Back in Habitica-land
12/28 '25
A while back, I joined Habitica. It's meant to be a 'gamification system' for your tasks and habits. It does this by turning your task lists / habits into goals for an RPG setting.
I don't think I get enough out of it if I am 'playing' by myself, but it has a number of social components built in to help with motivation / accountability.
Since Brad and I were talking about making a game of our tasks / to-do lists, I remembered Habitica and re-joined.
It's a little goofy / hokey, but if it helps us to stay on task...
The Pros:
- It's free and open source. There's an option to pay to an upgraded 'group' if you want to share specific tasks etc, which I find very appealing for Brad and I, but I'm going to hold off until we prove we can use it with any consistancy.
- It seems like a solid habit tracker / task management system. If you strip away the 'game' side of things, it handles a lot in a pretty simple / straightforward way. It's tempting to just use it and ignore the 'game' side of things.
- Breadth and Depth. This might be a subsection of number 2, but I like the way it breaks things down into Habits / Dailies / Tasks. They may be essentially the same (in some senses) but I like those as categories. What's more, I like the depth of information you can add to each, but aren't required to, if that's not your thing.
The Cons:
- I just wish there was a way to use other artwork than what they have built into the system. It's styled after JRPGs, and that's just really not my thing. This is really not a BIG deal since it's just 'look and feel', but as an illustrator, those goofy / cutesy little pixelated characters / items just bug me.
- Partly because of number 1, I'm going to have to manually set up a lot of 'rewards' for myself and possibly Brad since I really won't give a shit about earning a new suit of armor for my little avatar.
Anyway, I'm checking it out, and it seems worthwhile, and hell, it's that time of year where we all renew our promises to ourselves to do X,Y, and Z this year - for sure! And who knows, maybe this will help me do that. 🤞
ETA: If you decide to try it out, please feel free to 'friend me' or whatever. UserID in the screen cap at the top of this post. :)
ETA: Also, if you're looking for some info, this woman appears to have taken down here site, but has posted some interesting videos on how she uses it. I watched both here 2022 setup and her 2025 setup (which is this link):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOPHvnCM80U
I’m very far from the most qualified in the world, but if I can ever help with design questions etc, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask. I _love_ to be helpful. :)
The habit tracker that I constantly see recommended is Finch. It’s so cute. I think it’s meant for kids with autism and/or ADHD but it’s recommended for adults. The only reason I mention it to you is that it doesn’t have pixelated art like Habitica.
It rewards you with stuff like in-game costumes and pretend pets, but it suggests rewarding habits, too, like “listen to soothing music before bed.”
But on the ‘stickers’ front - That woman I recommended did mention something I’m planning to do: use emoticons heavily. It gives tasks / habits / etc a quick visual queue which seems SUPER useful.
I will check out Finch. Likely to stick with Habitica since Brad is arguably the most important ‘social accountability partner’, and he seems to have less problem with the aesthetic of that platform.
And yeah - I’m trying to come up with some good ‘rewards’ for us - both something we WANT (making it a valuable reward) and something that makes sense in context. It’s proving a fun / interesting challenge.
And speaking of challenges in the context of Habitica - I’m disappointed that Quests (which allow for communal tasks etc) require paying a subscription. I understand the need to make SOME money, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable, but I am trying to stick to my “prove you’re going to use it by using the basics consistently before buying any kind of upgrade / subscription” philosophy. So I’m testing out the Challenge function which seems like a ‘lite version’ of Quests.
I’ll read their Help stuff.