I don’t think it’d be presumptuous to assume that someone reading this has struggled with procrastination or a lack of motivation or focus. In my case, it’s often wanting to do too many things and not being able to stick to a routine.
I often feel overwhelmed by the expectations I set for myself. Learning many languages, writing a few novels, making music on guitar, learning how to make music on the computer, recording my own work, improving at instruments, not to mention building a so-called business and running communities at Hive.... its a lot! But it shouldn’t be too much, it just requires good management of my time, motivation and (what I’ve been lacking), a routine.
During Tokyo’s soft-lockdown, I got in the habit of putting AT LEAST a half hour a day into building my business. Following just this minimum requirement has allowed me fill up my teaching schedule with private students...
I still didn’t know how to stick to a routine to get everything else done, it just seemed like too much.
That’s where gamification came in.
I realized that turning something into a game (and sometimes relating it to hive) made me want to focus more.
While on the one hand it’s important to try and overcome addictions, on the other it’s very helpful to steer the addictive tendencies we still have towards things that allow us to grow and improve.
Here is a list of games that have helped me stick to my routine and have fun kicking ass at life! Most are free to use!
Duolingo
This is the first gamification app I’ve ever used, and my introduction to gamification. I’ve heard some criticism of duolingo and to be terribly direct, it’s all rather foolish criticism. Duolingo is a blessing, it is designed incredibly well to supplement language studies. It might not be enough on its own if you just play through it, but if one were to take notes and study those notes, it’s as good as a college class. I say that as a multilingual and a language teacher. If you feel confused about grammar, log in by PC and grammar explanations are available.
The only place Duolingo is lacking is that it isn’t nearly as addictive as a lot of other apps out there. In order to compensate for that, I’ve made a little Hive project called #30daysof where I write blogs in the language I’m studying for 30 days using vocabulary and grammar I’ve learned at Duolingo. This helped me come up with the idea for the Hive cross culture! community which is a place to share bilingual posts, culture related blogs and anything to do with languages.
I’m currently studying Indonesian and plan to study Spanish soon! 15 minutes at Duolingo, 15 minutes review and 30 minutes writing a bilingual blog at hive, then engaging with some people from Indonesia. It’s enough to learn quickly!
time on duolingo: 15 minutes
total language study time: 1 hour
bonus: hive engagement
Yousician
I love writing songs. I don’t love practicing nearly as much as so I’m rather limited as a guitarist. I realized recently that it’s time to level up and a lot of that meant going back to the basics. My pinky finger isn’t nearly strong enough, my reflexes are intermediate at best, I only know a few strumming patterns and can’t solo all that well. I just write good but simple songs. Yousician is helping me change that.
Every day I go through a lesson and rather than trying to just win by playing it decently, I try to play it flawlessly. Then I’ll make my own little riff out of the notes, something a little challenging that allows me to practice my scales a little bit. It’s essentially just guiding me through effective practice techniques that I can modify myself, and it also gets me picking up the guitar every day which sometimes leads to me writing new material.
I’m using the demo version now because I just spent a lot of money guitar gear and something else I’ll mention later in this post. I will buy the full version eventually.
**time on Yousician: 15 minutes **
total time on guitar: 30 minutes
bonus: occasionally leads to song writing
Melly
This is one I just discovered. I've noticed that on days where I just spend 10 minutes meditating, I generally stay away from distractions, can remain focused and enjoy my life a whole lot more even when nothing special is happening.
Enter Melly, an app that rewards you with points for completing timed meditation sessions or breathing routines. You can use those points to decorate a garden, which to be honest, isn't that exciting to me, but it at least provides me with a goal to achieve so that I can feel more motivated to complete this "task" every day.
The best thing for me is that you can choose intervals as low as 1 minute. I actually looooove short meditation and find that even more effective than a long meditation is a bunch of short meditations. I go as short as 10 seconds. I would love to get back in the habit of doing 10 second meditations 20+ times a day, which is a hard habit to develop. It's easy to do but difficult to remember to do. So that's my goal with this app.
Time spent with Melly: 10 minutes
Total time meditating: 15-20 minutes a day
Bonus: Helps me get back to my ultra short meditation habit
Ring Fit Adventure
This is a big one for me...and so it's the only one on the list that I spent any money on....and I spent a fair amount on it. You'll need a Nintendo Switch (which I did not have) for this one and the game costs nearly $100 USD but it's worth it if you can find a copy (currently sold out most places).
Exercise is not fun for me. I do not enjoy it. Not even a little. Not only that, my body type is one that does not change very easily so even after working out for months, I don't see any muscle gain or sign that I have been doing any exercise. So my motivation towards exercise is extremely low. I'm happy to ride a bicycle cause i can go somewhere and physical labor is fine but not required in my lifestyle....so the gamification of exercise is AWESOME!
The first few days, after 20 minutes I started to sweat and feel a bit tired. After 30 I was too tired to keep going. After a week, 30 minutes is easy enough. I like being able to see progress! So far it's been really good for my upper body and my thighs as well as my flexibility.
I've unlocked about 10 exercises and about half of them have been extremely helpful and 3 of them were exercises I didn't know before. I imagine I'll learn a bunch of exercises I didn't know by the time I finish my first round.
It was expensive to buy the Switch when the world is having a shortage but definitely worth it!
Time spent with Ring Fit Adventure: 20-30 minutes
Bonus: Learning new exercises and able to like what I used to hate
Honorable mentions
I am not that into gamification of LIFE in general but if you have a hard time sticking to any plan whatsoever you can also try some of those apps. I tried Habitica and Focus Plant.
Habitica will let you make To-Do lists and lists of habits and you can reward yourself with XP and level up when you do good stuff and lose HP when you do bad stuff. I can't really see much beyond that besides buying clothing and items for your character but magic opens up at level 10 so we will see. It's a nice concept but could be a bit more addictive to use and I wonder if there is a way to create some accountability.
Focus Plant will let you set a timer and then you can't use other apps during that time. This will force you to stay off your phone and focus on whatever it is you are doing offline. Then you grow plants with water you earn from your "focus". I suppose I could use this for meditation too.
Neither are as attractive to me as the gamification of skills and exercise but they could definetly help out someone with an extremely addictive personality steer their addictions in a healthy direction.
Bonus: Crypto
In a way crypto is a kind of gamification...it's like money but we can earn it here at Hive through our interactions which feels like a game at times. This helps motivate me to do my best here.