July is motivation bingo month

Yes, it’s already July 20th– where has the month gone? But just this week I discovered that both my workplace and my yoga studio are doing a kind of motivation bingo.

Gamification of tasks is a tried-and-true way of making otherwise dull jobs more interesting, and also can help us focus on goals by offering us incentives, an element of competition, and rewards for completion. The idea of a bingo card for tasks is simple but brilliant (in my humble opinion).

• The tasks or challenges are laid out clearly
• You have choices about which tasks to do, and in what order
• There’s a reward after doing a certain number of them (yelling BINGO! and of course little prizes)
• At the end of the game, you’ve done a bunch of tasks, which is probably good

Here’s a mood-boost bingo card my workplace sent out last week. They used some campus-specific tasks, but you could adjust it for your own environment.

My yoga studio– Artemis in Watertown, MA– is doing a summer yoga bingo game. My friend Norah is on the case in a serious way. Here’s their yoga bingo card:

Norah and I went to Good Harbor beach in Gloucester yesterday with our friend Nina, and Norah regaled us with her strategies. She thinks she can get 5 classes in this week, which, if she plans it right, will cover many spaces. Each bingo she gets puts her in a raffle to win yoga swag. But I think it’s the thrill of the chase and the triumph of hitting those bingos that makes it fun. She already loves yoga and our studio (as do I), but this focuses the attention and reawakens the worthy competitor in her.

And, I admit, it’s doing the same for me. I just found out about this yesterday, but I’m in. I’m signing up for a restorative class this afternoon, thus giving me two spots- weekend class plus restorative class. Who knows where I’ll go from there… 🙂

Hey readers: have you/are you in the midst of any motivator bingo games? What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.