Productivity Tip: Rewards

Using rewards is extremely helpful in keeping motivation up during your workday and helping you get through tasks bit by bit. We all know how it can feel when your workday begin to drag and you can’t seem to get yourself motivated to do much of anything. This is very common at home too. After a long day at work who wants to spend their time doing laundry or dishes. These tasks aren’t very enticing any day of the week but if you can manage to develop and stick to a certain rewards system then you can end up boosting your productivity by quite a bit simply by giving yourself little bonuses or treats periodically.

The key here is to not just randomly give yourself rewards but to only do it when you’ve really earned it. Worked an extra two hours? Reward earned. Took on a project for a sick coworker? Reward earned. Drove to your bosses house and got his suit dry cleaned without him asking you to? Two rewards! It’s important to only give yourself the rewards when you’ve earned them because otherwise they lose their value and they wont be motivating to you anymore. If you’ve genuinely gone above and beyond then give yourself some extra special but if you’ve just completed your daily work then it’s fine to just give yourself a small treat.

It’s also best to not use food as your rewards because this can quickly develop into some pretty bad eating habits especially if you’re “rewarding” yourself with a chocolate bar every hour or so. Probably not the healthiest of decisions. So barring food your rewards can be pretty much whatever you want but it’s also wise to keep your rewards relative to what you’ve done to earn them. If it’s a huge project you’ve just finished then maybe a trip to the spa is well deserved but if it’s just a rough day at work that you pushed through and came out on top of then perhaps a new book or a trip to the movies is deserved.

You can also use this system throughout the day in a non-monetary sort of way. If you’ve spent a great deal of time working on a difficult project then reward your progress with a few minutes away from your desk or perhaps a couple minutes outside getting some fresh. Just typed out a long proposal for your boss? Rest your fingers and your wrists by a couple minutes reading a book or taking a break to get a glass of water.  These little types of “rewards” don’t cost anything but can often end up making a world of difference in keeping you motivated as you go throughout your day.

As long as you space your little rewards out and make sure they’re deserved this can be a really great tool for keeping you fresh and excited to work on a project. Just be sure to keep your rewards in perspective and not spend a ton of money on them or this plan can backfire quickly - also be sure not to be too stingy with your rewards or you wont be motivated to work towards them.