Staying Motivated

One of the main benefits of using Scrum for Your Life is that the frequent review of your accomplishments reminds you of your abilities, and motivates you to go onto the next Sprint. For some people though, even every four weeks is not often enough to keep the fire glowing. What can you do if you start to run out of gas before the Sprint is over?

There are a few approaches. One would be to reduce your Sprints to two weeks. I hesitate to recommend this because even though the overhead associated with Sprint Reviews, Retrospectives and planning is relatively small, they still take time, and that could lead to avoidance or procrastination.

Another approach is to just review your daily progress at the end of the day. Bask in the things that you’ve checked off and realize that you are closer to your ultimate goal, and that you are living your values.

In Scrum for software development, the Scrum Master provides a Burn Down Chart that shows the progress being made as tasks are completed. If you are a visual person, this could be a true motivator, but again it adds overhead.

A Sample Burndown Chart

If you are motivated by money, you could borrow from the Mental Bank concept developed by George Kappas. Using this system, you assign value to the tasks you want to accomplish every day, and then “pay” yourself and the end of the day. You keep a running total of your funds and watch your Mental Bank grow.

I’m interested in knowing what you do when you find that you begin to fade and need to get back in the game. Please share your comments.