Why I'm Crazy about Gamification

Gamification describes the incentivization of people's engagement in non-game contexts and activities by using game-style mechanics. That’s Investopedia’s definition of the word, but let’s break it down in simpler terms.

It is a technique of changing everyday processes into games. Whether that be working out, your career, your studies or financial goals, gamification is an awesome way to make mundane life a little more exciting. I have personally used this strategy to motivate myself to reach new financial goals and keep track of my process. And because nobody likes staring at bland spreadsheets all day, I used the powerful mechanics of Notion to create one of my most advanced and ambitious projects yet last year: My Hustle Town Page.

If you were asking how gamification works in practice, then let me show you how the gamification of my finances looked like last year. I used Notion to create this income tracker template, because I just love the way I can design a page to my liking, but you could theoretically do this on paper too. The concept is simple: The more money I make, the higher my XP and level gets, and I move across the map.

The page has been enhanced with AI-generated text and images. I also drew my own little cover page here that I’m quite proud of.

I had a challenge running with Gopi, we were trying to make 100 000 euros in a year. Did we make it there? No, not really, but nevertheless, we learned an incredible amount about business and making money last year.

Gamification made that process more exciting by creating incentives, and also adding an element of healthy competition.

We are also working on a much bigger, much more ambitious gamification project, that covers not only income but self-development in general. If you share this newsletter with a friend, you can let us know and we will send the whole system over to you for free!

Gamification offers you a really interesting tool to motivate you and track progress, not only when it comes to income, but also for exercise, education, relationships and your career! So the next time you feel like you might need a little nudge in the right direction, consider gamifying an aspect of your life, and have fun playing the game!