I might regret this...
I joined Habitica last week. Habitica allows you to turn your life into a roleplaying game. You tell it about tasks you want to do and habits you want to develop or avoid, and you get xps and loot if you do them, and lose health if you don't do them, or if you indulge in a bad habit. (It does, of course, require honesty.)
I am always ridiculously motivated by meaningless gold stars on a computer screen, so I've often considered giving it a go. (I used this same reasoning some years ago with the Wii Fit, but while it works perfectly at first, once I'd got 5 stars on an exercise I lost all interest in ever doing it again.) In the past, the main reason for my not joining was the fear that I would get too obsessed with earning points and it would ruin my life. However, I decided last week to take the plunge. At the moment, the "Dry January" switch and the "lose that pre-Christmas weight" diet switches are firmly switched on in my brain, and I'm not having any problems at all with resisting temptation. However, once the time comes to flip that switch away from January mode, things get harder, so I thought I'd see if the promise of xps would help, especially with regards to parties, dinners, weekends away and holidays, when good intentions often disappear after the first glass of wine or sight of the buffet table. I also wanted something that would encourage me to finally get on with certain non-urgent household tasks that have hanging around for months, even years, with me occasionally saying, "I really should do that one day," but never doing it.
So far it appears to be working pretty well, although the site doesn't always do what I want it to do. There are 3 types of tasks you can set: "habits," both positive and negative; one-off "To-dos," with or without a deadline; and "dailies," which don't have to be daily, but can be on specified days of the week or every X days. I wanted the ability to say I'd do something, say, 5 times a month, or 4 times a week but without specifying specific days. Pellinor is doing it, too - we're busy fighting a boss together - and he wanted a reminder to do some things roughly, but not exactly, once a fortnight. But with some trial and error, we're gradually finding ways around the limitations and are getting things more or less sorted.
So far it's definitely helped me remember a few trivial tasks that I need to do regularly but keep on forgetting, has inspired me to do more exercise, and has prompted me to get the sewing machine out to tackle some of those "I really should do that one day" tasks. But the true test will come when January ends, since we've got several parties coming up in February, but I'm hopeful that it will allow me to set reasonable goals and stick to them. We'll see...
I am always ridiculously motivated by meaningless gold stars on a computer screen, so I've often considered giving it a go. (I used this same reasoning some years ago with the Wii Fit, but while it works perfectly at first, once I'd got 5 stars on an exercise I lost all interest in ever doing it again.) In the past, the main reason for my not joining was the fear that I would get too obsessed with earning points and it would ruin my life. However, I decided last week to take the plunge. At the moment, the "Dry January" switch and the "lose that pre-Christmas weight" diet switches are firmly switched on in my brain, and I'm not having any problems at all with resisting temptation. However, once the time comes to flip that switch away from January mode, things get harder, so I thought I'd see if the promise of xps would help, especially with regards to parties, dinners, weekends away and holidays, when good intentions often disappear after the first glass of wine or sight of the buffet table. I also wanted something that would encourage me to finally get on with certain non-urgent household tasks that have hanging around for months, even years, with me occasionally saying, "I really should do that one day," but never doing it.
So far it appears to be working pretty well, although the site doesn't always do what I want it to do. There are 3 types of tasks you can set: "habits," both positive and negative; one-off "To-dos," with or without a deadline; and "dailies," which don't have to be daily, but can be on specified days of the week or every X days. I wanted the ability to say I'd do something, say, 5 times a month, or 4 times a week but without specifying specific days. Pellinor is doing it, too - we're busy fighting a boss together - and he wanted a reminder to do some things roughly, but not exactly, once a fortnight. But with some trial and error, we're gradually finding ways around the limitations and are getting things more or less sorted.
So far it's definitely helped me remember a few trivial tasks that I need to do regularly but keep on forgetting, has inspired me to do more exercise, and has prompted me to get the sewing machine out to tackle some of those "I really should do that one day" tasks. But the true test will come when January ends, since we've got several parties coming up in February, but I'm hopeful that it will allow me to set reasonable goals and stick to them. We'll see...