After trying a million to do list applications on my Android phone, I gave up. My tasks went from green to red, roaring in anger. They kept notifying me constantly and frequently. Finally, every one of these apps got on my nerves, and I was forced to delete them. Reason? A deluge of notification but zero motivation.
I tried to analyze what makes me use the other applications that I do. Reason: Games. Be it earning gold or health or points or badges, games are fun! That’s when I Googled this ‘ to do list app to gamify life ‘. (Such a noob I was to think Google was a person and could find what I wanted, or was I?) The first link that popped up was what changed my life from that day to now.
HabitRPG
A click on the first result took me to the website which said “A free habit building app that treats your life like a game” Cool! When I went through the introductory page, I instantly felt I had met my soulmate app. (Too cheesy, I know. Please bear with my new love.) The second thing that attracted me was that it was free and open source, meaning I could modify the source code as per my needs.
How to begin with HabitRPG?
After signing up, I was given a character to dress up and groom. One thing I initially wasn’t impressed about was the retro-style design of the game characters. I had to add tasks in three different categories, namely, habits, dailies and to dos. You can have check lists for the latter two and a time specification for to-dos. Every time you accomplish a task, you are rewarded with experience and gold/silver. With experience, you can level up. With gold you can reward yourself with character-accessories, or a bowl of noodles. Good habits can gain you rewards whereas bad habits make you unhealthy. If you miss out on any of your dailies, be prepared to lose your health! If you lose all your health, prepare to lose your wealth, or worse, your character could die!
What’s the motivation here?
Once you attach yourself with your character, you sure wouldn’t want to let it die, so you tend to get tasks done. Secondly, this website has released a rather preliminary minimal version app, which is promised to become better with time. Remember, its free and open source? It sure will take some time. Once you begin moving to higher levels, you begin to unlock pets, food, quests, weapons and a lot more. So, there is always an element of surprise for you. Even if you do not want to see all this as a game, it is a great way to track the three categories of things you have to do.
HabitRPG Tutorial #1: Tasks from Tyler Renelle on Vimeo.
What else?
To move to the premium version, which has more gaming features and customization options, you can pay and upgrade.
If you have to temporarily stop (which is not advisable as it makes you move away from all the productivity you’ve been making a habit!) there is an option to ‘rest in an inn’ and you can ‘check out of the inn’ whenever you want to.
It’s free! So, it doesn’t hurt to try. Become addicted to a game that’s productive for once!
