Jump-Starting your 2020 New Year’s Resolution with Habitica

Habitica is all about pursuing goals, and so it’s no surprise that New Year’s Resolutions are a big deal in our community! Are you planning to pursue a new goal or resolution in 2020? If so, check out this list of some of our best resources to help you rise about the rest and be one of those shining stars that keeps their resolution burning bright.

1. Get Social in Habitica’s Guilds and Challenges

Habitica’s community is known for its supportiveness and positivity so it’s a great place to seek information, help, and camaraderie as you make and work to keep those resolutions. Try searching the Discover Guilds list to see if there’s anything specific to your goals.

Most Guilds in Habitica are also places where you can find Challenges related to your resolutions.

Be sure to check out the Official New Year’s Resolution Guild!

It’s a whole community just for folks pursuing their resolutions! You can find fellow players who are pursuing similar goals, discuss your plans, and get support and accountability in the active chat.

This Guild is also the home of the Resolution Success Challenge Series. Each month a new Challenge is posted, each with a special objective to help keep you motivated and excited as you work towards your goals. Plus, each month five lucky winners get 15 gems!

Here are a few more Guilds that tie into common goals and resolutions:

• Learn a new language with Duolinguists of Habitica.
• Work on your general motivation with the Procrastinators.
• Improve your grades and study habits with the Scholars.
• Join the Health Nuts to work on improving your physical well-being.
• Work on your sleep hygiene in Early to Bed Early to Rise.

 

2. Check out some helpful blog posts with tips to help you on your resolution journey!

The Habitica blog is full of great ideas to help you set and meet your goals. You can check out tips from our team, the Wizards that build and maintain our Wiki, and from Habiticans like you!

Habitica’s staff has penned a number of posts on the blog dedicated to creating, planning, and keeping New Year’s resolutions. You can find this four-part series here.

Our Wiki Wednesday series includes some great guides for using Habitica to set and keep resolutions:

• Read about S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting to learn a great method for setting realistic, achievable goals!
• The Habit Loop has great information to help you build and keep healthy habits.
• If you’re working on study or work habits, don’t miss our article on the popular Pomodoro productivity method.
• And read up on Burnout to get tips on balancing your goals with your health and wellbeing to keep your motivation up.

Use Case Spotlights are articles about using different aspects and features of Habitica to work on goals, build habits, and improve your health and happiness. All the tips submitted in these features are written by players like you!

• There’s a whole post about Setting Realistic Goals you’re sure to find helpful.
• Setting Up a Routine can help you figure out practices to improve any set of tasks you want to keep on a schedule.
• Check out the post on Mental Health and Wellness if one of your goals is working on those important aspects of your life.

If you’re interested in contributing to future Use Case Spotlights, you can join the Guild here.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you’ve found some helpful information here to help you make 2020 the best year ever! We can’t wait to help you meet your goals. 💜

 

BEHIND THE SCENES: Habitica Staff New Year’s Resolutions!

The “Behind The Scenes” series is a chance for us to give you a glimpse into the inner workings of HabitRPG, Inc., the company that makes Habitica. Every so often, we’ll treat you to some silly staff shenanigans or show you the work that goes into your favorite features. Enjoy!

2016 is behind us, and that means that it’s the season for New Year’s Resolutions! Since we’re all working on planning out our goals, we figured that we should let you in on the fun. Besides, this post means that we’re all eligible for the new Official Habitica New Years Resolution Challenge!  If you want a chance at being one of the five users to win 15 gems, you should definitely check it out.

So without further ado, here are the staff’s #HabiticaResolutions!

Leslie, AKA Lemoness:
“I want to get better at staying in touch with my long-distance friends! I’m hoping to build more frequent communication into my schedule. I’m making:

* A positive Habit for reaching out
*A Daily that repeats once a week, on the weekends.”

Sabe, AKA SabreCat:

“My 2017 goal is to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend on video games and social media. To that end, I have:

* A Daily, “No video gaming or recreational Internet”, active Monday-Saturday. Sunday is my cheat day!
* A + Habit “Resist a gaming or social media impulse”
* A – Habit “Fail to resist a gaming or social media impulse”. (I like splitting up + and – Habits so they return to yellow over time.)

It’s already leading to good results on my existing tasks, like the Habits ‘Pomodoro of focused effort’ and Reading, per chapter!'”

Keith, AKA TheHollidayInn:

 

“My 2017 goal is to finish 3 open source projects of my own (I’m terrible at posting my own stuff). 2 code and 1 hardware/code. To accomplish this goal:

*I have a ‘weekly setup daily’ which has the three project items as a check list.
*I then build out 3 todos every Sunday – one for each project. Then, it is my goal to complete those todos before the next week.”

Vicky, AKA redphoenix:

“My 2017 resolution is to go out and have new experiences at least once a month!

I’ve set a Daily for this resolution to pop up every Sunday as part of my weekly reflection, with four checklist items that I’d rotate through depending on where I was in the cycle. Here’s what it looks like:
Do A New Thing!
* Wk A: Research and Pick the next Thing
* Wk B: Plan the Trip
* Wk C: Do The Thing!
* Wk D: Debrief and brainstorm other New Things to do

(Can you tell that I’m as anxious for Monthlies as everyone else??)”

Phillip, AKA viirus:

“My 2017 goal is to be able to run a half marathon by fall. I won’t participate in one, but I want to be able to run the distance by then. As a stretch goal, getting below 2 hrs would be awesome, but not sure if I’d make that.
* A daily on 3 days a week to go for a run
* A positive habit, that I score when a run went particularly well
* One todo each for running 5k, 10 and then 21k”

Wish us luck!

Sticking to Your Resolutions, Part IV: Superuser Solutions

This is the last part in a four part guide aimed at helping people get ready for a fantastic year! If you’re just joining us, check out Part I: Setting the Stage for Success, Part II: Tidy Up Last Year, and Part III: Social Productivity.

For those of you who tried us out before (maybe back when we were called HabitRPG?) and are just now coming back with brand new determination to level up, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention three in-game elements that you can use to reset yourself. For those who’ve been with us more recently, maybe you’re looking for ways to scrape the slate clean and start anew. Here are some options.

Reset Account: If you’re returning from a long hiatus and want to start all over again with a clean slate and a training sword, you can do a partial reset by going to the Settings Gear > Site and looking in the section marked “Danger Zone”. There’s a red button there labeled “Reset Account” that will perform as advertised. (There’s another red button next to it, “Delete Account”, but you’re not reading through all this text and opting for that choice, are you?)

Rebirth and Fortify (gem-purchasable): If Habitica used to rock your socks off but you feel like like there’s less and less motivation to stick with it now that you’ve achieved countless honors and collected all the gear, using the Orb of Rebirth offers an opportunity to experience it all over again, while keeping your tasks in place.

Not ready to start over at Level 1? A Fortify Potion will reset all your tasks to neutral yellow as well as restoring all your health. It’s a nice palate cleanser if you’re paralyzed at the thought of facing down a horde of dark red tasks.

If you’re looking for even more ways to begin afresh, there’s a great article over on the wiki that you might want to check out: Start-Over Options.

Whew, that was a lot of hard work getting ready for an amazing year–well done! 

Do you have other tips for starting the year on the right foot? Let us know in the comments below, or come chat about it in the Tavern!

Let’s make this year the best ever!

Sticking to Your Resolutions, Part III: Social Productivity

This is the third in a four part guide aimed at helping people get ready for a fantastic year! If you’re just joining us, check out Part I: Setting the Stage for Success and Part II: Tidy Up Last Year.

Ain’t no party like a

Productivity Party!

One of the best ways to stay on track is to be part of an active party that goes on lots of quests. If your existing party is all checked into the inn, give them a nudge via email or private message to see if any of them might also want to get back to leveling up! If you’ve never been part of a party, now is a great time to entice your friends to join Habitica (and unlock a Basi-List Quest when you do so) or find new ones in the Party Wanted guild.

Re-examining Guilds

Guilds are another area where you can find like-minded people to talk about your goals and shared interests. Can’t find one that fits? Start your own! Now is also a good time to review all the guilds you’ve joined. If you realize that you’re just not interested in esoteric discussions on the best brand of diving helmet sealant in the Zombies for Scuba-diving guild, it might be time to make room for new interests. Our monthly Guild Spotlights are a great way to find new groups!

Challenge yourself

Hopefully you’ve cleaned out all the incomplete challenges when you went through and tidied up your Habitica dashboard setup.  Make sure you also remember to close any challenges you’ve launched and award gems to the winner!

If you’re curious about other what other tasks people are working on or if you think your resolutions are one of the popular ones, check out the Library of Shared Lists.

Also check out The Bulletin Board , a guild where Habiticans go to learn about and announce new challenges and new guilds. 

Hang on to your helms–there’s one last part to this series! Check out Part IV, or start from the beginning with Part I and Part II.

Sticking to Your Resolutions, Part II: Tidy Up Last Year

This is the second in a four part series! If you missed Part I, read it here: Setting the Stage for Success. 

Longtime users (or Habiticans who’ve been vacationing in far-off internets) might find their dashboard filled with tasks that are no longer relevant or interesting. If you can take the time to clean up a bit, it’ll give this year’s resolutions extra room to stand out!

Here’s a suggested framework for going through your existing setup:

Start with your Dailies: Is each task something you’re still actively working on? If you consistently accomplish the Daily, you might not need the reminder anymore. Consider removing it! Remember, it can always go back on the list if you start slipping.

If a Daily has been neglected, is it because it wasn’t a high priority during the holidays, or is it something that you had hoped to accomplish more regularly and it didn’t quite stick? If the latter, consider turning it into a Habit or deleting it altogether. If you’re not ready to do either, try moving it to a someday/maybe list, either in a checklist item within Habitica or in a separate document that gets reviewed regularly.

Next, reassess your Habits. Should they be upgraded to Dailies, further tweaked for effectiveness, or removed from the list entirely?

Finally, review all your To-Dos. Have any of the tasks listed stopped being relevant, like “acquire a new dragon egg incubator” when the eggs have already hatched (and turned out to be manticores besides)? Should tasks that don’t need to be worked on *right now* be moved to your someday/maybe list or deleted? Or maybe you want to keep the To-Do, but should break it up into more actionable chunks so that it’s easier to tackle.

Remember to take breaks when necessary! This is a big and important project, and if you’re feeling anxious and overwhelmed, it’s helpful to take a step back so that you can re-calibrate and approach your setup with fresh eyes.

 

Want to read more? On to Part III, or check out Part I and Part IV!

Sticking to your Resolutions, Part I: Setting the Stage for Success

We’re now two weeks into the new year! How are we all doing on our New Year’s Resolutions?

Now that the excitement of the holidays has died down a bit, it’s time to go sailing on the Plains of Productivity and establish the routines to make this year really awesome. You already have your goals–it’s time to figure out the nitty-gritty of achieving them.

This guide is intended for those who are already familiar with Habitica’s Habits, Dailies, To-Dos, and Challenge system. There will be four parts in total, so be sure to check them all out!

If you’re brand new to Habitica, welcome! You may want to take a look at the Getting Started section on the Wiki home page: http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_Started

Record your resolutions

It’s hard to remember everything that’s on your plate, and resolutions are no different! Writing them down and reviewing them regularly is a great way to make sure they remain a priority, so make this the year that you stick to your resolutions and enter them on your tasks page.

By listing your resolutions in the same place as your other tasks, they’re integrated with all the other things you have to do. This keeps them front and center as you figure out the specific routine of making progress on each goal. Suggested reading: Establishing Your Tasks and The Habit Loop. Extra Credit: Gamifying Your Lists.

Also, if you don’t already use tags, it’s a good time to start by tagging all tasks associated with your New Year’s Resolutions with “NY Resolutions” or if you’re really short on space, an emoji like :tada:. Pro Tip: did you know that if you select a tag and THEN type in the task, the task will be automatically tagged with the selected tag? It works on both web and mobile!

Lastly, if you feel like you need the extra accountability to keep up with the resolutions, you can always create a challenge within your party or a supportive guild so that other people can see how you’re doing.

For more in this series, here’s Part II, Part III, and Part IV.