2010


As of 29th August 2010

+14 Doing Level 3
+2 Creativity Level 0
+6 Networking Level 1
+2 Delegating Level 0
+6 Courage Level 0
+3 Cooking Level 0
+1 Keeping Cool Level 0

Lesson Learned +2

Superpowers I posses:

Course Plotting +5

Urgency +1


Life Force +2

Resourcefulness +1