Perfectly Practical #72 - Incentivize

I am all about the bribes...er...I mean incentives.  Without the bribes incentives, almost nothing would get done around here.  Truly.

Did you do logical reasoning in school?  If so, you know about if/then statements - if you do this then this will happen.  An incentive is really an if/then statement with a favorable outcome. 

Now I'm not saying that some things just don't happen because they need to or that there are not consequences when things don't happen but I am saying that with a carrot on the end of a stick, things happen much quicker...and most of the time, with a better attitude.

For instance, if you have been a reader here for awhile, you know that I make a lot of lists and that I love, adore, and cannot live without coffee.  Well, sometimes my incentive for crossing off x amount of items on my list is to sit down for 5 minutes and have a cuppa in peace.  The prospect of a few minutes of calm and some java pushes me to do what I need to do quicker and usually more efficiently than if there is no incentive.  If I get my tasks done, then I can have that nectar from heaven.

When Diva was young...who am I kidding, we still incentivize with Diva and the same basic incentive has remained in place all of these years - a book.  Books are her incentives for everything.  Whether it is going to the library, or ordering books online, or being read to, or visiting a book store, books are the number one incentive.  If she doesn't complain while we are out shopping, then we will to go to Books-A-Million. 

Because both of my peeps really dislike tidying and get overwhelmed with too many tasks at hand, we have a patented "3 Room  - Break!" system at the Little Pink House.  It's a very complicated system so try and keep up:  we tidy three rooms in the house and then take a short break.  See, I told you it was rather complex.  ;)  They know that the sooner we get the house tidy, the sooner everyone can go back to doing whatever it is they were doing.   If everyone does their share, then we can all do whatever we want to do for a little while.

Like I mentioned before, there are still consequences (which are also if/then statements:  if you don't put your dirty clothes in the hamper, then you won't have any clean clothes) but they are a lot less fun.

So to recap, life runs much more smoothly if we all work with incentives in mind whether it's coffee, books, or your wife not asking you to roll up that hose on the back porch for the umpteenth time. 

This is part of We Are That Family's Works for Me Wednesday.