I have been in the same boat of trying to gamify my to-do list. So far I have been working with progress bars and goals to try and find a way to motivate me to get things done.

I realized that the hardest thing is getting the long term goals to feel like a simple activity for today, bringing the 3+ month goal into a simple “read a few pages today” type of habit.

I also created a simple spreadsheet app that focuses specifically on the progress you made today in relation to your goal. The progress you make today is a different color. Instead of estimating how long it will take to complete the goal with your average, I use the amount done today. So after every addition page read you can see the amount of days left to finish the book go down.

I also added a little bit of motivation text that says “if you read X more pages you will be done Y days faster.

If you use the “MIT”(Most Important Task) type of system , then you could make it a daily habit to complete your top 2-3 MITs for the day.