Productivity inspiration from a retail board game.

In order to measure my progress on my obligations for 2011, and to (literally) make a game out of it, I decided to adapt the old Parker Brothers game, Careers, first published in 1955 (and now available from Winning Moves).

The feature of Careers that makes it appropriate for my purposes is that the object of the game is to “succeed” by earning a combination of Fame, Money, and Happiness, but the exact “Success Formula” is determined by each individual player.  The formula is determined by assigning a total of 60 points to the three categories.

In my 2011 version of the game, I have selected to play a balanced strategy, with 20 points to be earned in each of these updated categories:  Happiness/Health (), Money/Finances (), and Fame/Accomplishment ().  These correspond to my individual, family, and business goals, respectively.  Of course, I will make progress towards success in the real world, rather than moving around a game board.  No dice involved.

At the start of the game, I assigned 20 points to each of my goals and then broke that down further into points for measurable milestones along the way.  Since each goal has a specific deadline, I assigned 5 points for meeting each deadline, and the remaining 15 points (in each category) were divided into at least five different parts.  Additionally, to indicate that simply reaching the goals was not the ultimate desire, I determined three “superwin” targets to pursue as I (hopefully) I blow right past my committed goals.  I want the overall SuperWin by December 31, 2011.

So far, as of the middle of January, my scores (in deadline order) are:
Fame/Accomplishment:  0
Happiness/Health:  5
Money/Finances:  0

Hey, it’s a start. For those familiar with the game, my Occupation Record has “Game Developer” checked (for decades), though I missed the College path the first time around the board.