It’s great to see such varied opinions on this! Thank you for pouring out your thoughts.
I was already writing a mini-essay to share here with my theories about this… But then I thought “You know what? I’ll rather try it in real life!”
Since my project CheckWise is in “beta” mode (and I’m still accepting new beta tester users), I will propose to a few users to try out these ideas.
Here’s how: What if the users paid a certain amount of money upfront each week, and by the end of the week they get back a % proportional to the % of tasks they have completed?
(For those who don’t know it, in CheckWise the users tell me their to-dos and they have to prove to me (a real person) that they have done it, usually with photos.)
For example, you pay $30 upfront. That’s your “bet” for that week*. During that week you plan a total of 20 tasks, and you prove that you’ve accomplished 15 of them. That’s a 75% completion rate, which means you would get back 75% of the initial bet: $22.50 of “reward”. If you had completed all your tasks, you would get back the full amount, $30 of reward.
This way you get the accountability of someone checking on you plus the illusion of positive reinforcement we’ve been commenting on this thread.
I think it would be best if the user decides the amount of money paid upfront. This way, the more serious the user is about getting things done, the higher the amount it would make sense for he/she to “bet”. $5, $50, $500, or more, it’s up to him/her.
(*I was initially thinking on monthly cycles, where the users would bet/pledge at the beginning of the month and get their “reward” at the end of it. But making it weekly instead means a more immediate sense of reward/punishment, making it all more vivid and effective.)
Any thoughts on this? How do you think this will work?