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by elnado 3517 days ago
Ugh, regardless of what we say we wish to do on this post, what I'm sure many of us lack is external motivation to do it. One app to help solve that is called Spar, developed by a friend of a friend (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spar!-get-better-at-stuff/id...). You set a goal with your friends, e.g. read a chapter every day, and put 20$ or so in the "pot". Whoever does the best at meeting the goal, gets the pot, and if you slack on your goal you lose the money.
2 comments

When the incentive to finish a goal shifts from the innate satisfaction of completion to a fear of financial penalty, is it possible that the goal itself will unintentionally change in subtle ways?
its called the Token Economy Problem. tl:dr; using tokens as an external motivation mechanism transfers away from buidling internal motivation. (e.g.,$5 for each book a kid reads gets a kid to read books for $5 bills and not for love of reading/imagination/thinking. $5 tokens run out? Kid stops reading.)
good point, the goal will vary for sure... for the bad
I see what the friend of a friend did here :P Does it work? I'm not sure that kind of motivation would work for me