Habitica : Gamified Motivation App

A few weeks ago I started using Habitica. In the creators' words, it's a "free habit and productivity app that treats your real life like a game". The app has been around for several years, and I have to admit, it's not new to me either. I tried using it a few years ago and found it too complicated and confusing. But for some reason I decided to give it another go, persisted in trying to understand it, and now use it daily.

Anyone familiar with roleplaying games will understand how the Habitica game works. You have a character with a certain amount experience points. Every time you complete a task, these increase slightly, and over time you level up. When you level up, you receive stat points that you can allocate to the character's four stats. You also earn coins that you can use to buy outfits, decorations and weapons. There are four different character classes to choose from, with different skillsets. (I'm a Rogue!) Players can join challenges or play in a party to defeat monsters. I haven't personally joined a party myself, but I am doing some challenges which are fun. You can also collect pets! Currently I have my favourite one with me -- my pink dragon!

The core of Habitica is the tasks, and there are 3 different kinds which work in different ways. As I mentioned earlier, I did find it a bit confusing at first, but I came to understand it fairly quickly. The 3 different kinds of tasks are:

* Dailies -- tasks that you repeat every day, week, month, year, etc. These might be 'do the dishes', 'take my tablets', 'clean the windows', 'buy a planner'. These tasks disappear once you tick them off, but reappear on the appropriate day.
* To-Dos -- one-off tasks. Once it's done, you get the kudos, and it disappears forever.
* Habits -- these are things that you'd like to get into the habit of doing. They are repeated but don't have regular intervals. You might do them several times a day, or only once or twice a week. Examples might be 'read for 1/2 hour', 'work on art', or 'weed the garden'.

The three kinds of tasks are in different sections, and you need to flick back and forth to access them. I would say that's the only drawback of Habitica that I've found, but once I understood the purpose of the different types of tasks, it was a lot easier to handle. I've been using Habitica daily for over almost a month, and have found advantages that the other organising systems I've used don't have. The tag system is invaluable: I've set up tags such as 'morning', 'evening', 'computer' and 'garden', so I can filter tasks according to my situation at any particular time. This is something I couldn't do with other systems I've used, and I've come to find it incredibly helpful. In fact, Habitica has completely replaced Trello and my whiteboard as my way of organising my day.

The game is quite forgiving in many ways. At the beginning of each day, all of the previous day's not-done tasks are displayed, giving you the chance to tick off any that you did but forgot to update in the app. It also has a built-in motivator: every day that a task isn't done, it turns a deeper red colour, and when you finally do those, you get extra experience and coins. Ones that you've diligently been doing daily turn green and then a beautiful turquoise colour. Of course, it's up to the player's sense of honesty to faithfully record what they did or neglected to do! I don't know about you, but I always feel like I didn't really earn something if I cheated to get it.

I could go on about Habitica's features (like the group challenges and supportive community) but I'll leave it for now! All that remains is to tick off the "Blog Post" task. :D

My 2020 Planner

In 2019 I made a big change to how I use my planner. I shifted it online and started using Trello after I saw how it works at my old job. While Trello is excellent for managing projects, daily planning and to-do lists, I found it wasn't very good for future events, appointments, etc, so I decided to keep going with a paper diary for these things. I downsized from an A5 to A6 size diary because I don't need the extra space for to-dos and tracking anymore. I'm only using it for yearly holidays/festivals, birthdays, appointments, moon phases and similar things.

I purchased my planner from Typo this year, and the set-up isn't perfect, but it'll do. I wasn't as fussy about the set-up as in previous years as the planner will have more limited use. To be honest, I just bought the first one I saw with a cover that I even vaguely liked! It has the usual week-to-a-spread that I prefer. I don't really like the grey bands across the pages, and there were some other features I didn't like as well, but I ripped out some pages and glued other ones together until it suited me a bit better.

I decided not to decorate it as heavily with stickers and washi tapes, just adding a few accents. I stole re-purposed some of my favourite stickers from last year's diary (ones that I could lift up without ruining!), and used them to decorate it. I'll probably add more as the year goes on and if I feel like it.

I added a few inspirational quotes and thoughts I've had into the front, as I usually like to do:

Also the Indigenous seasonal calendar (though I accidentally pasted it in sideways, oops):

The mail order tracker I created a few years ago fits in just fine, thankfully. I only needed to chop off the bottom to make it fit the A6 size.

I did order a vinyl sticker to decorate the front but it hasn't arrived in the mail yet. I managed to peel the sticker off last year's diary and stick it to the back though. I like this sticker a lot; it's from Fox and Cactus.

Here's a page from last year's planner as a reminder. I still track most of these things, but on my Trello now.

My 2019 Planner

I really enjoyed having a proper planner last year, and I decided to continue the same. But which planner to get? I'm a bit fussy when it comes to the format -- no spiral bound, no ring bound -- which means none of the fancy planner 'systems' out there, like the Happy Planner, Erin Condren, etc. I decided that I may as well look at Smiggle again as my first option. Thankfully I was able to see images of the planners inside and out on their website, which saved me a trip to the shops, as the internal page layout has changed and I didn't like it. Which is a shame because the outer covers were glorious! This one being the most glorious of all:

The scenario was the same with Typo's planner and various other ones I looked at online. In fact, Erin Condren even has a hardback bookbound planner now, but it was a little expensive for me. (Australians pay 30% more for everything from overseas!) I was feeling desperate to secure my planner before the chance was gone (this was back in November, mind you!) so I decided to just go to my local shopping centre and look at the planners in person, hoping to find something that sparked joy.

Then the strangest thing happened. I bought a planner from the first shop I walked into, which happened to be Target. I wasn't even sure they'd be selling planners at all, but they had two Target-brand planners to choose from. I chose the sparkly pink one, of course:

I added the decal on the front; it's from Fox and Cactus, and the charm is from a stationery pack from Mockeri. And yes, I'm aware that the cover is almost the same as last year's:

I know that last year I questioned my choice of a planner that I can't whip out in job interviews, but my magpie-like attraction to shiny things kicked in and here we are! There was an insert with a sample page layout in the plastic wrapping, and it seemed fine, so I grabbed it. (More on that later!)

Fast forward a couple of months, and it was time to set up my planner for 2019! I'd been waiting for this day for a long time. When I opened the wrapping and had a good look at the inside, I was slightly perturbed. The page layout, while generally what I wanted, was a little perplexing. For some reason, Thursday has half the space of the rest of the days, while Saturday and Sunday -- which are often combined in the layout -- each have just as much space as the weekdays. Also, there's a monthly calendar for the current and next month on each page, which I really don't need. It's just taking up valuable space!

I'm a bit on the unicorn spectrum, so it took me quite a while to get my head around it. In fact, it took me nearly a whole day to set up my planner, I have to admit, what with the procrastinating and a couple of near meltdowns. But I did it:

The main layout change is the insert. I have an insert that I made up in Excel which lists my habit trackers, things I do every week etc. I glue this printout into each weekly page of my planner, to save me from having to write it all out fresh every week. Last week I stuck that in the top left corner, because nothing happens on Mondays anyway. For this year's planner, I thought I may as well stick it over the monthly calendars instead. It was hard to accept in my change-makes-me-freeze-up-and-freak-out brain, but logically it made the most sense. (Aside: I'm also currently re-designing the insert with some nice coloured icons and less stuff I don't do anymore, so future pages will look a little different.)

Suggested blog posts for the week are now in the top right corner instead of just under the insert where they were last year. (There's no room for anything under the insert now!) School tasks are moved to the left-hand side of Wednesdays (to remind me about Wizard Wednesdays!). To-dos are still on the right-hand side of each page -- boring stuff on the left side and more interesting/fun stuff on the right side. I've tried to represent more tasks visually with stickers and circles to colour in, because that's fun.

As for the rest of the planner, I went through and decorated some of the future pages with washi tapes and stickers, especially the significant dates (more decoration to follow, of course!):

I added some of the extra pages as I did last year, using some printables that I bought previously. These are pages where I can write down ideas, etc when I'm out-and-about:

Finally something a little new -- I added some information about different calendars that I'm interested in following:

If you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me until the end of this mega-detailed planner post! I've become a bit of a planner nerd in the last few years, and perhaps fellow planner nerds may find it interesting. More about my sticker obsession is coming up soon!

Melbourne Planner Market and Sticker Haul

The weekend before last, I went to Melbourne Planner Market. This is the third year the market has been run, and my first year attending. It wasn't held in the city itself, but in the inner suburb of Kensington. It wasn't that close to me -- about 40 minutes' drive each way -- but I bribed Husband to drive me there with the promise of dumplings for lunch afterwards.

The above photo is from the Melbourne Planner Market website.It was quite a small market with about 25 stallholders, but I found the range was good and I saw some interesting things. Only a couple of stalls were selling actual planners, most were selling planner stickers, washi tapes, charms and other accessories for your planner. I concentrated mainly on stickers (my biggest obsession this year!).

Here are some photos of my haul:

I'm also always on the lookout for stickers for my Hobonichi art diary, which I like to do in a more subdued, elegant style, whereas my planner is very over-the-top cute. In a way they parallel my interests in fashion, which are very diverse too.

A pack of washi tapes, sticky notes and bulldog clips. Until recently you could only order interesting and/or decorative bulldog clips and sticky notes from overseas. It's strange what we do and don't have access to in Australia!

I'm looking forward to attending the Melbourne Planner Market again next year ... if I'm still interested in stickers. A lot can change in a year!

My 2018 Planner

For a few years, I had a two-planner system, where I had a small pre-printed planner, plus a notebook for my to-do list and habit tracker. I wrote in detail how this system worked here. Last year, I got sick of carrying around two planners, so I ditched the dated planner and just had the notebook. As I completed each week, I would rip out the page for the previous week and discard it.

Left: 2017 notebook planner ; Right: 2018 Smiggle planner

In lieu of the planner, I made a print-out of all my important dates for the year, and wrote down appointments on it as they came up. At the start of each week, I referred to the print-out and wrote down any events for the week on the current week's notebook page. As you can see, it got very messy and not very aesthetically pleasing to look at:

Speaking of ugly planners, I was always hesitant to decorate the pages too much, knowing I'd throw them away in a week's time. I felt like I was 'wasting' any stickers or washi tapes that I put on them.

On a slightly more serious note: I also had no way of tracking how long a task had been on my to-do list. If there were any undone tasks at the end of the week, I would copy them into next week, or, if there were a lot, cut out that section of the page and stick it on. I had no idea how long some of the tasks had been on the list -- the system was missing a sense of accountability. Sometimes, if I was having a bad chronic illness week and hadn't done much, I would even re-use the same page for a second week. This made me feel better about not getting much done, but it also had the effect of not being able to plan in advance -- I didn't know which page to write future tasks or events on because they weren't dated and could vary. So, my planning was very flexible, but had some large drawbacks.


Then one day back in November, I was in Smiggle (a stationery and accessories shop for pre-teens ... and me!) and saw their new range of 2018 planners. I bought one on impulse, deciding then and there to go back to a proper planner for 2018. After months of waiting, I was finally able to start setting it up on New Year's Day! (I was going to start on New Year's Eve, but I had a sudden urge to clean and tidy the house, and I don't want to deny that urge when it happens!)

It took me a surprisingly long time to set up my planner -- writing in event dates and birthdays, decorating the first few weeks in advance, and glueing in printables to cover up the pages I wasn't going to use. I also added in a list of my goals for the year, and some inspirational sayings. Then of course I had to go through my whole sticker collection, dividing them up into a Planner set and a Hobonichi set. Then I had to prepare some washi tapes and decided to re-arrange my whole washi tape collection, too.

While the Smiggle planner is a lot of fun, if I had thought about it more, I would probably have chosen a different one. All of the coloured pictures you see on the pages are stickers or printables I've added -- all of the artwork in the planner is monochrome, which surprisingly isn't in keeping with Smiggle's colourful reputation. The paper is quite thin: felt-tip pens bleed through, and ballpoint pens leave an imprint. I'm not so worried about that though, as I can always cover them up on the other side with a sticker. The glitter cover, while awesome, means that I can't really whip it out during a job interview!

I'm already enjoying having a combined planner. Planning ahead is easier, and decorating with lots of stickers and washi tapes is fun. I hope that will be reflected in an organised and fun year in 2018.

My Planners, and Etsy Sticker Purchase

It's taken me a long time to find a system of organising myself that works for me. I've tried to-do lists, spreadsheets and apps. I've tried dividing up tasks in various different ways. I've read articles and books on organisation and time management, and even been inspired by a dream.

For years I had a Filofax, but I started to find it increasingly tredious to find inserts for it. Plus it was boring having the same cover year after year. Having a whole new diary every year appeals to my sense of starting fresh. My diary this year is from Typo.

As a treat for myself, I purchased some stickers from Violet le Beaux's Etsy shop to decorate it with:

These sticker sheets were a huge amount of fun to work with! The high quality prints are made from Violet's watercolour illustrations. They're cut well with no white space around the edge, and come in lots of cute themes, like kitchen, craft and woodland animals. She also sent so many bonus mini sheets, I was overwhelmed! I would definitely purchase them again. Shopping local too, for the win!

Back to the planners. I use my diary (or perhaps more properly an alamanac?) to record events that happen every year, like birthdays and festival dates, as well as one-off things like lunches and appointments. I have it set up at work where I can easily see the current week's page and grab it to write in new appointments. Each day I cross out the previous day. I will only take it home with me if I'm having an extended break or a very busy weekend where I might not remember everything I'm doing.

The other book I have is my Ralph book. The name is a long story, but it comes from the dream I mentioned above. I'd much rather call it that, than something horridly sensible like an organiser. Ralph is just a normal hardback notebook from Daiso. It's basically my weekly to-do list. I take it with me wherever I go, and write down things I have to do in it as soon as I think of them.

At the top is a pre-printed insert that I glue in. I made this up in Excel and I print out copies in batches. It has everything that I want/need to do on a daily or weekly basis, to save me from having to re-write it all every week. It's evolved over time depending on my interests and habits.
Underneath is a free text section. On the left hand side I write the things I should/need to do. The right hand side is for fun or non-essential things, though I'm not hugely strict about the side things should go on. I do it this way because then I have a shorter list of things I have to do, and I feel less pressured.

Every Monday morning, I tear out the previous week's page and copy over anything still to be done. Sometimes if there's a lot, I just cut out that part of the page and glue it onto the next page! I write suggestions for blog posts on a sticky note to make it easy to transfer them to the next week. The inside of the front cover has sticky notes with other things I want to keep track of, like online orders that haven't arrived yet.

Supporting this, I have a master spreadsheet. I had this idea about a year ago. My Ralph book is designed to work week by week, but it was getting bogged down with activities and ideas to be done further in the future. My list was getting filled with more and items that I couldn't/didn't want to do yet. It was frustrating. So I moved them all to a spreadsheet which I check once a week as I'm making up my new Ralph book page. If I think of anything during the week to go on the master list, I write it on the back of the current weeks' page in Ralph and add it to the spreadsheet the next time I look at it.

A couple of days ago, I re-did my whole master list. I now have the 9 life aspects from the square I mentioned in my last post as headings. Although I'm not completely sure that this is the best way to categorise my to-dos, I'm glad I overhauled it because it gave me a chance to re-think about old ones and add new.

So that's how I organise my life. I hope this post wasn't too boring, but I've spent over 5 years working on it, so I thought there might be some useful ideas in it for someone out there.