I find it difficult to keep goals and resolutions. I set them quick enough, and then forget all about them even quicker. This year I found my solution.
My solution ... playing Habitica with a party.
Habitica is a fantasy, RPG-style, gamification of goal setting and habit learning. The RPG aspect of Habitica is tongue-in-cheek, but fun. The artwork is stylized in a pixelized format that is so trendy these days. Aslo, quests are intentionally described in ways to make you grin. (Watch out for the Dish Disaster and the Feral Dust Bunnies.)
In Habitica, I have a character that can join classes. I have health, mana, and experience. I gain levels from success with goals and lose levels if my goals kill me. Other features include armor, weapons, pets and mounts. Also, I can set up my own rewards I buy with treasure I earn from quests and goal completion.
I created a custom "Watch a Movie" goal for 100 gold. Sounds kind of lame, when I see it here. Maybe I'll add a sky diving goal, ... nah.
When using Habitica alone, I have fun. But, I don't really do much better than normal goal setting. Now that I joined a party that constantly goes on quests, I have the added motivation that if I don't keep up with goals, my whole party takes damage from the monsters we fight. Having you teammate scream out in agony because the Rude Mailman killed them, ... now that's a motivator.
Goals come in three Habitica varieties: Habits, Dailies, and To-Dos. Dailies require action every day to avoid damage. You can configure Dailies to repeat every day, or only on certain days of the week. Habits and To-Dos affect you (and your party) as life happens. Habits come in good and bad varieties that either help you when you succeed at them, or hurt you when you succumb to them. To-Dos are those random task that irk you, like changing the closet lightbulb, or take the car for an oil change.
You can configure all three types of goals as Trivial, Easy, Medium, or Hard. The points you get from succeeding or the points you lose from failing are based on difficulty of the goal. Between the three types, I've found I can describe every type of goal and task I need to complete.
You can play your gamified life for free, or subscribe monthly for added perks. I've found I get tons more done per week, now that I'm playing Habitica. Overall, I'm happy I found Habitica, and hope others find it as useful.
