Regulars here know that I have been running on a “gamification” system for about 2 and a half years now. This involves giving myself points for various activities that involve ‘producing’ or contributing to productivity in a day and then tallying a score at the end of the day.
In many ways, I put the system on hold for a couple of weeks as a test of how life would work without it during crisis mode. The simple answer – not very well. And I began thinking about why that was the case.
There was one obvious thing missing – I wasn’t exercising enough without the pressure and a change in geography meant I had thrown out my exercising routine but otherwise, overall productivity didn’t seem to suffer. 1 other thing did dip though – Happiness.
And, last Thursday, I finally stumbled on why that was the case. I realize what I missed most was the act of ‘closing the day’ i.e. tallying the score for the day, sending an email to my friend-coach to report the score for the day and thus shutting the day in my head. I was then ready for a quick bath (my trouble tree) and ready for what remained of the evening (i.e. end of day). This act of ‘closing the day’ compartmentalized the day in my head and I was ready to start the next day fresh and renewed. (Sometimes, the new day began a couple of hours after the old day closed but that almost never matters is what I have come to realize!)
I realized weekends had a similar effect. My ‘close the week’ task was sending my ‘Sunday Hello’ to framily. This email where I put together the biggest events of the week and often my biggest learnings from it signifies the end of the week in my head. When these systems are operational, I realize I live in day-tight, and then week-tight compartments where spills of worries and troubles are restricted by these boundaries.
Boundaries matter, a lot. A football game is no fun if there is no clear pitch. One would argue that the smaller the pitch, the more fun the game is thanks to the skill levels required to manoeuvre the ball around. Life isn’t any different.
2 and a half years into a system, I often forget why some things are done the way they are done. I just know they work well. But, a couple of weeks without these structures have taught me how and why they add immense value.
Big insight.
A Learning a Day 
