Need Motivation to Exercise? Try Earning Rewards With EarndIt

Monika Jansen February 9, 2011 Tweet

Before you completely abandon your annual New Year’s resolution to start exercising more, check out the brand-new start up EarndIt for a little extra motivation.

The team at EarndIt taps into something behavioral economists call “hyperbolic discounting,” which means that humans discount the value of a reward that occurs far into the future, preferring instead a more immediate reward even if its absolute value is less.  (So that explains why people use liposuction to lose weight quickly instead of eating right and exercising regularly, despite the big differences in cost and effectiveness.  Huh.)

EarndIt has created a system that gives you more immediate rewards for your exercise. It’s really easy to set up: you link Nike+, FitBit, FourSquare, EveryTrail, or GarminConnect to EarndIt and then exercise with that app or device.  EarndIt automatically gives you points for each workout, and you can collect trophies, compete with others (a little competition always helps!), and redeem your points for rewards.

The rewards aren’t too shabby, either: a box of custom energy bars from Element Bars or a $50 gift card for ShoeCrush.com are just 2 examples.  If new shows aren’t motivation enough, I don’t know what is!