Let’s play. 🙂
One little bit of trivia about me: I LOVE bingo cards. I have never played or seen anyone play actual bingo before but that did not stop bingo cards from becoming both a source of joy and the saviour of my productivity. I have fond memories of making very questionable bingo cards that I still keep track of and due to which I technically owe my friend a trip to somewhere in Africa. We are still debating the semantics.
But I’m close to getting 3 minor wishes back, mwahaha..
But that’s a story for another time. My point is, what started off as a dark joke for when life crumbles ended up becoming a primary productivity tool. I use it for keeping track of personal goals or bucket lists, as a game between friends, and most importantly as a means of gamifying tasks. Here’s how.
After the original dark future bingo cards, I eventually turned specific weekly or monthly tasks/goals into bingo cards. Unfortunately, while great in theory, they have never worked for me because I change my priorities or task content way too often. Sometimes life just gets in the way. Sometimes (most often) I cannot actually accurately predict how long something is going to take and I stress myself out over it. I tried filling in vague stuff to account for that but that didn’t work.
Then back in January 2024 I had a brilliant idea. I’m not claiming the idea is original or mindblowing, but its brilliance comes from being such an easy and obvious solution. Why not just keep a BLANK bingo task card? A timed Fill-In Bingo. Hear me out.
- Start with a blank card of any dimension (3×3, 5×5, 10×10, does not matter).
- Number the squares at random (optional, but I like using the numbers to make sure I fill in random squares in the next steps).
- Decide your personal rule(s) for what goes on the bingo (INCLUDING timespan stuff*).
- In my case, I considerably struggle with perfectionism-induced or fear-induced procrastination. Thus, whenever I start actively avoiding tasks for such reasons, I tell myself it can go on the bingo if I push through and finish it.
- This, of course, requires you to be honest with yourself and not fake procrastination. The struggle must be real. It works for me since I’m a horrible liar and too aware when I’m full of shit.
- *I tend to just make monthly Fill-Ins, so the task must be completed anytime during the current month. If not, it goes on the next month’s bingo.
- For longer term projects, you can just set a longer period for your bingo or write down the project steps you’ve completed. I do the latter for big or difficult projects because it’s more motivating to work on them and get several achievements than to work my ass off for one single square.
- In my case, I considerably struggle with perfectionism-induced or fear-induced procrastination. Thus, whenever I start actively avoiding tasks for such reasons, I tell myself it can go on the bingo if I push through and finish it.
- Finally, do your thing. Whenever you get something that can go on the bingo, find a random spot for it.
- You can use a random number generator to pick a random square if you numbered them. You can close your eyes, spin 3 times and throw some darts. Up to personal preference.
- Keep doing it until you get one bingo (or several). Optional: You could set a reward for a number of bingos, number of squares etc.
- I usually don’t do rewards for my personal ones, as for me just getting to cross off that square and have the reminder at the end is satisfying enough. I like to sometimes notice I did more in a month than others or that I even managed to fill in all squares and then give myself a pat on the back for it (October was a good month:) ). What is important is to set it up in the best way for your own preferences and needs.
When I do something and I want to reinforce feeling happy with myself for it, it goes on the bingo. Sometimes I put big events in there too. I like having the reminder that they happened especially with my traitorous memory for events. I’m also just decently anxious so I need a pat on the back for attending certain things.
This method works best for me. It provides incentives without restrictions, it’s got elements of randomness and luck for how quickly you do get a bingo, it’s an easy way to gamify some things and introduce some extra fun. At the end, you have a physical reminder that you can keep as a memento or burn as a sacrifice to the gods of productivity, based on personal beliefs. December is almost here and I just know that I’ll need to summon my entire collection of monthly bingo cards as evidence in court to prove to my brain that hello, yes, we did actually do stuff this year, no, we did not sleep the year away like the lazy failure that we are, have a cookie, can we please stop crying now?
So yeah, I love bingo cards. Naturally, I’m making one with rewards for my YouTube channel (crazy that it took me almost three weeks to think of this). Here we go:
This bingo is a mix of future content I’m planning and channel milestones. The contents of the absolute middle square was chosen by me as tribute to actually starting the channel the way I wanted. I used a randomizer to fill all the other squares. Notice how there are 3 spots reserved for suggestions. I could have filled it all up myself, but figured it would be fun to leave some space for follower input so I adjusted my list. If you’ve got an idea, comment it anywhere on my YouTube videos or posts and I’ll check it out 🙂
I mentioned rewards, right? Don’t come at me, but I am not 100% decided on what those would be for good reasons:
- The whole point of this bingo is to have fun, CELEBRATE the channel’s (potential?) growth, and thank people for their support. In this context, what is the point of rewards if people do not enjoy them? While I can definitely come up with things, I want to get people’s input on what kind of reward or giveaway would be most appreciated. Would it be illustrations, manga merch, commissions, another kind of special stuff? That will be partly up to you.
- I do no possess foresight. (My anxiety would be arguably lessened or worsened if I did.) Thus, I have no clue how soon or far into the future we’ll hit the first bingo. Any promise I make now is dependent on my current means and projects, while 3-years-in-the-future-me might be able to do something more amazing or simply different. Planning ahead on rewards at this current stage when I’m not actually convinced anyone will even see or care about my manga, channel, or merch seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse. I very much look forward to the day I can make more concrete plans for this kind of stuff, should that day come.
At the time of this post we’ve got 2 squares crossed out: the absolute middle (One Golden Tiger short, can check it out here) and middle row last column (1 subscriber, yay).
Finally, I made a community post on my YouTube channel about this bingo. Most future updates on this bingo and rewards discussions will be made using the community page, so keep an eye on the channel if interested since I won’t be making blogs for every single square. However, I will probably still post a ramble here to celebrate each bingo and announce the celebratory rewards 🙂
Until further notice, stay well, drink water, farewell
