8-bit Motivation

I will do anything for a gold coin. Blame the Plumber and the Hedgehog and the fact I spent my formative years punching bricks and spin dashing to collect gold coloured, shiny seeming, pixels. This isn't some new realization. I've been saying this about myself for years. My internal reward system is 16-bit at most. That's why HabitRPG is one of the best daily motivators I've found.

In the past, I used the site Joe's Goals to feed this innate urge within me to rack up points on mundane tasks. I have, seemingly always, struggled with sinking time as opposed to actually using it productively. It may be true that any "time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time," but all too often I find myself passing time without enjoying it at all, let alone accomplishing anything. This is a problem. When I discovered Joe's Goals, I found that if I could look at the bottom of a column (on what is really just a cleverly implemented spread sheet) and see a number every day that it felt a lot like collecting coins. That eternal 8 year old in my brain was instantly intrigued and the site became a useful part of my daily routine when I wasn't too busy playing video games, of course, or sinking time.

When I purchased my first real tablet back in October (a Samsung Galaxy Note, which is a tablet and a tablet, if you're curious,) I realized quickly that it could be quite useful in not only keeping me more organized, but helping me live more productively, too. I tried out a few different "to-do list" apps, but the one I found most useful (probably because it has a handy widget that I can set to stare up at me on my home page at all times,) is Google Keep. Keep is an offshoot of Drive and it's handy for a lot of things including grocery lists and keeping things synced across devices, but the really useful feature for me is its to-do lists. Having that widget there staring up at me was extremely motivating until I became desensitized to its constant unwavering presence on my home page. I still find it useful, but just not as directly motivating as I did at first.

HabitRPG, though, hits all the right buttons. The full title of the site is HabitRPG: Your Life the Video Game, and while that seems a little cheesy, it is really an extremely clever concept for a certain kind of person. That certain kind of person is, apparently, me. HabitRPG breaks tasks into three categories: Habits, Dailies, and To-Dos. You are rewarded for positive habits, completing dailies, and finshing to-dos with xp and, you guessed it, coins. You can then use those coins to reward yourself with things like pixel goodies for your avatar or rewards you have created yourself that point to real world things, like playing video games. The system gets more complex as you level up and classes are implemented. You can join parties, go on quests, and there are even bosses. Since I forgot to check myself in at the Inn over the Holidays, though, I have yet to experience some of the more advanced features. For every daily you miss or negative habit you acknowledge you lose xp and health. If you lose all your hp you "die" and  lose a level and something from your inventory. You can avoid this by checking yourself in at the Inn if you know you're not going to be able to complete your tasks for a day or even an extended period (which is exactly what I forgot to do and why I've only just worked my way back up to level three.)

Productivity is one of the best ways I've found to keep my brain from turning into a troll and keeping my mental and emotional well being at a more even keel so finding such a useful motivation tool is kind of exciting. Being productive doesn't have to mean accomplishing Big Important Things all the time. One of my dailies is to spend 30 minutes a day reading. It can be a book, an essay, a short piece of fiction, or anything else I deem worthy of that check mark. I'm not too strict with it, but I have to actually be taking time out to do it and it has to be more than a list of the 99 worst dressed octupi of 2013 that someone's linked on FaceSpace. Social Media is not always a waste of time. In fact, it can be extremely useful and fulfilling.  For me, unfortunately, it can easily turn into a serious time sink. Spending half an hour catching up with friends and reading articles is one thing, spending that same half an hour clicking refresh over and over hoping for something new to pop up on your feed because you're already caught up is something altogether different and something that I catch myself doing more often than I would ever comfortably admit. If my internal 8-bit reward system can help me ward off anxiety and depression while at the same time helping me accomplish my goals, more power to it! Here's to using one's strangely wired brain to one's advantage.