I recently started using Habit RPG, which is a sort of gamified todolist where you get gold and XP for doing your tasks and not doing what you disapprove of.
Previously I had been mostly using Wunderlist (I also tried Remember The Milk, but found the features too limited), and so far Habit RPG looks better than Wunderlist on some aspects (more fine-grained control of the kind of tasks you put in it, regular vs. one-off vs. habits), and of course has an extra fun aspect.
Anybody else been trying it? (I saw it mentioned a few times on LW) Anybody else want to try?
I added so many dailies that I basically found the overhead of updating HRPG ate into the productive energy needed to complete the dailies, and ended up in a death cycle. I then decided to use it explicitly only for tasks at work, and have been keeping up with it ever since, but I do miss the sweet spot of personal life productivity that I hit before that crash.
I use it. I find that it doesn’t motivate me too much to do things unless they’re dailies or I treat them as such; for example, I’ve had “compliment someone” as a habit for months, but I don’t think it’s actually made me compliment people more except maybe a small burst when I added it. But I find it more rewarding (not necessarily more effective) than beeminder for dailies; I don’t care about the yellow brick road, but I enjoy getting XP and gold and pets.
I wouldn’t say either is better. HRPG doesn’t easily let you say “I want to do this X times a week” for values of X other than 7, unless you want to specify the days in advance. I also think (with not especially high confidence) that “I’m about to fail at beeminder” is more motivating than “I’m about to lose health in HRPG” even if I don’t have a pledge; but if I’m ahead, HRPG is better at motivating me to keep going. My HRPG has only occasionally got to the point where I was worried about dying, and then fear of failure was more motivating than normal, but usually I can coast.
I didn’t tried it, but I believe I wrote my own gamification system. It is a simple time tracking system with a history viewer, from which I clock in my activity for the day. I have my own goals that I tried to achieve everyday. It was very effective in keeping me working 30 hours each week for 7 weeks so far.
I mostly use the web-based version, so memory leaks aren’t really an issue. On what platform did you have problems? (I also have the android app, but don’t use it much)
See here and here. I used the web version, which was extremely buggy. From your comments I assume it might not be that terrible anymore, so I’ll look at using it again.
I use it extensively and it’s been by far the most successful out of all the productivity systems I’ve tried. For one, I’ve stuck with it since February of this year, whereas most of my past attempts have lasted around a month. For another, there’s enough community aspects to it that a couple of times when my productivity has been low I’ve gotten a lot of encouragement from the community to get started again
You and I were talking about this in IRC. I remember expressing a concern about HabitRPG that, while it does genuinely motivate me at the moment, I’m not sure what’s going to happen when it ends: when I’ve upgraded all my items, when I’ve collected all the pets, etc etc. If I just start over, the new game will likely motivate me significantly less than the first time around. And more than likely I just plain won’t want to start over.
I’ve been trying to think of ways around this gamification problem, because it plays a part in nearly every attempt at gamification I’ve seen. I think that, for one aspect of gamification—motivating yourself to learn new things—there is a way that at least sort of overcomes the ‘what happens when it ends?’ problem:
Skill Trees. Like This . Maybe a website, or application, that starts with just the bare-bones code for creating skill trees, and you can create an account and add a skill tree to your account from a list of existing searchable skill trees, or you can create your own skill tree if you can’t find one that’s appropriate for you and that will allow other people with similar goals to add your skill tree system to their account, etc.
BTW I’ve started a LessWrong Party on HabitRPG for when they start implementing new mechanics that will take advantage of parties. If anybody wants to join the party send me your User ID, which you can find in Settings > API
Skill Trees. Like This . Maybe a website, or application, that starts with just the bare-bones code for creating skill trees, and you can create an account and add a skill tree to your account from a list of existing searchable skill trees, or you can create your own skill tree if you can’t find one that’s appropriate for you and that will allow other people with similar goals to add your skill tree system to their account, etc.
That definitely looks interesting, and I’ve been thinking about pretty similar things. I hadn’t found Dungeons and Developers, and it is pretty neat (though it’s just a proof-of-concept / a fancy way of displaying a list of web development skills).
Looks kinda interesting. When I was 18 or so, I tried setting up a similar system, but it failed for a couple of reasons. I’ll give it a try. Since I’ve noticed that small (online) notifications (such as upvotes or reblogs) make me feel good, this to-do list might trigger a similar response.
I recently started using Habit RPG, which is a sort of gamified todolist where you get gold and XP for doing your tasks and not doing what you disapprove of.
Previously I had been mostly using Wunderlist (I also tried Remember The Milk, but found the features too limited), and so far Habit RPG looks better than Wunderlist on some aspects (more fine-grained control of the kind of tasks you put in it, regular vs. one-off vs. habits), and of course has an extra fun aspect.
Anybody else been trying it? (I saw it mentioned a few times on LW) Anybody else want to try?
I added so many dailies that I basically found the overhead of updating HRPG ate into the productive energy needed to complete the dailies, and ended up in a death cycle. I then decided to use it explicitly only for tasks at work, and have been keeping up with it ever since, but I do miss the sweet spot of personal life productivity that I hit before that crash.
I use it. I find that it doesn’t motivate me too much to do things unless they’re dailies or I treat them as such; for example, I’ve had “compliment someone” as a habit for months, but I don’t think it’s actually made me compliment people more except maybe a small burst when I added it. But I find it more rewarding (not necessarily more effective) than beeminder for dailies; I don’t care about the yellow brick road, but I enjoy getting XP and gold and pets.
PM your ID to kremlin if you want to join our party then :)
I haven’t tried beeminder, I’m glad to see some anecdata that habitrpg is better.
I wouldn’t say either is better. HRPG doesn’t easily let you say “I want to do this X times a week” for values of X other than 7, unless you want to specify the days in advance. I also think (with not especially high confidence) that “I’m about to fail at beeminder” is more motivating than “I’m about to lose health in HRPG” even if I don’t have a pledge; but if I’m ahead, HRPG is better at motivating me to keep going. My HRPG has only occasionally got to the point where I was worried about dying, and then fear of failure was more motivating than normal, but usually I can coast.
I didn’t tried it, but I believe I wrote my own gamification system. It is a simple time tracking system with a history viewer, from which I clock in my activity for the day. I have my own goals that I tried to achieve everyday. It was very effective in keeping me working 30 hours each week for 7 weeks so far.
Have they fixed their memory leak problem? I stopped using it after my frustration exceeded a pretty reasonable threshold.
I mostly use the web-based version, so memory leaks aren’t really an issue. On what platform did you have problems? (I also have the android app, but don’t use it much)
See here and here. I used the web version, which was extremely buggy. From your comments I assume it might not be that terrible anymore, so I’ll look at using it again.
Yes, it’s improved considerably.
Ah okay, I don’t know then; that was a few months ago and it would take some digging to figure out whether they did that server upgrade.
All I can say is that I haven’t run into any major technical issues yet.
I use it extensively and it’s been by far the most successful out of all the productivity systems I’ve tried. For one, I’ve stuck with it since February of this year, whereas most of my past attempts have lasted around a month. For another, there’s enough community aspects to it that a couple of times when my productivity has been low I’ve gotten a lot of encouragement from the community to get started again
Cool, will you join our party (PM kremlin) or are you already in one?
Already in one, sorry :) I suspect that one of the other guys in my party is also a stealth LWer, at least he seems to carry a lot of the local memes.
You and I were talking about this in IRC. I remember expressing a concern about HabitRPG that, while it does genuinely motivate me at the moment, I’m not sure what’s going to happen when it ends: when I’ve upgraded all my items, when I’ve collected all the pets, etc etc. If I just start over, the new game will likely motivate me significantly less than the first time around. And more than likely I just plain won’t want to start over.
I’ve been trying to think of ways around this gamification problem, because it plays a part in nearly every attempt at gamification I’ve seen. I think that, for one aspect of gamification—motivating yourself to learn new things—there is a way that at least sort of overcomes the ‘what happens when it ends?’ problem:
Skill Trees. Like This . Maybe a website, or application, that starts with just the bare-bones code for creating skill trees, and you can create an account and add a skill tree to your account from a list of existing searchable skill trees, or you can create your own skill tree if you can’t find one that’s appropriate for you and that will allow other people with similar goals to add your skill tree system to their account, etc.
BTW I’ve started a LessWrong Party on HabitRPG for when they start implementing new mechanics that will take advantage of parties. If anybody wants to join the party send me your User ID, which you can find in Settings > API
Not sure about how the system works, just started using it yesterday, so I hope I will not bring doom to the whole party.
I’ve invited you.
I’m sure you’ll be fine. It’s not until they start adding the new boss/quest mechanics that it will be possible for anyone to bring doom to a party.
invite sent
… and I joined it, and encourage others to join too! :)
That definitely looks interesting, and I’ve been thinking about pretty similar things. I hadn’t found Dungeons and Developers, and it is pretty neat (though it’s just a proof-of-concept / a fancy way of displaying a list of web development skills).
Looks kinda interesting. When I was 18 or so, I tried setting up a similar system, but it failed for a couple of reasons. I’ll give it a try. Since I’ve noticed that small (online) notifications (such as upvotes or reblogs) make me feel good, this to-do list might trigger a similar response.
… and I see you’ve joined our party, yay!