Ever feel like you’re drowning in tasks, unable to get anything done? You might even end up paralyzed, doing nothing at all. I’ve been there, but recently, I’ve taken steps to change that. Enter Habitica, a website that aims to help you improve your life through gamification.
What exactly is gamification you ask?
Gamification is the application of video game-like elements to other fields, such as points, high scores, achievements, rewards, collectibles, and so on. It’s originally a marketing term – if you’ve ever owned a reward card from any kind of shop, that’s your shopping habits being gamified.
Gamification has also been proposed and used as a self improvement technique. What if you could earn points, complete quests, and get rewards simply for improving your daily habits? Habitica aims to provide a method for people to gamify their lives through an open source application that can be accessed anywhere.
The way Habitica implements gamification is that you set up a number of tasks, ticking them off as you achieve them. As a result you will gain experience, level up your character, and earn virtual coins that can be spent on rewards.
Habitica has four different sets of tasks that you can interact with. These are Habits, Dailies, To Dos, and Rewards:
- Habits
These are small tasks that can repeat many times per day. Good examples for these kinds of tasks are going for a run, reading a chapter of a book, or writing an article for a website. - Dailies
These are tasks that you aim to do once every day. The idea of these tasks is that you intend to do them at least once per day in order to build a routine. - To Dos
These are tasks you intend to do over a longer period of time. You aren’t punished for not completing them, but you can earn better rewards for completing them faster. - Rewards
When you complete any of the above tasks you earn gold and experience. Experience can be spent on these rewards, giving you something to look forward to by completing tasks. Habitica comes with many default rewards, mainly equipment or cosmetics for your character, but you can also create custom rewards if you like.
While Habitica provides a solid foundation, I’ve found that applying a few ideas that I’ve detailed below allow me to use the site more effectively. Using these ideas, I found myself more productive and able to engage with the site. The approach is based on the idea that you should focus on keeping things simple, structured, and rewarding.
Daily Spheres
Several years ago, I attended a workshop at Burning Man where I learned an intriguing self-improvement method. The instructor categorized her goals into ‘spheres’—broad areas of life—and aimed to complete at least one task in each sphere per day. This gave her flexibility, allowing her to choose different activities while still achieving her goals.
For example, to complete the Physical sphere she could do any kind of exercise, be it hiking, swimming, going to the gym. To complete the Knowledge sphere, she could study, attend a class, read a book, and so on. In this way she improves herself, while also broadening her experiences.
This is something I’ve taken on board, and I’ve created a small group of these spheres that are personal to me:
- Mental
Despite being on the road, I want to keep up with learning new things, or maintaining old skills. I want to read more, and I want to continue practising Chinese. So anything that can involve learning will fall under this sphere. - Physical
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started gaining more weight. I’m not the fit MMA fighter I used to be. I care a lot more about my health now, so anything involving some exercise will fall into this sphere. - Social
I’m a socialite, but lately I’ve found it harder to maintain a good social life. Part of the reason is that I’m always on the road, so I want to make sure I keep in touch with family, friends, and also connect with new people. Anything that fits in with this goal falls under this sphere. - Spiritual
I’m not really a religious person, so this isn’t “spiritual” in the sense that others might interpret it. For me, it’s about exploring the world and trying out new experiences. Especially those that might scare me. The easiest example is trying out a new tourist attraction, or visiting parts of the world that are less well travelled. Anything involving travel and exploration falls under this sphere.
Yours don’t have to align exactly with mine, but these are what work for me. They also don’t need to be set in stone, if you feel like they need to change, then change them. You might find a sphere isn’t well defined, so you remove it. You may also find two spheres are too similar, making it hard to decide where Habits belong, so perhaps they need combining into one.
It’s important to keep the number of spheres small – if you have too many you can become overwhelmed and easily lose motivation. I find that 4 or 5 spheres at most works best, and it’s totally fine to only have 1 or 2 spheres. The goal is to encourage yourself to improve, not to feel guilty because you didn’t do 100 tasks that day.
To set this up in Habitica, I set each of these spheres to a Daily. I also add some emoticons so they stand out. To complete these tasks I need a way of defining what I can actually do. The way that I do this is by using Habits and To Dos to define what actually counts as completing a Daily.
If I complete one Habit, or one To Do that is related to a specific sphere, I also complete related Daily. In this way I can either complete a specific task, or one of my habits in order to complete a Daily.
In the sections that follow, I’ll go into detail on how exactly I define Habits and To Dos.
The benefit of this system is that you can do something different every day, and you don’t need to put as much effort into every one of them all of the time. One day you might do an intense physical training session at a gym that leaves you dripping with sweat, the next you might go for a slow relaxing walk. As long as the action fits the Daily, you’ve achieved something.
Habits and Carrots
But what actually counts as completing a daily? The way I manage this is by using Habits. Every habit I create is categorised into a sphere. If I complete a habit within a sphere, I also complete the daily. I still have the option to do more habits within that sphere for more rewards, but I can rest easy knowing one of the dailies is completed.
As an example, the habits I currently have for my Mental sphere are as follows:
- Read a chapter of a book
- Finish all missions in Duolingo
- Clear out my Anki deck
Completing any one of these habits will also let me complete the daily. I use the habits to define the options.
I find that this works if you have several habits, but you should still try and keep it to around 3-5 habits per daily. Too few and you’re doing the same thing every day, too many and you’re overwhelmed by choice blindness.
In Habitica you can also create bad habits. When you complete these, you click the minus button and lose some health as a punishment. I’ve always disliked this feature. Not only do you feel guilty for doing something, you now have to open an app and psychologically punish yourself for doing the bad thing. This can lead to negative thoughts, which is why I’ve given up on Habitica in the past.
The trick is to turn everything into a positive habit. For example, if you want to quit smoking, don’t create a negative habit for “smoking a cigarette”. Create a positive one for “resisting a craving”. In this way, if you smoke a cigarette, the only negative is that you smoked. But if you say no when someone offers you a cigarette you can look forward to a small reward for doing so. It encourages you and creates a more positive experience for actively choosing to do something that will improve your life.
The final thing to say about habits is to keep an eye on your progress. If your habits start turning blue, and you feel you are actively enjoying that habit, it might be time to retire it. When you do so, remember that this is a success. You don’t need Habitica to help you with this anymore, since you do it naturally!
Daily To Dos
Every day I look at my To-Dos and create a task list for that day. I create one To-Do for each sphere, and if I complete that To-Do, I also complete the associated Daily. This gives an alternative option for completing dailies, one that might not be a regular habit but just a goal for that specific day.
If you don’t complete a To-Do on the day you create it, you have two options: roll it over to the next day or, if it’s no longer relevant, just delete it. If you roll it over to the next day, you shouldn’t create a new To-Do for that sphere the next day. You should never have more To-Dos than you have Dailies. Remember, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself.
Difficulty, Effort, and Motivation
When it comes to difficulty, I like to think about two things. How much effort something takes, and how much motivation I have to do it. Effort can be how long a task takes, or how much physical exertion it needs. Motivation is how often I find myself actually wanting to do a task.
A low-effort task that I am motivated to do should be Trivial. A task that takes over an hour that I don’t want to do should be Hard. By setting difficulties in your tasks, you will find greater rewards in doing tasks you usually have less motivation for. This can help improve your motivation, and you may find you even get real-life benefits when you start doing them more.
When I create my daily To-Dos, I try and create one for each difficulty. A Trivial task that’s basically a free reward since I’m almost 100% likely to do it. A more challenging, Easy task that I plan to do anyway. A Medium task that I want to do, but might not get around to. And a Hard task that I don’t really want to do, but I know that I should try and get done.
I don’t always match this 100%, but it’s a good way to organise your To-Dos. It also helps with not being overwhelmed, since you are pretty much guaranteed to do at least two of them.
The same applies to habits. I try to have at least one trivial habit and one hard habit for each sphere. In doing so I can give myself easy days where I just do simple task, but also more rewarding days where I achieve a lot more. It doesn’t matter, both are good because I still achieve something, even if it’s easy.
Uncustom Rewards
With Habitica you can spend gold you earn by completing tasks on upgrading your character. You can also create custom rewards for yourself. A lot of people might add things such as “Play video games for 1 hour”, or “Treat yourself to a chocolate bar”, but I find these kind of rewards to be unhelpful.
The problem is that these rewards limit what you can do outside of the app. For example, you want to buy a chocolate bar. But first you have to open the app and pay for it with virtual gold. What if you don’t have enough gold? You either need to complete another task, or forgo the treat.
This can have one of two effects. Either you end up creating simple, easy tasks that you can complete quickly to justify your buying of the chocolate. Or it makes you feel like you’re not doing enough, that you don’t deserve that chocolate bar.
Both of these are discouraging. I’ve found that keeping the rewards solely focused on the app help more, as it doesn’t impact my real life in a negative way, and I still get a bit of dopamine when I add some new armour to my collection.
If you can find a way to make custom rewards work for you, that’s great! I’d love to hear about it, but until then my goal is to collect every item in Habitica.
Socialising
Humans are social animals, and socialising can be extremely good for us. Habitica has a number of social features, including parties and challenges.
With parties you can work together to complete quests that will give you greater rewards. As you complete tasks, you will slowly chip away at a bosses health, or gather up items to complete the quest.
Being in a party and completing quests is great. You can encourage each other to do your daily tasks, and it feels more satisfying when you complete a quest as a team. You still hold control of your own goals, but you are no longer doing them alone. And knowing that others depend on you can be a good bit of motivation
Challenges are a competition. You join a challenge that adds tasks to your character. At the end of the challenge, the person who has completed the most tasks gets reward diamonds that can be used to buy special items. Personally I don’t like challenges. As I’ve described above, I like to carefully curate the tasks I need, and adding new tasks from somewhere else pollutes my personal goals.
It may be an option for the more competitive user, however, as it can be fun to see how you rank amongst other people attempting these challenges. Competition can encourage people to improve themselves, and if that is you then you may enjoy playing the challenges.
Conclusion
Habitica is a great tool if you want to try and gamify your life. It’s not perfect, but with a few tweaks and applying some rules you can make something that works for you. The methods I’ve talked about above had allowed me to get a lot more out of the site, and also improve my personal life. They might work for you as well.
By tailoring Habitica to my needs, I’ve been able to turn daily tasks into more manageable and rewarding activities. This system has helped me reduce stress and actually enjoy the process of self-improvement. Whether you choose to adopt the Daily Spheres approach or experiment with gamifying your own life in another way, Habitica offers the flexibility to help you build a routine that works for you. The key is to find what makes you feel empowered—and have a little fun along the way!
