Make Your Habits Come True

Don’t worry, this blog post will not include any stupidly long and heartbreaking story how I become motivated. Instead, I would like to give you some tips from my personal experience how I stick to my new habits. You may not trust me, but keep in mind that I already successfully completed a few on-line courses and I still take new ones ? (just try to google the completion rate of MOOCs).

Photo: Markus Spiske / ffcu.io

It is interesting how many people set new year’s resolutions. It seems that everybody knows what he wants, but nobody is able to stick to the plan. In my opinion, in order to make your dreams come true, you have to enjoy the process not just the result. Obviously, there is not an easy solution for this problem, but it doesn’t have to be that bad.

Habitica

I already came across Habitica few months ago, but I started using it just recently. The Habitica is simply a task management app, but it takes the form of  role-playing game. That means that you have your hero and whenever you complete a task you get experience and golds, on the other side, when you fail to complete your daily tasks you lose health. But there is much more, you can buy items, play with friends, form parties, complete quests, fight bosses, and take global challenges. And it really works, because it is much more fun to clean your room when you know that it will kill the boss and you might get a legendary weapon. ?

I look pretty tuff.

I initially started using the app in order to read more and practice for SAT regularly. Over time I started using it for other activities and now I use it everyday. But before you register and jump into a new adventure, I would like to give you a few tips.

Start Slow

From my own experience, the worst thing that you can do is to set 10 daily tasks straight away and think that you solved your procrastination. Because you will fail to complete the tasks very next day, your hero will die and it won’t be fun. Instead you should add a new daily task only once you can complete actual tasks fairly easily.

Pomodoro Technique

Another problem which you may come across is how long should your daily tasks take. Because it won’t be fun if you have only one task which takes 2 hours, but it will also ruin the game if you have hundreds of one minute tasks. For this reason I get inspired by the Pomodoro technique and I set 25 minutes for a task.

Join A Party

Joining a party is really important step. Ideally the party should consist of your friends or at least some active members. Because you will be completing quests and fighting bosses with your party, but in case you don’t finish your daily tasks the boss will attack the whole party. This puts even more responsibility on you, and it can act as a good motivation.

Summary

In case you are into role-playing games, you should definitely check the Habitica. I think it really helps me to keep track of my habits and daily tasks. And in case you can’t find a group, leave your User ID below in the comments and I will invite you into my group ?.