I get sick of candy more quickly than I expected. The portion my machine emits (about a small handful) tends to stop motivating me after about 4 in a day.
Could you try using smaller candy?
if the reward is in the system, I tend not to wait very long before using it.
This seems OK to me. The reward should be instant, to create a better connection with the behavior you want to reward.
aside from my task list, what else can I connect to? Can I track note-taking in class? Can I set it up to reward continuing effort towards a task, like writing a few hundred words a day? Can I use it to create new, more rational habits?
I use my reward system for: exercising, getting to work early, avoiding sugar, avoiding web procrastination, meeting with people, taking an afternoon nap, writing blog articles, learning foreign languages, etc. And there is also an umbrella category for “other important stuff”, such as making an appointment with a dentist or fixing something at my home.
To prevent myself from replacing a difficult task with many easier tasks, some of these rewards have a limit of 1 per day. For example, I can only take 1 afternoon nap each day. Or I get 1 point for not eating sugar all day (rewards from the system are not included in this rule). For writing N blog articles I get N points, because honestly “writing too many blog articles at the same day” never happened to me. Somewhere in between is the exercise: I can get only 1 point per day for doing a “small exercise”, and then another 1 point in the same day for doing a “big exercise” too (5 times more difficult than the small one).
Note: My system does not include priorities and deadlines, so I don’t know how easy would it be to include this stuff in your system. And with more rewards you really need to use smaller candies. Or perhaps giving 1 candy per N points? Or giving a candy with probability 1/N? -- Instead of truly random numbers I would recommend an algorithm that would increase the probability; for the first point, you would get the candy with a probability 1/N, but if you don’t get it, the next point has a probability 1/(N-1), etc.; and if you get it, the probability is reset to 1/N again. (Truly random numbers don’t feel random to humans; we emotionally expect that after a few failures the probability of a success should increase.)
Meta: It is great that you describe what works and what doesn’t work. With enough articles like this, someone could make a review of motivational systems, describe the good and bad parts confirmed by many different systems, and make recommendations for people who want to create their own system.
The way the feeder is built, that wouldn’t really help. It dispenses a constant volume, not a set number of candies. I could try to reduce the dispensed volume further, but I think other techniques would be best to try first.
if the reward is in the system, I tend not to wait very long before using it.
This seems OK to me.
It’s not a problem except insofar as it interferes with some of the rules.
Or perhaps giving 1 candy per N points? Or giving a candy with probability 1/N?
These are the two big options I’m considering for next time. I’m leaning towards the “1 candy per N points” model, because that allows me to “gamify” the system with a big XP bar.
You could try “adulterating” the candy with something non-edible, like colored beads. It would fix the volume concerns, be easily adjustable, and possibly add a bit of variable reinforcement.
+1 Awesome!
Could you try using smaller candy?
This seems OK to me. The reward should be instant, to create a better connection with the behavior you want to reward.
I use my reward system for: exercising, getting to work early, avoiding sugar, avoiding web procrastination, meeting with people, taking an afternoon nap, writing blog articles, learning foreign languages, etc. And there is also an umbrella category for “other important stuff”, such as making an appointment with a dentist or fixing something at my home.
To prevent myself from replacing a difficult task with many easier tasks, some of these rewards have a limit of 1 per day. For example, I can only take 1 afternoon nap each day. Or I get 1 point for not eating sugar all day (rewards from the system are not included in this rule). For writing N blog articles I get N points, because honestly “writing too many blog articles at the same day” never happened to me. Somewhere in between is the exercise: I can get only 1 point per day for doing a “small exercise”, and then another 1 point in the same day for doing a “big exercise” too (5 times more difficult than the small one).
Note: My system does not include priorities and deadlines, so I don’t know how easy would it be to include this stuff in your system. And with more rewards you really need to use smaller candies. Or perhaps giving 1 candy per N points? Or giving a candy with probability 1/N? -- Instead of truly random numbers I would recommend an algorithm that would increase the probability; for the first point, you would get the candy with a probability 1/N, but if you don’t get it, the next point has a probability 1/(N-1), etc.; and if you get it, the probability is reset to 1/N again. (Truly random numbers don’t feel random to humans; we emotionally expect that after a few failures the probability of a success should increase.)
Meta: It is great that you describe what works and what doesn’t work. With enough articles like this, someone could make a review of motivational systems, describe the good and bad parts confirmed by many different systems, and make recommendations for people who want to create their own system.
The way the feeder is built, that wouldn’t really help. It dispenses a constant volume, not a set number of candies. I could try to reduce the dispensed volume further, but I think other techniques would be best to try first.
It’s not a problem except insofar as it interferes with some of the rules.
These are the two big options I’m considering for next time. I’m leaning towards the “1 candy per N points” model, because that allows me to “gamify” the system with a big XP bar.
You could try “adulterating” the candy with something non-edible, like colored beads. It would fix the volume concerns, be easily adjustable, and possibly add a bit of variable reinforcement.
That’s just what I was thinking—the association would be stronger if the reward were instant