Note from Jennifer: When I spoke with A.J. on the phone, she told me about her strategy for increasing her freelance business and I thought it was genius. My favorite part is that she assigns points based on how hard the task is for her or how much she doesn’t want to do it.  I am so excited to share it with you. And hope that you will be able to adopt her concept to help increase your own business. A.J. O’Connell is Connecticut-based a freelance copywriter working in the education technology niche. She’s also an author and freelance journalist. Find out more about her on LinkedIn, or tweet at her.

By A.J. O’Connell

Two years ago, I had just started my freelance business, and it wasn’t going that well.

I’d recently had a baby, and my family had moved to a new home far from the college where I’d been teaching. I was in a new home, with a six-month-old and no job, and my husband and I needed income.

I had fallen into copywriting just a couple of weeks after my son was born. A friend of mine was hiring writers for his agency, and I asked if I could join the team. Once I accepted the gig and decided to make a go of it as a career, though, I was overwhelmed by the idea of learning a new career while dealing with a big move and a small child.

I cannot emphasize enough that I really had no idea what I was doing in those early days. I didn’t know what I was doing was marketing and not journalism. I had no idea what I should be earning. I couldn’t market myself to other prospective clients as a freelance education technology copywriter because I didn’t know that’s what I was. But I knew, at least, that I didn’t know.

I had two tasks:

1. Learn everything I could about my new career
2. Do some things that frightened me in order to get more clients.

So I took the advice of Mary Poppins and made the job a game.

Gamifying work

One of the projects I’d worked on for my friend’s agency was a series about gamification in workforce training. If you don’t know what gamification is, I got you: gamification is the application of elements of gameplay (points or competition) to things that aren’t games. If you’ve ever gotten a badge online for something that isn’t a game, that’s gamification.

Because fear wasn’t adequately motivating me, I decided to gamify my own work. And, because I’m a huge dork who loves epic fantasy just a little too much, I decided to make this game a role-playing game. I called it The Lance of Freedom.

The Lance of Freedom

There was a narrative in the earliest version of the Lance of Freedom: the player was on an epic quest to capture, and hang onto, a legendary, magical artifact: The Lance of Freedom.

Or, as most people think of it, a freelance career.

My plan was to award myself points for doing the things that were hardest for me. I was always putting off certain things, for example. I found reasons not to follow up with potential clients. I also never seemed to find the time to do any self-development.

So I came up with a list of these difficult tasks I needed to do, and assigned points to them. For example, I awarded myself 1.5 points for listening to a freelancing podcast while I walked the dog, and 1 point for setting up profiles on sites that might be helpful for me as a freelancer.

Tasks that made me anxious me were worth more points. I’d get 2 points for following up with a prospect, and 5 points for sending a pitch of any kind. Asking for something (a testimonial, for example, or an introduction) was 2 points. I also awarded myself 2 points for every task on days when I was “battling monsters” — when I was fighting self-doubt, or distracted by the ongoing construction project in my house, or the phone was ringing off the hook and I had to hide it under a couch cushion so I could  get work done.

To give the points meaning, I came up with a list of prizes. If I wanted to spend 15 guilt-free minutes on Facebook, that was 5 points. If wanted to run to the comic shop and pick up my books for the week, that was 20 points. Taking a full weekday off work? That’s a 40 point prize.

I printed out both lists and posted them on my office wall, next to a whiteboard, so I could keep track of my points. Then I set to work.

Did it work?

It did. My business has more than doubled each year since I started playing The Lance of Freedom. It’s not necessarily the game that did this. Rather, the game gave me that extra motivation I needed to keep slogging through the difficult, and occasionally uncomfortable tasks that I needed to do in order to get clients, complete work and understand the industry.

It also gave me little things to do when I had bad days, or when I had no work because I had no clients. I knew I could give myself an easy win by taking a walk and listening to a podcast, or win 2 quick points by emailing an editor who hadn’t gotten back to me. (Those unresponsive prospects were big point generators for a while there.)

All of those little efforts began to snowball, and I started getting bigger clients, building my portfolio, and understanding my niche. But it all happened one point at a time.

Want to join me in seeking The Lance of Freedom?

If you want give gamification a try in your own freelance career, here are some of the things I’ve learned over the past couple of years.

• Make a list of the things that you don’t like doing: The game works best if you create a list of the tasks that are hardest for you personally and award points based on how little you like doing them. Try not to award points for things you don’t have control over. For example, I give myself points for turning in work by deadline, not for having it accepted.

• Make sure your points are meaningful to you: When you’re choosing prizes, pick things that motivate you, like half an hour of snooze time in the morning, or 10 minutes texting during the workday. But choose your prizes carefully; I nearly added “playing with my child” as a prize because I enjoy it so much, but realized that making his playtime with me contingent on my work goals wasn’t fair to him.

• Once the game gets too easy, level up: Every few months, throw out tasks that aren’t hard anymore and add new ones. Basically, the game should always be challenging, but never soul-crushing. Every six months I re-evaluate the game, making a new list of things I have to do to get better. In fact, that’s what I’m doing during the Christmas break.

• Yes, of course it’s possible for you to cheat: And —  full disclosure — sometimes, I do. I have spent 15 minutes on the Internet and not deducted any points. I admit it. But, if you cheat all the time, the game doesn’t work. That said, if you’re compelled to cheat all the time you may not be motivated by the game, which brings me to my last point…

• Do not be afraid to change the rules completely: If the game I’ve described doesn’t work for you? Change it. If earning points isn’t your bag, add competition — compete against yourself or enlist a buddy. Make a leaderboard for scores. Or give yourself badges. Whatever motivates you. It is, after all, your game.

Post any questions for A.J. here! Have you ever played a similar game or used a motivation strategy?