Motivation in general

There are plenty of books about motivation. How to motivate yourself and others. We give ourselves something we like after finishing a difficult task. It can be a chocolate bar or an hour of video gaming. We try to motivate our employees with many benefits: free healthcare, informal Fridays, pizza days, in-house conferences etc. At the beginning it works quite fine, but as we go the effects are weaker and weaker.

Motivation can be intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation occurs when we don’t need external stimuli to get up and do what we planned to. We find those activities enjoyable, fun and exciting. In opposite extrinsic motivation pushes us to do certain things because we want to achieve what comes after. Win an award, scholarship etc.

Motivation and gamification

Gamification concept comes from video games industry. The whole idea is to improve user engagement in specific context. It can be video games, learning (Coursera,Udacity), working (Call Center). Now even Visual Studio IDE has it implemented (ref) - so even programmers are affected!

Most research confirms that gamification works.

I feel watched by Big Brother

Although gamification works, it is still an extrinsic motivator.

Tracking progress

What helps me to be motivated in the long run is tracking the activity progress. Leaving the office with thoughts in mind, that I made progress today, is one of the best feelings. This keeps me really motivated. I feel my work was not a waste of time. I can also make plans for future steps in the project. I just see the progress!

On the flip side, no progress is a great demotivator. When we are stuck with a silly compiler error and we waste whole day to find a typo in code… We want just to go home and forget about today.

A similar pattern arises when we wait for something, e.g. holidays. We are getting more excited and energized when the due date is closer.