I’m a huge fan of productivity, but I’m an even bigger fan of giving yourself rewards when you’ve really earned them like overcoming procrastination and taking action on something you’ve been putting off.
What follows is a list of ideas to reward yourself in a healthy, fun, and sustainable way. Admittedly, these are small rewards that have particular appeal to me personally. So what may be a reward to me, may be the complete opposite for you. The idea here is to help spark your own ideas for self-rewards:
- Leave work early
- Take a nap
- Have a piece of fruit
- Listen to a favorite song or genre of music
- Do Yoga
- Go for a walk
- Go for a run
- Take a moment to text a friend or family member
- Give a hug to your spouse or your kids
- Watch a short but funny YouTube video
- Have a cup of tea
- Play a short game on your mobile device (e.g. A Word find or scramble, a crossword puzzle, a sudoku, solitaire, or even a few minutes of an action game)
- Take a few moments to think, reflect, breathe and meditate
- Color in a coloring book (it’s now an IN thing for adults)
- Listen to a few minutes of an audiobook or podcast
- Read a few pages from that novel that you’ve been enjoying so much
- Doodle
- Connect with a colleague that energizes you
- Go for a drive
- Take a few minutes to journal your thoughts
- Intentionally “butt-dial” someone you haven’t talked to in a while
- Surprise Skype / FaceTime someone that you enjoy talking to
- Grab a healthy snack
- Sing a song to yourself
- Do a quick, casual Google search on the topic of interest
- Do a little online window shopping
- Watch a 20-minute movie snippet
- Watch an episode (or season) of your favorite show
Depending on the level of accomplishment, you don’t need to limit yourself. You can even bigger, like buying yourself a new car, a chalet in the mountains, or go on a fabulous vacation.
The key to good rewards is that:
- You need to do something to earn them. If you overly reward yourself, then it diminishes the value of the reward if you did little or nothing to earn it.
- They need to be healthy, sustainable, and/or done in moderation
- They can’t conflict with other goals (e.g. Eating a Costco Chocolate Cake would not be a good reward for starting a new workout regimen)
- They must actually be satisfying to you. They need to feel like rewards.
- They are proportional to the task. One of my closest friends and Information Marketing Guru, Dave Hamilton once told me that when he took his business to a certain level that he and his partner decided to reward themselves by taking their wives out to an exclusive high-end restaurant – and splurge on all the best things on the menu.
Question: How do you like to reward yourself? What rewards have you used or seen that are powerfully satisfying? You can leave a comment by clicking here.