If you hate reading or are a reluctant reader, who wants to read more books, treating reading like a multiplayer game could be the answer. Yes, I’m recommending that you gamify your reading to read more books in 2020. You’re probably thinking that’s impossible. But gamification is about using the elements of game design in a different context. So why wouldn’t it work for achieving your reading goals?
Before I get into how to gamify your reading, why not get a copy of my book, Performance Accelerator Plan: Guide to Learning and Mastering Key Skills for the Future
? I cover how to gamify the reading challenge in the book. And I would appreciate it if you supported me.
4 Defining Traits of Games
- Goals: What the game is about.
- Rules: Define how the players go about achieving the goals. The rules are the challenge of the game.
- Feedback Systems (Points, Badges, Levels): These are the user interfaces that engage the players. They show players how they are doing. Are they getting closer to achieving their goals?
- Voluntary Participation: The above three traits of the game help players decide if they want to get into the game.
Have you read?
Gamified Strategic Reading Challenge Because Learning Should be Fun
Gaming to Innovate by Curtiss Witt, Book Review
Let’s Talk About Profiting from Your Reading and How to Do It
Gamify Your Reading to Read More Books
A quick way to make reading a habit is to download and use the app Habitica. But that’s not what I had in mind for you though. However, I thought it was only fair to mention the app to use if you chose to. I’ve read a few books on gaming and gamification. They include:
- Gaming to Innovate
- For the Win
- Enterprise Games
- Gamestorming
- The Multiplayer Classroom
- A Systematic Guide to Game-Based Learning in Organizational Teams
Based on what I learned, I was able to gamify the Performance Accelerator Plan. You’ll need to incorporate the four traits that define any game. Think of four friends who would go on a learning journey with you. And what is a project that you could apply your newly-acquired skills?
Choose the Skills You Want to Learn
To make your reading relevant, with your fellow ‘gamers’ choose the skills that you want to learn together. If you cannot think of a specific skill, here is a question that I love to ask:
What is one skill, if learned, would be a game changer in your life?
In what way would the skill change your life? That’s the skill to invest your time to learn. Now that you and your friends know which skills to learn, and how they might change your life, it’s time to choose the books to read. As I’ve mentioned many times before, a while back, I read that to learn a skill, you need to read five of the best books on the topic.
Reading alone will not help you, you must apply the skill. And honing the skill and mastering it comes with practice. I know I’m jumping ahead, but I need to mention this.
If you’re unsure of what some of the best books are on the topic, ask for book recommendations. Think about who the experts are on the topic. Also ask your family, friends, colleagues, boss, and a librarian for recommendations, so you can compile the list. Are your fellow learners learning the same skills or different ones? Learning different skills would allow you to choose a better project to work on to apply the skills.
The intent now is to narrow your list of books to five. Five is a manageable number, especially if you hate reading or are a reluctant reader. In deciding which skill to learn, you had a compelling reason to do so.
Gamify Your Reading: Choosing Your Five Books
Quickly preview the books to decide which five to read. Look at Amazon reviews, but be very discriminating. Make sure that if a book receives a low ranking, it’s because of the content and not because the reviewer doesn’t like the author or for some other reason that has nothing to do with the book.
Make sure that the five books you choose are by authors with different perspectives, gender, and varying levels of difficulty to read. You can do this by previewing the books to see what aspects of the skill they’ll cover. You want to learn as much as you can about the skill that will likely change your life.
Applying the Four Traits of Game to Your Reading
- Decide on your Goals & Objectives for the five-week reading challenge. You’re reading a book a week. What do you want to accomplish by learning the skill?
- Read books to learn Skill X.
- Apply the newly-acquired skill to a work project.
- Format of the five-week reading challenge. How many levels will it have? I recommend that after you read one book you progress to a higher level. So five levels in this multiplayer game.
- Rules of the five-week reading challenge (How to Score and What You Win). Award points for completing specific tasks.
- What kind of Grading Procedure will you use? How many points will you award for completing each activity?
Reading the Five Books
Here are the activities to perform for reading each book:
- Prepare your mind for reading.
- Write your one-sentence purpose for reading the book.
- Preview the book first, identifying the chapters and sections to read.
- Read the sections that you’d like to delve in. And read the text with care.
- Make note of the important information.
- Review your notes.
- Pick out the big ideas.
- Test your understanding of the book.
Award points for each of the above activities. Decide with your fellow learners, how many points you’ll award for each activity. After you’ve read the five books, start combining the ideas from all the books, elevating them into bigger, more encompassing ideas. And where possible, tie the elevated ideas to a human need.
Also award points for applying the skill(s) to a work-related project. Or a personal one for that matter.
Testing Your Knowledge of Each Book
The following questions will help to determine your understanding of each book.
- What’s the most important information in the book? The most important information is usually any information that aligns with your purpose for reading the book. This type of information could be great ideas. Look out for information that:
- Will allow you to do something that you cannot do now.
- Help you to be more effective and productive.
- How is this book different from others that deal with the same topic?
- What are some important conclusions in the book? When you scan the book before you start to read it, you can learn these things.
- What are the key ideas you need to learn to understand the skill? Every book, at least the well-written ones, has a main idea and secondary ideas that support it. What I’ve noticed is that the main and secondary ideas are usually found in the introduction of the book.
- How will you apply your newly-learned information to work and life?
Gamify Your Reading: How Did You Do?
You’ve read the five books, performing all the activities? How did you do in comparison to your peers? What would you do differently next time? How could you update the process so it’s more effective? Will you continue to gamify your reading?
How Avil Can Help You!
If you do not want to gamify your reading, I invite you to Join the Performance Accelerator Plan that walks you through the process of learning key skills and more. You’ll be reading books to build skills and develop intercultural awareness. Get more reading and learning tips here.
In December 2020, I published two books on Amazon. I would greatly appreciate your support if you bought my two short e-books Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon and Performance Accelerator Plan: Guide to Learning and Mastering Key Skills for the Future.
Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon is not about speed reading. It’s about approaching every book differently and reading only the sections that align with your purpose.
The Performance Accelerator Plan book is a stripped-down version of the paid reading challenge of the same name. Obviously, you won’t get all the resources that come with the program that I sell on my website. But if you are a self-directed learner, it will help you tremendously.
If someone clicks on a link and buy something from Amazon, the company will pay me a small commission.
