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Be honest. You’re burning out with the flood of daily emails, scheduled meetings, and looming deadlines. But you can regain your motivation and boost your professional growth by gamifying your career path! From leveling up by upskilling to awarding yourself badges, a gamified experience will transform how you perform.
What’s Gamification?
In his book, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education, Karl Kapp explains that gamification involves using elements that are game-like and fun to enhance learning and engagement. It can change how you approach tasks and excite you to “play” your way to the next level in your career.
Besides increasing motivation, there are other benefits of gamifying how you work. These include increased productivity and overall job satisfaction, as well as improved teamwork. It also makes tasks more enjoyable.
How to Apply Gamification at Work?
Explore these gamification ideas to fast-track success in all areas of your professional growth, regardless of your industry.
1. Set your objectives.
The first step to gamifying work is clearly defining your goals. Be specific and find a way to track your progress. For instance, if your objective is to get promoted, zero in on the requirements for your dream job. Don't just meet your current organization’s expectations. Instead, identify and work on gaining skills that go beyond what your current position requires. One day, they’ll recognize that there’s no better person for the role than you.
2. Choose your game elements.
Boost your professional growth by adding game elements like badges, points, and levels. Imagine setting up a system where completing tasks on time earns you points. Accumulating points can earn badges, like "Efficiency Expert," for consistent performance. As you gather more points, you move up levels from "Newcomer" to "Veteran." This system helps you visualize your progress and motivates you to achieve more.
3. Design your game system.
Think about your favorite game. If you enjoy role-playing games (RPGs) like Fallout, you can take on different roles (personas) within projects to explore new skills or areas of interest, just like choosing character paths in RPGs. Then break down projects into smaller, mission-like tasks (your quests!) with specific objectives.
When designing your game system, find one that’s best suited for you. If you’re designing one for your team, inventory each member’s strengths and weaknesses to yield a higher chance of winning.
4. Play the game to win.
Finally, you’ve reached the fun part. People play games to blow off some steam or take their minds off daily stresses. If your job is a source of stress, gamifying your career path may be what you need to challenge yourself and boost your engagement at work.
Can’t seem to satisfy a client? Make it a quest. Gather "intelligence" about your client's history, preferences, and past feedback. Each piece of information earns you points. Then, propose solutions or strategies as "missions" to address their needs. Each successful mission earns you rewards, such as "Client Whisperer" badges or leveling up in client management skills.
Gaming Tools and Resources
If you’re struggling with managing your deliverables, try gamified productivity apps like Habitica. This turns your daily tasks and to-do lists into a role-playing game, where you can earn rewards and level up a character by completing real-life tasks and goals.
Choose Asana if you’re applying the gamified experience to your team. While primarily a project management tool, it also incorporates gamification elements such as task completion celebrations and milestone tracking, helping teams stay motivated.
Finally, power up with the ultimate boost from Go+99, so nothing can stop you from reaching boss levels. With it, you can choose GoWORK to access data on your favorite apps like Teams, Zoom, Yahoo Mail, and more. Then, add the GoPLAY10 booster to indulge your passion for gaming. Think of your professional growth as any other skill. To reach your end goal, you need to put in the work. In the gaming realm, starting the game is not enough. Keep playing it until you crack the code and win.
