Aaron Godin

I finished Andy Hunt’s book Pragmatic Thinking & Learning today and am amazed at the breadth of knowledge that exists in the category of “refactoring your wetware.” If you’re a programmer and have not picked up a copy, I suggest you do. There is a lot to be learned about checking and balancing how we do things as programmers.

Andy talks extensively on goal setting and how to approach your goals. I am now a firm believer that World of Warcraft (shortened “WoW”, the online gaming sensation, and in my opinion an excellent game) is a very good method of learning about goal setting.

Vision, Goals, and Objectives

A vision is the overall thing that you see yourself eventually attaining. This is what most people would refer to as a goal and can be something broad such as “I want to be an excellent programmer” or “I want to be the best WoW player.” When you have a vision, you need to break that down into separate achievable goals (goals should be other things as well, but I won’t rehash Andy’s content). Examples include “setting up a web service with Node.js”, “being an expert in Ruby”, and “reaching the maximum level in WoW.”

These goals will have many smaller objectives that work towards your goal. In World of Warcraft, goal setting is extremely easy, and working towards those goals is what the game is built on. If you want to be the max level, you have separate objectives called quests that are small items that you can focus on to progress in the game. Should you decide you want to max out your Herbalism skill, there are varying levels of skill level to work towards that help you stay focused.

It is this sort of objective based progress in WoW that helps you stay on track for achieving your goals, and there is a lot to be said for that ideology. Even though it is in a video game, goal setting is an awesome skill to have that can be learned. I would also argue that to be successful in the game requires you to be objective oriented.

Good For This, Bad For That

While I think World of Warcraft is a great way to learn goal setting, Andy also talks in his book about getting distracted from what you’re trying to achieve. That is where WoW really shines. If you let it, it will suck time out of your day. That said, have fun with it because I feel it does teach some great skills.

Video games are not entirely a bad thing. They expand our mind and make us think along with inspire us. Keep that in mind next time you pick up the controller or mouse. I like am a fan of now asking myself, “what am I going to gain from this?” That usually keeps me in check if I can simply sit down and think about it.