5 Ways Side-Hustlers Can Gamify Consistent Productivity
We've all heard that consistency is critical to success, but what happens when it's boring, you're tired, and it's boring?
Whether it was Instagram growth in 2019 or finding clients in 2025, what caused me to fail was my own lack of consistency. I've told myself that 2 of my biggest fears are being boring and failing. However, I now see that those are in conflict because success requires consistency even when things are boring.
Now, I'm going back to my gaming roots to find ways to gamify actions for consistency in 5 ways.
Way 1: Consistency Streak
Consistency and discipline are showing up and putting in the work day after day, even when it's boring or I'm not in the mood.
It's been said that what gets tracked gets improved and I track metrics like consistency now. Just like a streak in games like Modern Warfare, every day I show up and put in the work is a success and I aim to always have my streak of days in a row only increase.
Way 2: Stat Buffing
In games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, if a particular area is difficult, you can grind to get tokens to buff (increase) certain stats like lightsaber or force skills.
The business world is no different thanks to analytics, but it takes some additional, intentional testing. If I wanted to buff the open rate of my newsletter, I should test different subject lines to see which ones succeed and continue testing till I'm satisfied with the new result.
Way 3: Epic Playlists
Most amazing games, especially with long grind sessions, have amazing soundtracks.
Think about playlists as the soundtrack to your own grind. Movie, show, and video game soundtracks are great since they were already engineered to keep viewers and gamers locked in (and they don't have distracting lyrics).
Way 4: Bury Loot
Every game grind session has some end goal, but starting an online business is more about putting in the work before customers or clients are there.
Instead, I try to come up with additional loot that I am grinding towards. For example, once I achieve a certain number of paying clients, I'm going to buy an Anakin Skywalker Revenge of the Sith neopixel lightsaber.
Way 5: Player Avatar
When the dark thoughts creep in that tell me I'm not good enough, I imagine that I'm not playing as myself, but a successful avatar.
Few games let players play as themselves and we can spend hours getting our character to look the way we want. It's still us playing, but imagining an avatar can help by asking, "what would the avatar do?" when things get tough (hint: they would keep going no matter how tough it is).
