At times it’s helpful to remember that the mind is an incredibly sophisticated instrument that routinely falls for simple tricks. Neuroscience bears the point out more often than not.

Though I am a certified hypnotist, I am garbage at self-hypnosis. I am, however, perfectly capable of tricking myself by capitalizing on the gullibility of my inner jackass.

To wit, let’s take this summer’s weight loss plan, which had both salutary and cosmetic ambitions rolled into it. I started tracking my exercise and caloric intake in a document called Summer 2024 Fitness Plan, and it worked fairly well, especially in term of diagnosing patterns I am prone to. Most weeks I start out strong, but by Friday I am overtired and binge on snacks at game night. For most of September, however, I’ve fallen prey to a two-up/two-down pattern, regaining a couple pounds, losing them again, etc., which is a classic plateau pattern. While I lost 25 pounds all told, I’d like to lose another 25. So I needed a way to press past the current sticking point.

The trick, as it turns out? Filing away Summer 2024 Fitness Plan and creating a new document. That little trick has been aided and abetted by another layer of change. After losing 25 pounds, I realized my jeans no longer fit especially well. I ordered new jeans in a smaller waist size but, thanks to the competence for which Levi’s sales fulfillment is known, I received only one of four new pairs of jeans after a month-long wait. My monkey brain decided that my waist size must be the right size for the moment, given my continued commitment to my older jeans, which I think contributed to the plateau. I tightened my old belt to the seventh notch and settled into the fall semester with fairly baggy pants.

The trick for getting around that cognitive roadblock? Buying a new belt. In the new belt I find myself gradually shrinking, going from the second notch to the point at which the fourth is in reach in the span of about two weeks. It’s the sort of thing that can make me feel foolish if I think about it the wrong way.

I’ve been keeping that in mind in terms of plotting out my day-to-day agenda and designing Chancers (which, as always, can be found over here). In terms of my agenda, I try to map out only those tasks that will give me a wee jolt of dopamine to complete–tasks that are not routine or ongoing. Significantly, I know I must list them out in advance. While crossing out a completed task is satisfying, my monkey brain is not so simian as to be fooled by adding an item only to cross it off. Yesterday I submitted three stories for publication, which had been haunting my to-do list for a month, and I drafted a letter of recommendation for a student, which was an item added only last Wednesday. Crossing those items off my list gave me a wee dose of dopamine, but adding “Write the Chair about the Thing” only to cross it off an hour later was not enough to deceive me into feeling good.

I’ve been thinking out this particularly in terms of game design, given the tension I’m experiencing with two games these days. One is an ongoing phone game I play with my fiancee, and evidence that the game has begun to circle the drain is pretty compelling. It’s a puzzle-solving game, nothing too special, all told, but they’ve recently started making the puzzles purposely harder to solve in order to prompt players to spend a little money for extra moves and tools in order to get the dopamine payoff. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the Reddit board dedicated to the game is currently inundated with complaints about the dwindling player base.

On the other side of the continuum we have Elden Ring, which is the gold standard for dopamine dispensation in a dozen ways. We begin with the game’s notorious difficulty, which means that players can get a goodly dose of dopamine by defeating a significant boss monster. Additionally, there are routine rewards offered for casual success–runes, primarily, but also the chance to access new areas. Some of the rewards are predictable, with many significant enemies guaranteeing the player access to powerful rewards at the safe haven of the game, but the game also offers scads of random rewards, some with minuscule drop rates as low as .50%. I have played the game through multiple times, but it’s become a comfort game, since I know an hour spent with it will likely yield some new discovery or reward for decent play. I’m doing my best to implement the same design principle in Chancers, so that players have a bunch of different kinds of incentives to set out on adventures and take meaningful risks.

Today, alas, involves some drudgery, since I have to complete a couple of routine tasks to set me up to succeed tomorrow and Thursday, which will involve appointments with my doctor and my dentist for negligible bits of business (a follow-up on late summer bloodwork and a cleaning). I’m none too enthused about either prospect, but you can bet I’ll be glad to check them off my list as we head toward September’s end.