I listened to a couple of young men talking about their favorite games the other day.
“How many hours do you have in-game?” one asked.
“1,100 hours,” was the reply.
“Oh, I only have 650.”
On it went, and it became increasingly clear that in addition to knowing the games and where they were in the games, they also kept mental track of their in-game hours for all their favorite games.
Most modern gaming consoles and interfaces track these things for you, so it’s easy to keep track of, of course.
It occurred to me, though, that the gamers relished this information because it was tangible evidence of their growth as experts in the games. They understood that they couldn’t achieve mastery without a substantial number of hours spent playing, and so they placed value on the metric of hours in-game.
How can we create similar metrics in our practice regimens? In our studying? Even in rehearsal time?
“How many hours do you have in-rehearsal?
“We’re at 45 hours in-rehearsal; can’t wait to cross 50 in January!”
The gaming system designers understand that this easy to measure and easy to understand metric is prized by users; couldn’t we get some of the same motivational kick from providing the same measurements?