Background
One morning I was quite bewildered by my own inability to concentrate on the tasks that pay my bills, and so instituted a fantastic game with Marty. We raced our tasklists to 6pm—wacky fun!
I would like to hybridize CrossFit and the search for true productivity. I don’t know what I’d call it yet, but it seems like it could have wonderful possibilities. A “workout of the day” has very interesting possibilities, if it’s something people with very different tasklists are able to do across the board. (Some sort of tasklist challenge that almost anyone can take advantage of? Half done by noon? All done by noon? An item done every two hours on the dot?)
The opportunity for trash talk seems like it might be delightful. Even better if more than two people could play at once. Tasklists and times could be posted in a common area. Trash talk can be accomplished using Twitter. Warfare can be accomplished by seeing how much you can distract other players with YouTube links without sabotaging your own workflow…
Possible Variations!
Tasklist Race, by the hour: Every hour Marty and I pause what we’re doing and compare what we’ve gotten finished in the last hour. We are technically racing against ourselves—to get the most possible work done in a single hour, the way CrossFit encourages participants to do the most possible pushups or row the most possible meters, etc. Comparing every hour also lets us gauge how successful the other person has been so far, and lets us compete in our success rates and personal best. This is a BLAST.
Anybody Task Race: There are three categories of tasks: Tasks only I can do, tasks only Marty can do, and tasks that either of us could do. In this game, we compete to see who can do more of the “either” tasks over the course of the day. If I can get 51% of the “either” tasks done before Marty, I get something cool. The percentage I reach above 50% should determine my prize. 51% is good. 78% is amazing. 100% means Marty rolled a one, so something bad happens to him. (KIDDING.)
Questions…
Q. In some cases, this would need to be tempered to the particular variety of tasks that need to be performed, and only worked well (in our case) because we are familiar enough with each other’s workload that we knew what tasks on my end might compare, time-and-effort-wise, with tasks on his end. Folks who don’t know each other would definitely need to use the honor system or compete primarily with themselves. For instance, I might make a tasklist that SEEMS to match yours in time and effort, but without a real understanding of the work you do, I might be completely off-base (and you might have no way of knowing, if you don’t understand what I do).
This blueprint is unfinished. Do you know of something similar that already exists? Do you have know-how that could apply to putting this together? Do you have suggestions or additional information? Please email me!
