Small, frequent rewards are more effective than large, distant ones.

Witness:

Case #1 - In The Office

I used to work for a large, evil financial institution. They kinda knew that positive motivation is more effective than negative, but even when they tried to be positive they didn't get it quite right. "If we do well, we'll get a big end-of-year bonus!" my supervisors would say. This would be in February. As weeks and months went by, every challenge was met with promises of a big year-end bonus.

I stayed there for almost 3 years and did see two of those bonuses, which made me feel great right through around January 9th or so. But in the third year, eventually I became so worn down that I left the high-paying but miserable job that many people probably would have loved to have.

Today I'm an independent consultant, and for the most part, I get to pick and choose who I work for and what I work on. Rewards are instantaneous, because I'm lucky enough to work with clients and vendors that appreciate me. I'll take those small, frequent rewards over the end of year bonuses any day, and they don't even cost any money.

Case #2 - In The Dining Room

How do you get a toddler and a pre-schooler to eat their veggies? You explain to them that the benefits of nutrient-dense foods far outweigh what small pleasure they would get from eating junk food.

Just kidding! Your child doesn't give a shit about nutrition. If you're like most parents, you're bribing them with dessert.

But even that doesn't work every time. When my 3-year-old refused to eat her veggies, I enticed her with promises of ice cream. But after a few bites, her excitement at the prospect of ice cream had waned, just as mine for the end-of-year bonus had many years ago.

She didn't care about the ice cream anymore. She just didn't want to deal with the string beans, and she was going to quit. I had to come through with some small, frequent rewards that wouldn't cost me any sugar.
I grabbed a yellow piece of construction paper from her craft area and cut off a bunch of small rectangular "tickets."

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm making special tickets."

"Can I have one?"

"No, you have to earn it. Eat one string bean & I'll give you a ticket."

Without hesitation, she ate a string bean.

"Very good! Here you go. How many tickets do you think you can earn?"

"LOTS!"

She ate the rest of her veggies with no fuss, bouncing with delight each time she earned a ticket.

At the end of her meal, I counted up her tickets. Low and behold, she had earned just enough tickets to trade them in for a small scoop of ice cream--the same scoop that she couldn't muster up the patience to hold out for earlier in the meal.

Same requirements on her part, same result in the end. Small, frequent rewards will do more than long, distant ones almost every time.