Using SuperBetter and HabitRPG in tandem

I like SuperBetter and HabitRPG for organising myself. I’ve talked in the past about them (here’s the first time, a compare and contrast between the two and an explanation of how I used Habit (though it’s changed somewhat since then). I’ve known people on both platforms interested in using the other, so I thought I’d make a post about how the two can be used in conjunction most effectively. It does mean that I’ve summarised parts of both of them here, so that people unfamiliar with one will go into the other with at least some knowledge.

This has ended up a lot longer than I thought it would be, so if you want the TL;DR version: Use Hyperlinks in your task descriptions on Habit that point to specific tasks in SB. Click them off in Habit, open them in SB then comment on them and wait for ally comments.

Both SuperBetter and HabitRPG can be "played" in a range of ways. The way I've used them has varied over time, as my familiarity and engagement with them and other users has waxed and waned. In my opinion, there's more of a recovery mindset with SB users, and more of an improvement mindset with Habit, but they're not exclusive.

It seems to me that there's more people who need to make big sweeping changes - possibly involving a lot of real small steps at the beginning - in SB. If you've already got a lot of plates spinning in the air and handling it reasonably well, then selecting similar sorts of allies in SB might be more effective. However, I've had allies from all walks of life, countries, beliefs etc, and while sometimes I might roll my eyes and wonder what I've let myself into at first, they've all provided different insights and points of view that I hadn't expected and so I've learned from them, even if their suggestion was not something I followed up.

The way I am suggesting using these two sites in tandem is like so:

SB for the deep, personal connections allies provide, focused on one facet that's important to me (in the past I tended to use a multi-pronged approach, but I am shunting the bulk of that stuff over to Habit). Habit for the normal day to day stuff (though I'll be winnowing that down), reminders, to-do list.

New to Habit?

Start slow (you can always add more). Use emoji and tags to help easily identify things. Set alarms, change your homepage, shortcut/favourite/bookmark the link so you visit at least once a day until the habit of Habit sticks.

New to SB?

Decide how much you're willing/comfortable with sharing. Prepare a summary of what you're up against, what you want to achieve, and what things you're looking for in an ally and send this as an email when you ally up. That way, they're not going in cold, and can start making a connection.

New to both?

Congratulations! You've got no prior baggage or expectations getting in the way. I really do think that both running in tandem in a focused, thought out program will be the most effective, and will be starting this myself real soon.

When I first started using SB, and also when I started with Habit, I had no ideas what to list at first, then it exploded. I trimmed it down, but eventually it keeps creeping back up again, and you'll find things in multiple columns or listed in different ways all clamouring to be checked off. Scheduling a monthly/quarterly overhaul to cut down on feature creep is a great idea. Even if you find you're able to deal with more, you probably can condense, refine (or even remove) to make your lists more effective.

This post is part thinking aloud my overhaul, and partially signposting what I think would work well.

For my SB setup: I'm going to strip it bare of everything but the biggest issues I am struggling with, and largely try and stay focused on my big ticket item - writing - where ally support will be most beneficial. For me, that means some family items will remain as bad guys, but the bulk of my powerups, quests and Bad Guys are to do with typing.

On my first run through, most of my names tended to be flippant, but I made sure to give them detailed descriptions of what each one is, so that my allies know what it entails. If it's a Bad Guy, I liked to list in its descriptions some Power-Ups or Quests I can use to defeat it, or at least lessen the loss. I've seen allies doing it the other way too, but for me that seems overkill - it's more a case when I'm sucking at something I need a reminder of how to do better. This time round, they’re far more descriptive.

To a large degree, I use Quests and Power-Ups largely interchangeably. Short, quick things I tend to put in Power-Ups, and most of the time I made recurring Quests, though I pretty much ignored the which day it falls due section. The way SB highlights that wasn't too effective for me.

Turn it on here...

And it pops up over here, on the right hand column, right where some websites have ads.
I'm so used to blanking that out that I never see it.

Allies: a summary

Allies, and my interactions with them are my main focus of SuperBetter. Their different points of view, kind words and suggestions will all go towards encouraging me and making myself accountable to both myself and them. The more details I provide, the more help they can provide, and the stronger bond we form. This is the same whether I interact with them on my page, their page, or elsewhere. It makes a tighter bond and a more effective feedback loop. I've found this to be effective even after we stopped using SB. If you're both comfortable with it, would recommend in allying up in other ways too: emails, follow their blogs, friends them on other social media it can all help (so long as you trust them, and they trust you).

While I want the bulk of my SB use to be on issues I'm dealing with and writing (my main focus at the moment for me), it's important to also add some things you feel good about and want to celebrate. All doom and gloom can be hard going for allies. Even if it's something as simple and small as three daily gratitudes (which seems to be a very popular option, even if the daily bit isn't always daily), some silver lining will help.

When you check stuff off, some explanation towards why you lost, or what you achieved, or your mindset that helped you win will help keep your allies informed and engaged, and spur conversation. Worst comes to worst, you've got a safe place to rant and rave about your boss/customers/spouse/kid/neighbour/insert anger inducing thing with a sympathetic audience.

Allies - give and take

There is nothing wrong with asymmetrical alliances. I have posted lengthy, detailed accounts of all sorts of things, but I'm comfortable doing so. I've posted links to photos of my family and other things that could be used to identify me. I've shared Facebook details with some allies. I love having long, rambling conversations with allies where we solve all the worlds problems and then some.

But that's not for all my allies, and that's fine. There's some I don't know if they're a bloke or a chick, and it doesn't matter to me if their either, neither or some other option I'm unaware of and have just unwittingly insulted. There's some who only interact with me on their activity feed, because they're still in the small step stages, and seeing me clicking things off in a frenzy depresses them, but they're up for having a yarn where they're comfortable, or in an email discussion, and that's fine too.

There's some that type nary a character, but have gone through and liked just about every comment and click I've done, no matter how deep it's nested, and that's fine too (I'm assuming they're reading them as well, and even if they're not, I'm narcissistic enough to enjoy having an imaginary audience hanging on my every word).

There are some that are kicking goals one month, and then struggling the next, that's perfectly OK as well, we all have ebb and flow in our abilities, interests and output. The only sort of ally doing it wrong is the one pointing at someone and saying they're doing it wrong (I'm whistling innocently now I've realised I've just done that).

My Habit setup: I find the social side of Habit to be far more tenuous - the groups are larger, you can't see what people are working on, there's not as much interaction. This can be both a good and a bad thing. If I look at my guild lists with an unbiased eye, there's some that are fairly inactive, some that I don't really interact with and just skim comments, and some that are purely social, not productive (but that's not neccessarily a bad thing). I could streamline it by leaving a bunch, but it's not hurting me, and occasionally I pick up a good challenge, or some ideas, or drop a few words in a bit of banter.

I find that the daily little things that I need reminders of or some sort of gamification to encourage me to do (or not do as the case may be) go perfectly here. 

Case in point, not checking my email on my phone when I get up in the night for a slash. It's a tiny tiny thing that you'd think I could brute self control my way into doing... wrong! Once I added it as a daily (really a yesterdaily, I check it off if and only if I didn't do it last night) it dried up. When I deleted it because I had racked up a streak and so obviously had it under control it came roaring back that very night... some adult I am huh? So I added it back in and now it's subsided again, mostly.

Unlike SB dailies, I find Habit Dailies effective in prompting me for the things I need to do on a regular basis effective as there is some penalty for not doing them (but as a high level cleric that tends to be losing my perfect day buff not the threat of death. I may have to look at my play style to bring that back in perhaps).

I have some Dailies that are eternally grey. They work as master tags and bonus modifiers. I have a lot of habits that are also repeated some way in the Dailies column, because often the things I do are not things that must be done today right now. For me its frequently I have a smorgasbord of things: I could be doing any of these three things. Having extra tasks I can tick off help me to prioritize (sometimes with questionable logic) and escape the inertia in of making a decision because I am spoiled for choice.

A while back I gamified everything, to make it more immersive, but I've since moved away from that stance, just for convenience. Some things still keep their names, but I've largely been adding them as what they are.

A hypothetical blank slate on both sites:

Here's some screenshots I put together for a mate who tried Habit recently. He was interested in improving his drawing, effective studying, getting more exercise, and dancing

All the things!

Just school

Just Art

Just Dance

Just Exercise

The first: An overview of everything. I made everything tagged, emojied, weighted (some hard, some easy) some greyed out completely or due on certain days. The one's following: clicking on the various tags brings up only those entries.

Over the years I tried to get him on SB too, but I didn't have any luck. Here's a quick mock-up for SB I've just made. Much of it is condensed down: instead of the different types of exercise, there's just exercise - the breakdown would be added in a note he'd type in, and if he added some more detail then his allies could interact with him apart from just "Way to go mate." There is also some double up: Stayed Up Too Late is a Bad Guy that you can lose to, OR you could win it, OR you could click on the Power Up Went to Bed on Time. Why yes, I do work at the department of redunancy department, redundancy division, why do you ask? The reason for this is so that we have positive things to help guide positive thoughts, and also because there's a difference in my mind from actively going to bed early, and happening to notice just in time that it's nearly my assigned sleep time and making a mad scramble for bed. Having different ways of recording it does allow for some nuance. This was also a quick 20 minute example, and the real deal would be modified as needed, so take it with a bit of a grain of salt.

Bad Guys

Power Ups

Quests page 1

Quests page 2

There's a lot more clicking around to get things ticked off (Quests, Bad Guys and Power-Ups are all on different pages, and then you need to select the one you want, then if you did it (possibly also picking the difficulty level as well) so if time is of the essence, recording victories and losses elsewhere then entering them when you can also add the comments to explain them to your allies would be my recommendation.

Also to be added would be assignments/exams as once off quests. In SB, they'd be in the To-Do column, but I'd be recording the due date somewhere else, as neither site fills me with confidence for reminders of when things are due on time.

How to use them together:

Now that everyone has an understanding of how to use the two sites and a quick example of what a starter set would look like in both, it's time to get all synergistic up in this place. The way I would suggest this is to use Habit as your main site of data entry, using the magic of clickable links in your titles thusly [Name of the clicky bit you're clicking on](actual link) in your actual naming of tasks, like so. That means that after you click on the plus you did it, you click on the link, and it takes you directly to where you mark it off on SB.

This from my artistic friend:

From the Habit column in Habit

Would go directly to this:

The Posted some art quest page, ready to check off

After clicking everything off in SB, go back to your activity feed and write your notes to keep your allies informed, and bask in the feedback they provide.

For battling Bad Guys, you could even make separate Habits for them at different difficulty settings (that was often something I forgot to adjust when clicking it off). This would especially make sense if you're a subscriber in Habit, as the data retention would possibly give you more info (I'm not too sure about that, graphs don't really do it for me and I barely glance at them).

Enough of the Hypotheticals, let's get back to me:

I was planning on visiting Dr. Meta soon (a cull and overhaul of Habit) and so I guess no time like the present. A before screenshot of EVERYTHING before I started culling:

A lot of those To-Do's got added and never looked at again

I then went into SB, and stripped out all my old stuff (even the ones that I am still going to keep) so that it reset the counters. I thought about what I wanted to add back in, and how it would relate to Habit.

Here's my new, improved Habit everything screenshot.

Possibly there's still too much going on?

NOTE: I'm not a productive dynamo and powered through a ton of To-Do's, instead I weeded out things that had become too much of a "some day, one day" thing instead and ditched a couple of challenges I made for myself in my private guild because I'm not focused on them at the moment, they were just cluttering up things.

Here's a list of things that have the SB tag, the ones under the SB headings with extra emoji are purely related to SB (I use a tag separator for every tag grouping I have, even if they're not always filed under it because of reasons). You see that most of the others have the hyperlinks set up, so when I tick them off in Habit, I can tick them off here too. For the visiting the ally Daily (greyed out at the moment as I have no active allies), I'll add a check box for each ally. They will likely only be ticked when I've posted a few comments on their pages (I'm quite an active and chatty ally), and the comment-storm Habit will be for the long rambling discussions that I love.

After swapping between the three groups in SuperBetter (Quests, Power-Ups and Bad Guys), this is the lists I've ended up with:

Quests

Power Ups

Bad Guys (there was too many for one screen so I zoomed out a bit)

 It's much smaller than my lists from Habit, but that's because these are the things I am focused on, and don't want to distract my allies with other things. Allies can click on them, see my track record, and my detailed description so they know what's going on. In my first email with them where I give them a summary, I will be describing what I am doing in relation to each one, and some ideas of what I'm looking for from teaming up with them.

State of the Empire Address

Well, it's been quite a while since I've done one of these, and I've been dormant for ages so it seems appropriate to do it now. The new school year is about to kick off, and I am at a new campus (with the same company) so while a lot of my old complaints will still hold true, but there will also be a delightful newness, helped in no small part by swapping to Year 1 International (so that means I have the same class for the whole day, and have finally ditched the third grade text books which were horrible). I will have a lot less typing time as it will be a more hands on, but I'll also have less marking too - something that makes me very happy. That will just mean I will have to be more focused in my free time. They do like their forms and paperwork here, but I guess it is only fair that I atone for previous years by submitting it all on time.

I went on a short hiatus here while I was working on a project I have been referring to as the Honkin' Big Book Project. But "working" should be in air quotes, as the end of the school year with a newborn at home wasn't quite the best time to choose. I do have plans of working on it, especially now that I am largely waking up around 5 o'clock or so most days due to one daughter or the other. I have slowly been weaning myself off my early morning clickbait feast, and by small steps I'm becoming more productive then - so long as neither Madeline nor Rosalyn wake up again. I intend to go back to posting more regularly here, even if it is just something short. I have however also found a nice new place to play on, so I will have to do my best not to spend all my free time there

To aid with all this I have just recently finished a rather drastic overhaul of HabitRPG, coughed up for a subscription and used another orb of rebirth. I still hadn't hit level 100, but once again standards were slipping a bit. I also hadn't really been using the Habits column much, relying instead on Dailies and To-Do's. I've pulled a lot of no-core activities that I've either mastered, are too easy or aren't what I want to focus on, and dropped some challenges that were equally distracting. I'm excited for the new start of the school year, and new focus that I've got... we'll just have to see how long that lasts.

A Habit of Excellence

HabitRPG is my latest productivity kick, from my opinion it's got me going gangbusters. I just did a quick breakdown comparing it to my other self-improvement tool/website, but I want to go over it at length on its own as well.

In HabitRPG you get a little avatar that you have to level up and keep alive by completing your tasks. The word avatar has been debased in recent times, nowadays it can mean something as minor as an icon that represents you in a chat forum. But it used to mean a vessel of a divine being - ole JC hisself, or Vishnu come to put the smack down, or Zeus to get it on with the ladies. That's how I feel with my 8 bit sprite, filled with even more potential than when I last had an alter-ego me who journeyed through Azeroth (though that could be because while I enjoy those sorts of games, I am terrible at them, and largely looked at WoW as a prettier IRC client with things I could poke with axes when there was no-one to talk to).

It's a me, Mario Snellopy!

As you tick things off, you're awarded gold and experience. After level 2, you're able to buy things (armour, swords) for your avatar, and you can also set up custom rewards too - though I don't find these as useful. For certain activities, not doing the task (or doing a bad task) inflicts damage on your little avatar, and you either need a cleric to heal you, level up for an XP refill, or spend your hoarded gold on a healing potion.

Since no-one else sees your list (except for specific ones that are added to challenges) you're free to list anything down without fear of judgment. Since you don't have to explain your ideas to others, it's also possible to gamify everything, which is what I've done. I also added a little icon emoji next to each one, to help me find things faster, and there's mouse over text explaining what each one is just in case I forget (like after my holiday).

Habits
Habits are best thought of as things that you do either more than once a day, or every now and then. They come in three different types: positive only, positive or negative, negative only. Each suit a particular situation. Writing an email is just a positive one. Having one too many beers is a positive/negative one... I click on the minus when I have an extra one and take damage, and click on the plus when I've been all saintly. Sitting for a whole period is just a negative one. I could make it so that it went both ways, but since I count even the most tokenistic foray from my computer chair, I don't think it'd be fair.

The vast majority of mine are plus only, but I do have a couple of each of the other types.

I didn't realise I had so many until I screenshotted them all.

Here's a screenie of all my non-challenge habits (I took this at the end of the day, that's why they're pretty much uniform in colour). Normally they're in one single big scrolling column, but I figure this way they're easier to see. Some of them map obviously to what they are - tome of knowledge is reading a self help book, Soulbond is spending time with Tho. Flash of Magic is posting flash fiction. Some of them are more fictionalised like regaling over ale (forum interaction) and dented shield (too much internetting).

Dailies
Dailies are things that you want to do on specific days every week. Most of mine I have set up to only be active on Monday to Friday, because they're school based. I do have a few for weekends as well, but if we go away for the weekend and we have no internet, then my little guy is going to take damage.

I have my dailies set up in five main groups. Everything is gamified with a dwarven or cleric bent.

Clan and Kin, Forge and Foundry, Axe and Anvil, Mine and Mountain, Beer and Beards. These headers are always grey because they're inactive. This means I never take damage from them. They're also set to hard, because when I've had a crazy productive day in that area, then I can tick it off for an extra payout. All my habits are tagged with at least one of them too, so even if there's not a lot sitting in the list under dailies, there might be other things causing the free points. I like this idea because often they're pulling me in different directions, so it is really hard with the way I have set it up to get a clean sweep of all my dailies.

Clan and Kin is stuff to do with family. Vespers with the Novitiate is playing with Madeline, Circle of protection is cleaning up the house.

Forge and Foundry is works stuff as you might guess by the mark roll online. Goblin warband is homework and the Slay an Ogre is my weekly plan (they're grey at the moment as they're not due every day)

Axe and Anvil is self improvement stuff. Kern is mentioned in a few places, I made that my dwarf's deity's name. Communing with Kern is meditating (which I suck at). Hang up my axe is a productive day in general.

Mine and Mountain is writing or other creative pursuits. Sellsword and Swordplay have tomato icons as they are pomorodos for work and fun respectively. I have different variant of the pomodoro system that is tailor made to me. When I was at uni, I was a terrible slacker, leaving all my essays till the last minute. When it was time to write them, I'd put on Cotton Eye Joe (the most annoying song I could find) on repeat until it was done. I wasn't allowed to turn it off when I slept (if I needed to sleep) and I took it with me on an mp3 player if I left my room. My mates all knew if that song was playing it was pointless trying to talk me into anything. Even now if I hear that song playing anywhere, my fingers start twitching and I feel all jittery if I am not typing, have a pen in my hand or looking at papers/books. Possibly I should be kinder to myself, but it is working so far.

Beer and Beards is the generic catch all/misc category. Wordstorm is always greyed out, it for an extended amount of typing in a day. Does that mean that I sometimes double/triple  dip, if I've done some flash fiction while listening to Cotton Eye Joe? Yes, but again, we have to use whatever motivates us, and I don't consider that cheating.

To-Do's
In association with the android app, the To-Do column is really useful, especially because I have such a piss-poor memory. If I think of something late at night that I have to do tomorrow, I just jot it down, and it's right in front of me when I open the website at either work or home.

Because of this improved organisation, this list as got very long very fast. I think I'm adding to it faster than I am knocking tasks off, but that can't be helped. I don't bother gamifying the to-Do's I add, because they're all one shot things, and hopefully knocked on the head quite quickly. But I do have headings for sorting them too.

Hack and Slash is the 2 things I plan to focus on the head today.

King's Sovereign is normally kept empty. It's for sudden, bullshittedly important things that get dropped on you and were due yesterday.

Caravan Guard is for things coming up in the next week or so.

Crows Nest is further down the line, sometime this term.

Scribing Spells emails to write to people

Flash of Magic creative writing or reviews I want to do.

Bag of Holding someday one day stuff. Some of it likely will never get done, some of it just takes a minute but there's too many other fires to put out.

Hired Blade is where I shove all the Challenge To-Do's so they don't clutter up my stuff.

The other reason for having headings like this is they slowly ripen for more gold and XP over time, so if something REALLY big comes up and I think I haven't got a decent reward that is commensurate to the effort and/or stress involved, I can click on a couple of these and cash them in for something more appropriate.

Rewards
There's two sorts of rewards in the game - one's that you make yourself, and ones that are gear for your avatar. The latter are far more effective for me.

All but the starting gear has various stats that help out your avatar and change the gameplay mechanics. But since the introduction of the inventory, you can be waving around something big and stat-heavy but be wearing something else as a costume.

I recently restarted my character, so instead of the avatar of me at the top of the page, I currently look like this:

I think I look a bit like Van Gough, with a yeti-hair paintbrush and a blue paint palette

I am frantically trying to save up for the last bits of the cleric winter gear, before they disappear on the 31st. So extra motivation there! And much as it pains me to do so, I won't just wave my axe and horned helmet round, though I will have a soft spot for them. I guess I could set up my custom rewards as negative habits, and take a health hit each time I clicked on them, but that would make it more likely I would die, so I'd be less likely to actually click on them and just ignore them instead. With the way it is set up, they appear next to my to-do list, right next to my hack and slash and King's Sovereign headings, so it helps decide if I really do have time to slack off. They're also above the armour and weapons, so I have to consider how close I am to buying a new sexy piece of gear and if going to chase links for a moment overrides my desire for better equipment. After I've bought ALL the things, and my gold just starts stockpiling with nothing else to spend it on, I ratchet up the prices on each of my time wasters to compensate.

The old me

The new me. See how this me looks far more honest and trustworthy?

I recently restarted my character, as I was a dirty no good cheat (but I reformed). It's the second time I've restarted, for exactly the same reason. On my first run through, I was still working out the mechanics of everything. I saw a lot of people had an achievement for Ultimate gear, but that meant they all looked the same. So I zipped through, collecting ALL the things, and deciding on what I was going to use so I looked different. I've always been a fan of customisation, and that was the only way to know what was available. I've also clicked I've done stuff when I haven't really to keep a streak alive (doing things for more than 21 days), to keep my avatar alive (no way am I dying again!) and just on the off chance I got a drop, because today was rough and I wanted a prize. Yeah, yeah, you're cheating no-one but yourself. But that's OK, I do cheat sometimes in single player games. But with the advent of classes and the inventory, I instantly became way more attached to my avatar. My party is doing the occasional bit of RP (I haven't joined in yet, as I would feel silly doing so as a cleric with no healing spells, but I only have one more level to go and I have them all), and I want my little guy growing up properly, that's why I reset him. Will I stick to this new improved Snellopy? Only time will tell, but it is looking promising so far, especially as I'm idly telling myself stories about him, inventing a pantheon for him, and other facets that make him more interesting and appealing to me. Whatever works, right?

Interaction with others
There's a few different ways you can interact with others if you choose to. You can form a party that is supposed to help you be more accountable, especially if you're doing quests, as any dailies you don't complete while questing (if it's a boss battle) will injure your party members. I'm not sure if that's going to make me accountable, or more prone to cheat, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. My current plan is to be able to heal my party members for more damage than I inflict on them, so hopefully that will work out OK.

Our party: Snellopy (me), Questing Orc, Raymond Luk, Retridemption, aiseant, littleleez

We can cast buffs on each other, and we have our own chat section, and as I mentioned, we're even doing a bit of Role-play in there too.

There's guilds, which are larger groupings (where you can't buff each other) that are aligned more along the lines of interest groups - writing ones, parents, dancers etc. Some of them are a lot more active than others.

Finally there's the Tavern, the chat room for everyone who wants to hold forth. All these chat sections are ephemeral, storing only the last 200 lines of conversation, so during busy periods there's going to be things that you never see. As much as I like lurking and reading what people say, I find this a very good middle ground so it doesn't become a horrible time sink.

At all these grouping levels, players can set up challenges. This is a set of habits/dailies/to-do's that work towards a particular goal. There can be gem prizes for winning, and whoever wins the challenge also has it listed as their achievement. But even if you don't snag the top spot (if like me, you can't often do things on a weekend, or perhaps you start a challenge late) it's still worthwhile participating, as you're still working on forming habits that you want to instill in yourself. Though when challenges first came out, I did go overboard and took on too many, killing my avatar again because I had too many dailies that I couldn't complete. Now I'm more circumspect, and sometimes steal the ideas I see in challenges and add parts of them as habits instead, so they won't damage me if I don't get around to them.

There's plenty of friendly camaraderie at all three levels, with things to stimulate your creativity or some other facet of  your life. And the conversations are often fun to join in, too. If someone strikes you as interesting you can look up their character description by clicking on their name. A lot of people list blogs, twitter accounts or other places you can see their output. A nice way of grabbing new, interesting sources of distraction.

Contributing
If you're really enjoying Habit, there's two main ways you can help out - one is by throwing money at them (always appreciated) by buying gems, and the other is by doing something that moves the project forward: pixel art, coding, or writing stuff up on the wiki. Do enough of it, and you'll be acknowledged by a different colour name for your chat messages, and an achievement listed. I've done a tokenistic amount on the wiki, just enough to stand out from the normal run of the mill folk. I plan on doing more, but life tends to get in the way, you know how it is. It's nice that they acknowledge you for your efforts, in a way that everyone can see. Depending on how much you do, you also can unlock special gear for your avatar. Gems can be used for buying customisation stuff for your character - it's important to note that no-one of it has buffs or stats, it's purely cosmetic. There's no pay to win or play to pay here, it's merely for the fashion conscious. Beards are one example of that. It also allows you to put up a challenge in the tavern and form guilds, or skip the randomness of waiting for a drop if you just have to buy a golden hatching potion.

Drops and Streaks
Two ways they try and motivate you (on top of the buying of armour and weapons) is by a chance of drops when you click on tasks. These can be eggs, hatching potions or food to feed the pets (that hatch out of the eggs). They give no boost apart from cuteness to your avatar, and if you give them enough to eat they can grow up and be ridden (again no bonus except for customisation, which is something I love).

Streaks are when you've completed a daily 21 times in a row (not necessarily 21 days in succession, for example if you have one for taking out the rubbish which only falls due on a Friday). I'm a bit ambivalent about these myself, as I have in the past ticked off some when I didn't really do much if anything towards them. For a while there I had a couple of rewards which for a hefty slug of gold I could tick stuff off that I hadn't done. That system didn't really work for me, so I've discontinued it.

Insomniapp
What is really great about Habit is there's an app you can use to check off things while you're doing them. But far more useful for me is to list down things that I think of (usually while in bed) that I need to do tomorrow or in the near future. Grab my phone, pencil it in, then it is in front of me the next morning at work. Much better than writing it down on a piece of paper I will lose or leave at home, and streets in front of trying to hold it in my head until I need to do it. I've had a couple of nights where I haven't been able to sleep, so I have just lain there brainstorming things I need to do and entering them in. Good for productivity, and eventually I get tired enough that I can put my phone down and sleep, so win-win.

What are you playing?
Another serious advantage to Habit is both my students and my wife have glanced at the screen and asked me what game I'm playing (it was a bit more accusatory in the latter case, until I explained how it's been so useful for me, though I don't think I've convinced her of the need). The game elements are fun and not too distracting, the same as the chat functions. I have just added a fee in gold if I spend too long in any of the chat areas, especially if I am not posting and merely lurking. It's a great way of hooking you in and making dreary, boring jobs that you have to, should, or want to do more appealing.

How to Participate in the Inner Child for the Outer Adult Challenge

HabitRPG is all about self improvement. So are New Year’s Resolutions, too. But life isn’t just about hard work. Sometimes you should stop and smell the flowers. But why leave it at that? Make a daisy chain, or braid them into your hair (or beard) or infuse them in vodka… the options are endless! This challenge is called the Inner Child for the Outer Adult and I’ve made it to help you take time to have fun like a kid. To be honest, I don’t spend much time with my outer adult… he mainly just buys me booze, so this list was really easy for me to make. You don’t have to use HabitRPG to participate, but I find it is really helping me with my productivity (I plan to wax lyrical about it for my non-existent audience after the Christmas holidays).

While there can only be one official winner of the challenge, the touchy-feely feel-good real answer is you’re all winners if you’re participating. And there’s a second bounty of winning for us all if there are players that are willing to fill in the cells of the spreadsheet with -

“Wait, what? Spreadsheet?”

Relax, and bear with me a while. If people are kind enough to fill in the spreadsheet with their opinions, feedback, thoughts, pictures, etc then we can vicariously enjoy their fun too.

Speaking of which, here's the link to the spreadsheet:

Inner Child for the Outer Adult Spreadsheet 

It is the heart, soul and core component of the challenge. I've bookmarked it, as that's faster than fishing it out of my Google Drive. If you just want to play along at home and don't care about audience involvement, then the Master List page is the only one you have to bother with, and you can stop reading now. If however, you want to let others see your antics (or see what they are up to) then keep reading. If you're participating in the challenge in conjunction with Habit, please use your username, so I can pick a winner. But if you're in it for the prize, I'd suggest that buying gems would be a much easier and faster way to get 20 gems.

Instructions to participate in the challenge/share your activities and opinions with the world:

Step 1: 

Open the spreadsheet in the above link

Step 2:

Click on the Master List tab down the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Step 3:

Choose Duplicate

Step 4:

On the Copy of the Master List tab that you just created, choose Rename...

Step 5:

 When you do something, go to your tab and fill it in.

Step 6:

To see what other people have been doing, go to their page and have a gander.


There's 42 different things listed, and since it officially starts on the 1st of January, it  has a soft end of the 11th of February. That works out perfectly for me, since I am in Vietnam and the Tết holidays will have just finished. Depending on how many entries there are, it might take me a while through to go through them all and pick a winner to throw gems at, but like I said previously, that shouldn't be your main focus.


Some preemptive troubleshooting and imaginary question and answers:

Do I have to post about the stuff I do?
Nope. It'd be nice if you do, as you'll be sharing your joy, but it's not compulsory.

Do I have to post for every activity to be in the running to win the challenge?
No of course not. I (along with some other judges if there's a lot of entries) will be deciding it based on a whole bunch of things but quality, humour, imagination, originality, etc will certainly be beating out quantity especially if it's got attributes diametrically opposed to ones in that previous list.

What's stopping someone from deleting/copying/defacing my entries?
Nothing. That's why you should back up your data. There's a slim chance that we'll get hit by someone who is in touch with an inner child who is mean spirited and petty, and derives fun from pissing on the parades of others, but that's just a risk we'll have to take. If it does become a serious issue, I'll think of a plan B, and post it here and on the master list tab.

Help! I can't find my tab!

Yeah, as new tabs are added to the spreadsheet, older ones get pushed further along. Try clicking on the three horizontal lines and finding your name in the popup window, I think that might be easier.

Why did you include X activity? It's lame/boring/embarrassing/I do it all the time?
I tried to pick a range of different things, and since I can't please everyone, I chose to please myself. There's a fair chunk of this list that I do frequently myself, or I've wanted to do for a long time, or just stumbled on and thought it sounded great.

Why didn't you include X activity? It's so much better than some of the ones on your list!
There's nothing stopping you from doing it at any time mate. These are just suggestions. Feel free to swap something out. Or post it in the comments, because someone else might think it's a grand idea too.

Do I need to have a kid with me to do them?
No, but if you've got children of your own or nieces/nephews or friends with kids and you have the patience, you could involve them too, especially if you're shy and want protective camouflage. 

Can I send this list to other people?
Of course, the more the merrier! Ideally, I'd love to have so many entries that I get RSI from scrolling through them all. They don't have to play HabitRPG either. I'm sending this to a few mates that I think would enjoy it. The short link for these instructions is: http://goo.gl/vBWSna and the short link for the spreadsheet is: http://goo.gl/euHnBM

Can I do the activities with friends?
Definitely! I'm sure that will make a lot of the activities even more fun. I'm going to do a bunch with my wife and daughter, and some with my students. 

Will you run it again sometime with different activities?
If people like doing it in a codified way like this, then sure. But like one of the answers above, there's nothing stopping you brainstorming your own list and doing it at any time you please.


A final word...

I haven't asked you to use your imagination too much in the actual challenge, that's because I want you to do it right now. Imagine that some of the standard boilerplate legalese* is here along the lines of :

I am not officially affiliated with HabitRPG and my (or other entrants in the challenge) views, opinions and choice of language is no way a reflection on those fine folks. If you get hurt or in trouble doing any of this stuff it is just like when you were a kid: it's your own fault, you should jolly well know better. If everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you?

*You Seppos with your litigious culture would be a grave disappointment to your founding fathers I reckon.