Well hello there, Reader!

Last week, my husband baked a sheet of brownies for himself to use as rewards while redoing our downstairs bathroom. 🚽

It was a large task—the whole half-bath needed to be gutted right down to the cement foundation. But by breaking it up into small tasks (with a brownie reward), it’s something he can accomplish mostly on his own.

Where’d he get the idea to do such a thing?

Some self-help guru?

A YouTuber?

A genius wonderkin?

Nope. Games. He’s a gamer. And he’s just applied the micro achievement and reward system games use to real life. A principle better known as Gamification.

So instead of thinking, “I have to redo the whole bathroom.”

You reframe it as, “I have to put in the floor tiles today to earn my brownie.”

And your “brownie” could be anything. Maybe it’s a baked treat or your favorite meal. Maybe it’s watching an episode of a TV show or reading the next chapter of a book.

One of my friends even has a real prize wheel. Every time she writes 10K words, she gets to spin it to see what fabulous prize she’s won for herself.

Using micro achievement rewards, a seemingly daunting task like “writing a novel” or “editing your book” instead becomes “write a thousand words today” or “edit 2 chapters.”

And let’s not forget the hidden bonus of this, it takes something that often feels like a slog through mud and instead casts you as a Legendary Character on some important quest.

So if you’re currently up against a difficult challenge, Reader, whether it’s writing your first (or 10th) book, or cleaning out the garage. Why not give micro-achievement rewards a try?

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Well until next time, Reader, this is your friendly neighborhood storytelling Kat wishing you a wonderfully creative week.

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Your cohort in storytelling,

Kat Vancil

🐱

PS 👉 In case you missed it, Reader, I’ve reached my own milestone today. This email is Quest 100!

Your reward for completing this quest (reading this email) is my husband’s brownie recipe. Even the gluten-free ones taste great, and I don’t even like GF food.

​Recipe Page 1​

​Recipe Page 2

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