Stay Motivated with Productivity Bingo

It’s national bingo day! While I enjoy this game (especially when played for gift baskets), I’ve recently started using the setup of bingo to develop healthy habits and achieve daily progress toward my writing goals, and beyond!

I refer to this system as “Productivity Bingo”. Which is basically me gamifying my to-do list while building a foundation of micro-habits.

“The secret to getting results that last is to never stop making improvements.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

In simplest terms, I have created a personalized bingo card with a different task in each square, and my goal is to check off as many as I can.

How productivity bingo works

To start, I created a list of at least 24 tasks (+ a free space). These are micro-tasks such as tidying up or reading non-fiction for 15 minutes, essentially things I’d like to do every day.

Many of these tasks can take anywhere between 3 to 30 minutes to complete. But I stress the importance of having simplified and clearly defined tasks. If something is too tiresome, lengthy, or ambiguous, you’ll probably notice that the task is most frequently left undone.

Once I had my list created, I copied it into a Bingo card generator that provided a randomized card for each day of the month. I had over 24 items on my list, so each day differed on which tasks appeared on the card. (Note a 5×5 grid make a traditional bingo card, but your grid can be any size)

The goal is then very simple, try to get a bingo! Then reward yourself when you do.

I used this Free Bingo Card Generator to make my cards!

Pro tip: have different levels of rewards for achieving bingos. Smaller treats or points for individual bingos and a bigger incentive for getting a full card or achieving a certain number of points. My current full card prize is buying a new book!

Why it strengthens productivity

I used a quote from Atomic Habits in the intro of this post and found the advantages similar to using this bingo system.

In the book, James Clear defines four key components that work to form habits that people stick to. These are: Make it obvious, Make it attractive, Make it easy, and Make it satisfying. Productivity Bingo compliments each of these components while providing an easy-to-use resource. 

Instant gratification of habit tracking

Does anyone else sometimes add items they’ve already done to their to-do list just so they can cross them off? Checking off boxes feels good, and the visual reminder of completing a task gives us the brain-chemical warm and fuzzies.

Our brains are coded to prioritize instant gratification. Because our goals often have longer end results, i.e. write a book, lose weight, or learn a language, it’s easy not to see the impacts of a daily habit.

Checking off a bingo is a form of habit tracking that gives immediate gratification. Because this system is gamified, it provides opportunities for “winning.” This gives you those feelings of achievement as you work towards a larger, more time-consuming, goal.

Habit tracking meets rewards

It’s immediately gratifying to cross off a completed task, but an actual reward provides an additional incentive. Obviously, a job done and done well is great, but an extra dollar in a jar for a splurge item is a great motivator.

Having a reward or a treat in place will give your brain a positive response and will further help you want to adopt these healthy habits daily.

There are plenty of small rewards to choose from, like snacks or candy, a massage, a shopping trip, or a book purchase to name a few. You can also write rewards on slips of paper and pick one at random each time you “win.”

It makes it easy on you!

Establishing a routine can be difficult because of the single question, where do I get started? I’ve always been an avid to-do list creator, but even my best list had to be generated at the start of the day.

It’s difficult to think of everything you want or need to get done in a single day. Pulling tasks out of the ether can cause decision fatigue. But with the bingo card system, your tasks are already created and ready at the start of the day.

Note: one of my bingo tasks is to write a to-do list. I like this because some of my tasks are general and repeatable, so I use my to-do list to define the specifics and details I need to get the task done. However, there’s a such thing as too many lists. If you find yourself so busy making lists that you hardly complete anything else, I’d suggest scaling back.

How I’ve benefitted

After starting to play productivity bingo, it’s helped me stay consistent with daily habits. A big reason is because of the incentives and reminders for different tasks.

It helps with decision fatigue, by giving me a menu of things to do instead of leaving it out in the open. And since the cards are pre-generated, I don’t have to think about it at the start of each day, I can just dive in!

I’m easier on myself for days I don’t do as well. If I don’t have many boxes checked, I can still look at my list and see that I’ve done at least one thing.

Tips for success

Make it Realistic

With productivity bingo, the secret lies within the tasks that you set for yourself. These should be well thought out and realistic. Let me repeat the importance of a realistic task. If it’s too big or takes too long, the task will be too daunting.

Clarity is important as well. If the task is too vague, that could also lead to not completing it since we might not know where to get started.

Break down larger goals

For longer or larger goals, I’d break it down into smaller increments that fill up multiple boxes.

For example, I’d love to try exercising for an hour every day, but that might not be the most achievable. Signing off on a full hour feels like a pretty big commitment. Instead, I added four tasks on my bingo sheet to “exercise for 15 minutes.” That way I’m getting a greater sense of accomplishment by completing a larger task, but am not penalizing myself if I don’t hit a full hour.

Make it repeatable

Since this method works nicely with building micro-habits the more repeatable the tasks, the easier it will be. You might even find you start habit stacking as you develop a routine and one task naturally prompts another task.

By using productivity bingo, I began to stretch each morning and always followed it with a quick meditation. Now those two habits are linked and I find I naturally go into my meditative head space when I start my morning stretching.

It’s okay to be flexible

It’s okay to bend a bit on how you define task completion. One of my tasks is to write 500 words, but sometimes I might be in an editing phase. Instead of writing 500 new words, I spend roughly the same amount of time editing and still cross off the writing task. The relevancy works, and “casting votes” for a productive habit is more important than getting lost in the minutia.

You might see rises and falls in your task completion, and that’s okay. I know I have specific days of the week where I am more productive and days where I get nothing done. The beauty of the Bingo card is that it’s something that can be pulled out and easily used. And while maintenance of a habit can prove most beneficial, there’s no direct penalty for not completing a bingo or skipping a day.

Ideas for bingo tasks

Remember to keep tasks simple. These should be things you’d like to try and do once a day. They should be manageable and they shouldn’t take too much of a time commitment. For some tasks, you may want to set a specific time goal.

Use your judgment on what’s most achievable for YOU!

It’s more important when creating your card to choose tasks that can realistically be completed. Also, I created my card as a daily challenge, because I wanted my tasks to be things that work into daily micro-habits. But there’s nothing stopping you from creating a weekly or monthly card.

Productivity bingo is a great tool to help you practice setting realistic goals, build healthy habits, and visually celebrate your accomplishments. Why not try to smash your to-do list by making a game out of it? It’s supposed to be fun!

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