I definitely suggest breaking general tasks into more specific ones. Get yourself points for every little thing you do. That's how you motivate yourself. And only put stuff on the Dailies list that you're likely to actually do every day. Things that you want to try to start doing but you will probably fail to do for a while, put in habits until they become easier to do.
My lists are very long. In fact, I'll share them with you all if you like. It's been extremely effective for me. Also notice that I have ZERO negative habits. Punishing myself every time I do something mildly bad is not going to motivate me. I'm only motivated by rewards for the good stuff. So the first thing I do when I put something on the habits list is remove the minus button. I can only lose HP by failing to do my dailies, which so far has only happened twice, and that was only because I was out and got home after midnight and the rollover had already happened. (Fortunately they have a feature to restore your streak, but there was no way to retroactively give myself the points and avoid HP damage).
Drink Tea
Drink Black Coffee (as opposed to coffee with cream and sugar)
Up Before 8:00
Healthy Snack (unprocessed, not salty or sugary)
Prepare For Next School Year
Work On Game (developing my own games)
Magazine Work (writing for my magazine editing job)
Put Away Clothes Properly
Homemade Meal
Salt-Free Meal
Floss
Extra DuoLingo
Extra 1k on FreRice
Arting Session
Writing Session
5 Minutes Exercise
Wash Dishes
30 Min. Reading
Extra Book (for the bookkeeper challenge)
Sometimes I do something that allows me to check off several boxes. If I make a healthy meal without salt and wash the dishes immediately, I check Homemade Meal, Salt-Free Meal, and Wash Dishes. Then I eat, and if I wash the plate immediately instead of leaving it in the sink for later, I get to check Wash Dishes again. As a result, there are never any dirty dishes in my sink anymore, my kitchen is cleaner overall, and I'm eating healthier because I'm not making excuses to eat frozen/processed/take-out food anymore. Sure, I could also add a bad habit of eating junk, but it's not necessary, and it would just make me feel bad.
My dailies list is quite long as well, but again, it's only things I can reasonably expect myself to do every day. I only have them on here in case I start to get lazy over the summer, since I don't have to go to work.
Up Before 9:00
Get Dressed
Brush Teeth
Make Bed
Exercise (Long Walk/100 Crunches/Equiv.)
Morning Tea (this is bad-tasting allergy tea that I must drink every day)
Evening Tea
Write 1500 Words (this is for my novel rewrite)
Draw Game Winners
DuoLingo
1k Grains on FreeRice
There are also some cleaning habits that only count on certain days:
Vacuum (Wed/Sat)
Toilet/Sink (Sat)
Kombucha (Sun)
Weekly Book (Sun) (For Bookeeper challenge)
Without these dailies, I'd degenerate over the summer. I'd never get out of my pajamas, might not even brush my teeth every day. I wouldn't get hardly any exercise, since all the work I do need to do is on the computer and for fun I prefer to play games on the computer.
Then, for everything else, I just make a to-do task right before I need to do it. I have standing tasks there for all the articles I need to write for the magazines. I've got the monthly book ones there waiting for the proper month. Then when I feel myself procrastinating about something (getting off the computer and making breakfast, for example), I add a to-do "Make Breakfast." Then, magically, it's very easy to get up and do that, because I know I'll get to check off the little boxes when I do.
That's how I use this, anyway. And it's working really well. Remember, you're not competing against other people. Don't worry about whether a "real" game would award you as much. Award yourself however much you need to in order for this to work as motivation. And if punishing yourself is demotivating you, get rid of all the stuff that's punishing you. Move your most difficult dailies to the habits column for a while. This should make you feel good, otherwise it's pointless.
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Topic: Habit RPG (Read 38102 times)