HabitRPG - first results

[ratcreature]

I've been doing HabitRPG for a bit now, and this approach has been working for motivation in some respects, for example I managed to do my dishes every evening instead of letting them pile up for days since I started, and my kitchen has been much more functional. I mean, I have no idea why the reward of getting stuff to hatch virtual zombie dragons works better as motivation than just not having to shift around piles of accumulated dirty dishes whenever I want to prepare food, but it does.

On the other hand, for more irregular cleaning tasks and my to-do list the success has been middling. In the past three weeks I did some cleaning, but I'm not sure whether it has been more than usual.

For accomplishing a regular bedtime before 1 a.m. as a habit it has not worked so far. So results are mixed, but my kitchen sink has been bio-hazard free for three weeks now, so that is something.

Comments

[some_stars]

I'm finding that it works reasonably well for me so far, but with the side effect that I spend 5-30 minutes a day obsessing over what I should add, whether I'm overloading myself or avoiding any real challenges, if my habits should be +/- instead of + or will that just make me sad, exactly what days of the week work best as my cooking and cleaning days, etc. etc. But my personal hygiene has improved considerably! Basically IDK if it's the greatest tool for depressed anxious people, but somehow having "shower" and "brush teeth" as little boxes I can check is way more motivating than "just don't be a filthy gross person, omg". I do not know why.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, the waffling over what to include happens to me too, mostly whether it was sort of cheating to include things I had no problems with to get some reliable point, and make sure to not die. I added brushing/flossing my teeth for that, though not showering, because I actually don't shower daily especially in winter (though usually in summer when feeling sweaty). Right now it's more showering two or three times a week rather than daily.

My hair doesn't like too frequent washing and in winter if I showered too often I would also need body lotion to moisturize, but I find having that stuff on my skin gross, and can barely bring myself to use handcream. Also considering what water costs these days, showering when I don't need to is just money down the drain, even though I have a water flow limiter in my showerhead. (As an aside, I actually don't understand why water is so expensive here when we certainly have no lack of it, but it just is, mostly I guess because of sewage treatment, because for a few years now you also have to pay for rainwater, proportional to the sealed ground you are responsible for as home owner or renter. That led to lots of disgruntled grumbling about how air usages fees are probably next.)

Of course not getting out of bed or washing at all because of depression, makes you feel inherently grosser than just showering in different intervals. That's more psychological than other noticing anything though, I think. I mean, when I have had bad days like that, I felt gross regardless. Of course Americans seem to be extreme about not ever smelling a normal body odor on others. I mean, it's not as if I like smelly people on public transport but horrible artificial smells are IMO worse except for extremes, like homeless people who have neglected hygiene completely or something. I mean so far nobody has ever avoided sitting next to me on the bus or metro, beyond the usual public transport rules of trying to maximize personal space as long as possible in the seats you pick as the bus or train fills up.

[marag.livejournal.com]

How funny! I was just thinking about posting my own results with HabitRPG :)

My results are similarly mixed. It's worked well at getting me to do the dishes before bed and moderately well with a few similar things. Overall, I think the results are worth continuing with it.

[ratcreature]

I think part of it is that I set up the dishes as daily task, but that doesn't work for cleaning the shower or mopping my kitchen floor. I mean, maybe there are people who do that daily, but I'm not going to. Similarly I don't want to schedule it every Tuesday or such, so while I get a reward for doing the task, I can still delay it without consequence. I'd really like the option of weekly and monthly tasks, that would have to do at some point in that time period. Another aspect is of course that I don't like doing the dishes, but it is much less work and thus less annoying than mopping floors or bathroom cleaning.

But yeah, for now I'm sticking with it too.

[marag.livejournal.com]

I think over time we'll get better about doing those occasional tasks as well. I'm already getting a bit better since I started.

Of course, I've also already died once, but there ya go :)

[ratcreature]

Ouch. I've avoided dying so far. I set the penalizing tasks unambitious enough and included some positive things I already did fairly reliably before, that I avoided death. But yeah, there may be hope with the occasional tasks, like my bedtime thing, that I set up with +/- still is yellow at least, so I'm not failing at it all the time.