Gamify Your Room!
Having trouble getting your kid (or yourself...) to clean their (your...) room? Here's how to get a clean 'n' tidy (or at least not that bad) bedroom without nagging or feeling overwhelmed!
How do you feel about cleaning your bedroom? Is it boring? Perhaps so overwhelming it's hard to get started?
Or is it upright impossible to get your kids to clean their rooms no matter how much you nag, plead, or blackmail them?
If the bedroom is messy to begin with and you don't have a clue where to start, the task of cleaning the entire room may feel too overwhelming.
But fret not - there's a way to make insurmountable tasks more palatable and boring mundane tasks more fun: Gamification!
Gamification is a method of making boring tasks more fun and appealing by incorporating elements that make games so enticing and addictive, such as breaking the goal down to doable but gradually more challenging tasks, earning points by completing them, and finding Easter Egg surprises along the way.
Here's a list of tips on using gamification and other hacks to help you or your kids to clean a bedroom:
Break the task of cleaning the room into doable steps that leave no room for excuses like "But I don't know where to start!"
Focus on one step at a time, avoid overwhelm by ignoring the rest of the steps for now!
It may help to move from left to right (or vice versa) in the room as you pick up clutter etc.
Reward yourself after finishing each step (imagine a Super Mario coin sound each time you put something where it belongs!)
Before starting you can ask a family member or a friend to hide a treat or two somewhere in your room as an Easter Egg for you to find while cleaning! (Or if you're as absent-minded squirrel-brain as me, do it yourself and be surprised when you find them!)
Remember to finalize the job by taking all the cleaning supplies and picked-up trash away - it's the final boss fight before the mission is accomplished!
Celebrate your achievement!
If you'd like to try this and have it done for you AND earn points with sound effects, check out my brand-new online app Gamify Your Room!
I created it for my teenagers who have inherited my gifts for cleaning (or the lack of thereof) and have hard time getting started cleaning their messy bedrooms. With Gamify Your Room they just follow the Quests and get the job done! No need to take annoying advice from me! :D
Since I don't have the time to go all in on coding apps, I used an online course platform with superb gamification capabilities to create the gamified cleaning workflow. As such it may not be as versatile as a "real" tailored mobile application would be, but then again - done is better than a perfect plan that never gets implemented!
The app lives online so you can access it on any device with a modern web browser (like Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc), no installations needed!
Gamify Your Room breaks the Mission of Cleaning Your Room into smaller Quests and you'll get your room cleaned without overwhelm while earning points with dopamine-releasing sound effects and finding goofy Easter Eggs.
You can use it over and over again (and it's a bit different each time!) and it only costs a couple of bucks (one-time payment)!
Not much for getting your kid's (or your) bedroom clean and tidy without nagging!