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Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

habitica.com

51–60 of 104 posts

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#51
post #36

See also Ben Kuhn's "Make your habits zero-effort" - https://www.benkuhn.net/zero/ "Life hacks abound: Tell your friends about your plan so you’ll be embarrassed if you fail! Make sure you keep an unbroken streak! Charge yourself money if you don’t stick to it! Donate the money to your least favorite charity! Forget donations, how about electric shocks? The escalating absurdity should tell you that this problem is un…

That's cool, I haven't seen this idea summed up so well. Do you have any examples of this? One thing I do is put sites I want to spend less time on into my hosts file. That way I have to edit a file, which means leaving the context of my web browser, before I can access the site. Another habit I want to build is quick journaling first thing in the morning, so I made my browser start page a Google docs, and I automati…

Activitywatch is free and self hosted.

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#53

Why does this need to be an online app? Why do I need to run my own instance if I want control over my data? An offline app would work just fine, no? After all this is nothing more than a glorified todo list.

It’s a multiplayer game

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#54
post #36

See also Ben Kuhn's "Make your habits zero-effort" - https://www.benkuhn.net/zero/ "Life hacks abound: Tell your friends about your plan so you’ll be embarrassed if you fail! Make sure you keep an unbroken streak! Charge yourself money if you don’t stick to it! Donate the money to your least favorite charity! Forget donations, how about electric shocks? The escalating absurdity should tell you that this problem is un…

That's cool, I haven't seen this idea summed up so well. Do you have any examples of this? One thing I do is put sites I want to spend less time on into my hosts file. That way I have to edit a file, which means leaving the context of my web browser, before I can access the site. Another habit I want to build is quick journaling first thing in the morning, so I made my browser start page a Google docs, and I automati…

I've heard good things about Qbserve, but it's mac only.

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#55
post #50

I did try quite a few things, but for me each app adds friction to tasks. Friction with setting, friction with changing priorities (a wall of shame of unfinished tasks saps the rest of willpower), friction with things that need to be done in a different way than provided by an app, etc. What I ended with is a daily Evernote checklist (any plaintext editor would work). Ticking is a reward on its own, while the overhea…

I agree with the friction. I haven’t found anything better than pen and paper :)

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#56

I would use something that looks like an actual habit tracker [1] but with elements of gamification, than a game with elements of tracker, which seems to care more about being fancy pixel art, than a tool to help people track habits. [1] https://loophabits.org

> which clearly cares more about being fancy pixel art than a tool to help people track habits Why do you say it 'clearly cares more' about art than its purpose?

Art doesn't want a purpose

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#57
post #36

See also Ben Kuhn's "Make your habits zero-effort" - https://www.benkuhn.net/zero/ "Life hacks abound: Tell your friends about your plan so you’ll be embarrassed if you fail! Make sure you keep an unbroken streak! Charge yourself money if you don’t stick to it! Donate the money to your least favorite charity! Forget donations, how about electric shocks? The escalating absurdity should tell you that this problem is un…

That's cool, I haven't seen this idea summed up so well. Do you have any examples of this? One thing I do is put sites I want to spend less time on into my hosts file. That way I have to edit a file, which means leaving the context of my web browser, before I can access the site. Another habit I want to build is quick journaling first thing in the morning, so I made my browser start page a Google docs, and I automati…

Yeah, I’ve noticed that subware developers are often less-than-forthcoming about their pricing model, probably because they know it’s unpopular. It’s the first thing I look for, and when I find it, I stop considering that app.

If you’re on a Mac, there’s a neat (and free) app that’ll block sites for you: https://selfcontrolapp.com/

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#58

I've tried many apps to track my actions and in long term it doesn't work.

Yeah these never work for me either. I’ve tried again and again-even thinking I’ll keep something like Notion as a user friendly database for tracking what I’ve done. But no. Even if I like interacting with it I just fall off because of the overhead.

I’m better off with a sticky note (even virtual ones on my desktop) and a note pad I can tear a page out of than anything else

But I’ve always found—since high school—that just the act of writing something down physically cements things in my mind. At least for as long as I need them to be easily accessible.

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#59
post #36

See also Ben Kuhn's "Make your habits zero-effort" - https://www.benkuhn.net/zero/ "Life hacks abound: Tell your friends about your plan so you’ll be embarrassed if you fail! Make sure you keep an unbroken streak! Charge yourself money if you don’t stick to it! Donate the money to your least favorite charity! Forget donations, how about electric shocks? The escalating absurdity should tell you that this problem is un…

That's cool, I haven't seen this idea summed up so well. Do you have any examples of this? One thing I do is put sites I want to spend less time on into my hosts file. That way I have to edit a file, which means leaving the context of my web browser, before I can access the site. Another habit I want to build is quick journaling first thing in the morning, so I made my browser start page a Google docs, and I automati…

It's not exactly the same but arbtt[1] (automatic rule-based time tracker) is what I use on my desktop for tracking time in apps. It would perform the what-for-how-long data collection without providing a cloud-hosted UI for access/review

I'm unable to comment on how easy it is to analyse the dataset it generates as I've not yet got to that myself, but data collection is straightforward.

[1] https://arbtt.nomeata.de/#what

Re: Habitica – A gamified habit-building and productivity app

#60
post #36

See also Ben Kuhn's "Make your habits zero-effort" - https://www.benkuhn.net/zero/ "Life hacks abound: Tell your friends about your plan so you’ll be embarrassed if you fail! Make sure you keep an unbroken streak! Charge yourself money if you don’t stick to it! Donate the money to your least favorite charity! Forget donations, how about electric shocks? The escalating absurdity should tell you that this problem is un…

That's cool, I haven't seen this idea summed up so well. Do you have any examples of this? One thing I do is put sites I want to spend less time on into my hosts file. That way I have to edit a file, which means leaving the context of my web browser, before I can access the site. Another habit I want to build is quick journaling first thing in the morning, so I made my browser start page a Google docs, and I automati…

Add tracking - I had a love & hate relationship with Rescue Time. Just because one can track something does not mean it is easy to change behaviour. Diagnosis is not (yet) a treatment.

I've found a way to hack Rescue Time to to the job - by wiring the newly open browser tabs to it. Now it actually changes my behaviour, and there is not friction (I don't need an extra task on "check RT sometimes").

More in "ADHD tech stack: auto time tracking" (https://medium.com/@pmigdal/adhd-tech-stack-auto-time-tracki...).

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