Do you struggle to keep up with simple tasks or are you having trouble remembering your chores? Or maybe you simply feel unmotivated to work on your good habits and quit the bad ones? I’ve always been the type of person who needed an extra boost of dopamine to do something, anything. Or I would only do things with other people, but neglect any type of solo task. I wouldn’t go on walks until Pokémon Go was released. And all of a sudden I was eager to go out there to catch Pokémon, walk to gyms, or walk to hatch eggs. If you recognize this particular type of getting motivated, you might want to check out Habitica. A simple, but fun and effective app to organize your goals and life.
Different types of players will use Habitica in different fashions to organize their life. For example, the social (gamer) type will start a party to do quests together. Having friends working towards the same goal will motivate this type of user to get things done. However, forming a group is not mandatory. You can also do quests alone if you are low on social energy. In the case of Pokémon Go, what motivated me most was not the social contacts and playing with friends. It was being able to track my goals and optimizing to reach higher goals.
Figure out what type of player you are
There are benefits to both ways of playing, solo or socially. For example, you will finish the quest and collect rewards faster as a group, and get boosts on different stats if your party members cast spells. But if you play solo, you do not need to wait until all the party members accept a quest or log on to fulfill the quest goals. Also, the added guilt of damaging your team members as you fail to keep up with your tasks could be avoided. If you are someone that is not motivated by this type of thing.
TIP: Sometimes a break would be good, if you want to stay in your party, but not participate in group activities. In that case, you can put your avatar in an Inn. That way the team doesn’t have to wait till you join a quest, before it starts, and not finishing your goals will do no damage to party members. However, you can still chat with the other players in your party.
The bottom line is, that you have to figure out what mode of playing helps you achieve your goals better. So I highly recommend trying both, and keeping an eye on how you progress with your habit forming.
The to do list dump
As someone with a million things running through my head at all times of the day, it is good to have a place where I can dump all the so-called to-do’s my silly brain comes up with. You know, the ideas that pop up when you really should be focusing on some other task. Or when you are trying to fall asleep. Even if on second glance 30 percent of those ideas turn out to be utter nonsense with no added benefit to my life whatsoever, at least they are jotted down somewhere so that I can move on from them.
Once you finish a to-do, you can click it and it will disappear from your list. This way your list will stay fresh and updated. The longer you wait, the color will go from yellow to dark red. This is a good way of seeing what you might have been procrastinating on.
TIP: I do suggest doing a little sweep through your to-do list from time to time. In case you decide that perhaps you too have changed your mind on some of the things you wanted to be done. You know, sometimes it’s okay to let mediocre ideas die a silent death.
Habits and habit tracker
Things that you want to start doing or quit doing are easily tracked as habits. These do not disappear as habits take time to form or lose. You can make a list of habits, that generate experience points, mana, and gold, the more you do them. Or, in case of bad habits, will cost you health points every time you do them. Just your character, and not your party members.
Habits can be set to daily, weekly, or even monthly. It depends on how frequently you want the behavior exhibited. The more you do a habit, the color will go from neutral yellow to green, dark green, or even blue. The more stubborn the bad habit, the darker red the habit gets. Eventually, the bad habit might end up almost killing you, I imagine. In that case, I suggest you take a look at why you made the habit in the first place and refocus on that reason.
TIP: Taking a break might help you reset your goals, and prevent you from forming a toxic relationship with them. We all know tons of influencers, living unachievable lives, preaching about behaviors no normal human being would be able to uphold for longer than a month. Do not fall into that trap, or feel bad about yourself. Watch out for toxic self-help scheme to sell books that do not fit your life or current situation. Everything in life takes time, and we are often left with decisions about how much we are willing to sacrifice for the betterment of ourselves. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.
Tasks are the main thing
Up next is tasks. So tasks are the main thing in Habitica if you ask me. You can set tasks up to do on a daily bases, weekly bases, or even certain days of the week. And if you do not fulfill a task, it will not only cost you health points but also cause damage to your party members. This is where the psychology of doing what is best for your group kicks in. But just like with to-do’s or habits, if given much pressure and not much result, you might want to think carefully about your tasks and what day you should do them.
Are the tasks doable, in balance with your other goals, healthy, or even realistic? For example, if you are going away for the weekend, perhaps cleaning your house for 30 minutes a day is impossible. Unless you have mastered the art of remote cleaning. If not, you can deactivate a task until further notice. Lucky for all the people that like to go on weekend trips like myself, and also for their party members as they will not get sucker punched by unfinished task damages.
TIP: Sometimes spending too much time online and playing games will get in the way of building good habits and finishing your daily and weekly tasks. That’s why we wrote and article about low-effort games that you can play while adulting. So you get to have fun, but can still manage to keep your life organized.
Tips and tricks?
So, for me, Habitica is a way to keep an oversight on all the to-do’s, reward good habits, and discourage bad ones, and I have a handy oversight of my daily and weekly tasks. Also, it helps me appreciate how far I have come regarding my goals of eating healthy, having good sleeping hygiene, and exercising more frequently. Plus, I get to share it with friends and learn from their mindset.
Do you struggle to organize your life and could you also use some type of app or gamification of your daily chores? Did you think the tips I wrote were helpful? Or do you maybe have some amazing tips of your own? Share them with us
