Do you sometimes just get bored regular, old, everyday life?

Do you hate the guilt from skipping gym for one day?

Do you dread the time of week when you have to clean your house?

Do you cringe every time you have to make your child eat his/her veggies?

These are just some questions that most of us know the answer to ….. and can find fun solutions to.

This is Reva and Ella. We will be documenting the progression of our 20% Time project in biology. The 20% time project, or passion  project, is when someone dedicates 20% of their time (hence the name) to do something they are passionate about and want to develop or take the time to learn more about.  We want to find how can we use the Fun theory to improve our everyday lives (by improving mental/physical health etc.) We have chosen to follow the model of the “fun theory” to construct a variety of experiments that will give people little things to do in their day-to-day lives that will not only improve their health, but also improve their personal happiness : )

We are both very interested in human psychology (and hate tedious tasks). This project fell under that category and also seems very doable in the time period we have. This project answers the essential question because The Fun Theory states that by making something seem more approachable and fun, people are more likely to do it. By making something more “fun” we can make people do it. We will do this for tedious tasks that although we hate, are good for our health and well being.

Our goals are to successfully complete at least three experiments with two trial rounds.

We will sometimes measure our progress by asking the people who participate in our experiments to measure how much happier or healthier they felt on a scale of 1 to 10. Other times, when given the choice between a fun way or a usual way to doing something, it will be obvious what the results are.

Our plan is to have a boring task and a “more fun” version of that task. Right now, we will come up with a group of basic solutions to boring tasks. Then, set up an experiment to test to see if people are more likely to do it. With this data, we can make a list of things that people can do to make their lives happier and healthier. We will post this list on this site to conclude our project.