How to motivate kids (and grownups)

I like to say that "motivation is a solved problem"

Just look at slot machines or video games if you doubt this.

The basic formula for motivating humans is straightforward:

1) give a small, tangible, immediate reward each time they perform a desired action

The better the reward and the smaller the action, the more effective this formula is.

Slot machines ask you to perform a small action (push a button / pull a lever) for a reward that never gets old (money / chance of money)

Video games ask you to perform small actions and can escalate the size of the reward over time to keep it meaningful.

Part of the reason poker is more fun then work is the tangibility and immediacy of the chips piling up in front of you. Imagine how much more you would work if someone came by and dropped a dollar bill on your desk every minute.

So: why haven't we solved diet/exercise/chores/learning/work/etc?

In general, the answer is either:

a) it's too difficult to specify the actions that need to be taken

b) it's too difficult/expensive to reward each action

For example, a personal trainer 4x a week provides the motivation necessary to solve exercise, but that's too expensive for most people.

Most people are unmotivated at work because there's no direct link between the effort they put in and the pay they receive. (At a small startup, it's much easier to see the link between the quality of your work and the value of your equity, so people tend to work harder and enjoy it more.)

What makes Mentava's early literacy software work is that (a) learning to read can be broken down into a series of very small, incremental steps, and (b) we can use software to create visually and emotionally rewarding experiences to immediately reward each step the student takes.

Some people worry that external reward systems decrease peoples' intrinsic motivation, but this only happens if the reward systems are designed poorly.

Mastery is one of the most powerful human motivators, and a good motivation system makes progress visible and tangible, allowing intrinsic motivation to take over from external motivation over time.

In short, to motivate someone towards a goal:

1) break the journey down into a long series of tiny steps

2) reward each step

The theory isn't hard, but doing it well and cost-effectively is.