I’m in love.

I’ve always wanted to be more productive. I’ve tried Getting Things Done, :the Artist’s Way:, a dozen others. But not once have I thought about the importance of the tools you use for your system.

Until now I’ve used Evernote, storing to-dos, projects and tasks. Yes, it’s serviceable (there’s even the Secret Weapon for doing it) but there’s been something missing. I’ve dutifully entered my tasks into lists and notes. I’ve dutifully checked boxes, dotted i’s and crossed t’s. I’ve dutifully followed my plan.

With Habitica I’m doing it for fun. (more…)

There’s a definition of gamification that goes: “the use of game mechanics in a non-game context in order to engage users”. Yes, that’s technically true in the sense that it’s technically true that a car is a vehicle with an engine and four wheels (but so’s an airplane with a double nose wheel, or a truck or a … well, you get the point).

The reason that definition is so common is, in my opinion, because it’s a standard, mechanical way to describe gamification. It is easily measurable (“is this a game mechanic?” “is this a game?” “do users like it?”) but not very helpful. Not if your aim of creating gamified content is to actually achieve something, or rather get someone else to achieve something. But most importantly, this definition doesn’t take the central thing in any gamification project into account: the user. Thus I’d like to propose another definition instead: (more…)