I’m reading a fascinating book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and he talks about how to create powerful, positive habits.I’m thinking of how I can incorporate this into our own web marketing and social media training so that our customers get in the habit of blogging, tweeting and posting regularly.Do you have any reward systems build in? Starbucks after a good blog post? Twenty tweets gets you twenty minutes on Amazon or TMZ.com?Do you think creating small rewards for your SM activity would work? And is this a form of gamification?

sounds a bit like a form of gamification but there’s nothing wrong with that, looking forward to the answers @rich-brooks

 Rewards based on quality and originality vs quantity of posts, as well as a  practical application would encourage better results.  Awards in the form of gratification and a feeling of pride in a job well done are old fashion, but can work as well.

@rich-brooks I’m really highly motivated and driven by internals. I don’t generally set up carrots for myself in the sense you are talking about.

However, I do schedule each day with blocks of activities, and I do have several small blocks of time I allocate to fun activities. But I do them every day, not just after completing a task. I’ve found that scheduling blocks of time also lets me shift gears on days when I’m distracted, or when multi-tasking seems impossible.

On a much larger scale, I do reward myself. For example, I promised myself a larger block of time in my art studio every day for the entire week after I finished the bookkeeping so I could do my taxes.

I promise myself every week that I will take some time for myself…like riding my bike, which is my favourite recreation…but at the end of the day, the bike is in the basement and I’m in my office…something wrong with this……

@DonGradyWhile I can’t comment on social media being a neophyte and all, the movement specialist in me can suggest you carve out time early morning for that bike ride. Aerobic activities increase our ability to focus (Spark by John Ratey is a great book to better understand its crucial role on our cognitive functions). You might find you actually increase your social media activity output. I choose to get up earlier for exercising because the challenge for me is then to settle in front of the computer for the hours needed to attend to business. I find I need to have a few hours in front of me for bigger projects although I do some reading in bits and pieces. Anyone else manages time this way?

I’ve read that the really successful are people who create their own rewards. We should encourage really successful people!