HabitRPG

[ratcreature]

I saw HabitRPG linked on Tumblr, and decided to give it a try. Basically it allows you to keep a task list (with the option of daily/scheduled activities, habits you want to form/break and one-off to-do list items you can check off), and then you earn or loose points (and various gimmicky extras I haven't explored yet) depending on how well you are doing like in a game.

Is anyone else using this? I decided to see whether it might motivate me better for the things you are supposed to do regularly to not have your space slide into squalor. In a fit of ambition I also added some like "draw something" that I manage even less well, because unlike a giant pile of neglected dishes, unaccomplished drawing doesn't build up its own pressure eventually. I also added some chores and stuff I already manage decently for the most part, so my avatar won't die right away from not getting any points at all.

One thing I already find not very practical is that with the "dailies" (which is the only category that also penalizes you if you don't manage them), you can't seem to make them just weekly, without setting specific days. There are many cleaning tasks that I'd ideally accomplish once a week but not every day, and I don't want to have to do them every Tuesday or Saturday or whatever. So for now I put these in the "habit" column.

Comments

[katarik]

Well, I'm using it *now*... thanks for mentioning it! *plays about with setting it up*

[ratcreature]

Heh. Glad to have pointed you to it. I can't yet say whether it'll have a lasting impact for me, but it got be to do the dishes tonight, even though there would have still been room in the sink and I had not yet run out of bowls either (the usual conditions to motivate me for that chore).

[katarik]

nods So far it's stuff that I would've done in a day or so anyway, but since I'm here and it's here, I may as well do it tonight.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

I tried something like that quite a while ago...Chore Wars? I think that was the name, and just failed out of it. The only thing that's been working for me is making a schedule of what rooms need cleaning on what day, and then borrowing Unfuck Your Habitat's 20/10s where you do 20 minutes of cleaning and take a 10 minute break.

[ratcreature]

I tried a to-do list breaking things down and such, but I ignored that as thoroughly as the undivided task. Generally my cleaning right now works so that things devolve until I either just can't avoid it -- like I run out of spoons, bowls or mugs and then just do all the dishes -- or it just becomes too gross and I then do minimal cleaning. And that is augmented by occasional instances where I need to open my place to visitors (like meters are read, repairs are needed or such), which result in me taking half a day to clean up until all things are okay, if not spotless, and the odd fit of irregular deeper cleaning, when I get it into my head that the top of some cabinet or the inside of my wardrobe needs cleaning because I haven't done that in years, and I notice these things individually at some random point, rather than doing spring cleaning once a year.