Use Case Spotlight: Recovering from Burnout

Our Use Case Spotlights post series highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This round, we asked people about how they use Habitica to recover from the dreaded burnout. When you’re exhausted from all your tasks, a life situation, or other factors, how can you use Habitica’s format to make sure you get the rest and recovery time you need? Let’s hear from some Habiticans in the Use Case Spotlight Guild:

Fishdye starts us out with some tips on what to do when you’re overwhelmed by your Dailies:

There’s one thing I do to help me feel more like I’m running Habitica, rather than Habitica running me.

I have a LOT of Dailies, but they are things I really should be doing every day/on the days they’re active — many of them being things to think about during my day, so for many of them, simply reading through them carefully really is enough to count them complete and check them off. HOWEVER, there are just a handful that I’d like to be doing daily, but it’s consistently not happening due to all the things I have going on right now.

When one of those Dailies comes up, I move the start date to the beginning of the next month. (I’ve just done that with four of them today.) This way, I get a reprieve from feeling guilty from not checking them off (and from having them be what keeps me from a Habitica perfect day), and I can decide in the not-too-distant future whether to have another go at them. (I realize I could make them Habits instead, but, for me, if the task is something I need to be doing daily, converting it to a Habit undermines that.)

It’s tough when I feel like my regular slate of Dailies is perfectly doable, and yet I’m not accomplishing them. By moving the start dates, I maintain the position that they’re doable, but give myself the grace to work up to them.

Sternauge has a very thoughtful entry in the Guild that’s too long to include in its entirety here. We’re sharing a highlight, but encourage you to go read the whole thing!

I also have a triplet of rather generic but very important habits that especially help me when I’m overwhelmed (they all imply a break to an overwhelming task). I keep them at the top of my short habit list and I try to keep them always blue:

• A mindfulness or mini-meditation habit that I can adapt to almost every situation and every short break. I could use it to just sit or stand somewhere and observe myself breathing for a few moments, feeling the ground beneath my feet, conciously relax as many muscles as possible, … I also use it when I’m feeling overwhelmed right now to observe myself and maybe find out why that specific situation is overwhelming me.
• An exercise habit not only intended for bodily fitness but also to allow my mind either to wander freely during that time or to focus on something completely different. Currently I mostly tick it off for each 30 min of walking which is also one of the best ways for me to deal with overwhelming days.
• A habit called “Did something REALLY fun”. This is actually a quite new habit and inspired by the current Take This Challenge. It is intended to help me find and remember all the little joys during the day.

CJLottie gave us another great set of tips for coming back to Habitica after recovering from prolonged burnout. The full text is too long to include here, but you should definitely go read the full post in the Use Case Spotlights Guild!

A little new here, but this topic really spoke to me! For context, I haven’t used Habitica in over two or so years due to just overwhelming mental health and personal life challenges. Then COVID hit, and well… things just took a turn for the worse once again. I only recently started to get back in the swing of Habitica again, and it’s helped in a major way with recovering from two plus years of burnout! Here’s what I did:

1. Cleared out every single one of my old tasks. Even the ones that were helpful. Went for a blank slate. Now, my initial response was to just overwhelm myself with tasks. Which led me to step two.
2. Picked one simple daily. Just one. For me, it was taking my meds. The key here is that it was something I was already fairly good at, so I could watch the counter progress tick up. This was deliberate – to make sure that I could have the most success and not get even more discouraged, I wanted my brain to register that Habitica was a positive stimuli. Tap into that rewards pathway to get a sense of success!

Do you have tips for using Habitica to prevent, ease, or recover from burnout? You can share those in comments here, or hop into the Guild to chat with other users.

Be sure check out all our past Use Case Spotlights for more ideas. We’ve written on all kinds of themes and shared a lot of users’ wisdom there!

Use Case Spotlights: Contributing to Habitica

Illustration by Leephon

Our Use Case Spotlights post series is designed to highlight different user stories, tricks and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, renew your setup to give yourself new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep going! For this spotlight, we asked people about how they use Habitica when it comes to contributing to Habitica. Those who contribute to Habitica are very special to us because they help make everything possible, and contribute to the friendliness and warmth of our community — so let’s see what they had to say!

First of all, SuperSaraA had some thoughts about her journey as a Socialite and an Artisan:

I use Habitica to help me track contribution projects I work on. As a socialite, I joined the Super Socialite challenge the first few months because it gave me directions on what I could do to help and also a handy reminder task to go visit the Tavern or Ask A Question guild. Over time I just made my own habit to visit those guilds. As an artisan contributor I more often use To- do tasks to mark when my pixel art project needs to be completed or refreshed by so that I can remind myself to stay accountable. I also have a few to-does that I use as notes of how long I spend doing the pixel art to help a fellow contributor who is doing research on about how long people spend creating their pixel art projects. While this is unofficial helping the other contributor, I personally lump it into a similar mental task category. While I do not have a title for creating challenges, I aspire to someday. To help me achieve this goal, I regularly create challenges in various guilds (or the public list) and share them with users. I often add links to them in my profile so users on the apps can easily find them. I mainly use To-do tasks to organize these. Often I make one with ideas of challenges. Then when I make a challenge, I make a to-do with the challenge name (and what guild it is in if applicable) and when I need to close it. I also set the due date a bout a full day after the date I list on the challenge description so users world wide will not be prevented from having the most time to do the tasks. This really helps most for me when I add tags to these tasks so I can filter them and get a good idea of what tasks I need to do when to begin or end challenges I am running.

PixelStorm also had tips about a whole range of ways to contribute:

As an Artisan When I first started contributing, I used my task page to keep track of my claims. Mostly this would be in the form of a to-do with a checklist. Each round of drafts was recorded in the checklist, and changes I needed to make on the next draft was recorded in the description. However, as I moved up the tiers, more and more of my tracking moved to my Artisan trello board. I also used to have a daily for reading and responding to messages in PiP, but as I now do this without a prompt the daily was no longer needed. I suppose checking PiP became second nature to me.

As a Challenger I usually create a to-do at the end of the month to help me with the challenge rollovers in Pixel Power. This will normally include a checklist with the new themes, reminders to post a message in Pixel Power and The Bulletin Board, as well as a reminder to update Pixel Power’s keep page with the new themes and challenge winners. If the guild has a collaboration challenge with an approaching deadline, I will have a to-do with the final date so I can post a reminder in Pixel Power about a week before it closes.

…But PixelStorm also gave a great tip about using Habitica’s guilds to enhance the experience:

I’d say that in terms of contributing, I mostly use Habitica for the guilds. I’ve joined several contributor guilds, even if I don’t have any plans to earn the title. You can find me in Pixels in Progress and Guild Leaders and Challenge Creators most of the time, but I also check in to Wizards of the Wiki every so often to see if the Scribes need any help with navigating the main pixel art trello when updating the art credits. I’m also in the Aspiring Legends Guild, where I like to help aspiring contributors find a title that suits their skills and interests. I also keep an eye on the quest trello board – if I see a new quest open for submissions, I will post a link to it in the Aspiring Legends guild for any aspiring Storytellers there.

Meanwhile, QuartzFox has some warm words for the way the community can act as a support, including for contributors:

That’s what the community side of Habitica is really about: supporting each other. Learning from each other. Giving advice and hugs and shoulders when needed, and cheering each other on, and sometimes helping us to face up to ourselves, to our darker sides, and heal those places inside ourselves that maybe we couldn’t do on our own — but here, where we can just be ourselves, we can bare our weaknesses safely because we know, unequivocally, that we’re all fighting the same fight, and maybe we’re fighting on our own — but that’s not the same as fighting alone. ❤

That’s all for now, but you can check out the full posts in the Use Case Spotlights Guild. Don’t forget that you can be featured in our next Use Case Spotlight by joining the guild and posting your thoughts when the next Use Case Spotlight theme is announced, too.

Use Case Spotlight: Making the Most of the Task Types

Illustration by Vampitch

Our Use Case Spotlights post series highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This round, we asked people about how they make the most of the different task types. New users often find themselves puzzling over the best type of task to use for the thing they have in mind so we thought we’d share the expertise of users who’ve got it figured out.

Dewines starts us off by talking about how she uses To-Dos and keeps her list up-to-date and tidy:

Right now I have a lot of dailies, but many of them are set to trivial because they are literally just a reminder to do something very routine, like check the spare mobile phone a couple of times a week to make sure it’s charged. But without the daily, I’d forget to do it. Negative reinforcement never works for me, so if I find that a Daily is turning very red, I’ll find some way to turn it into a To-Do.

Regarding To-Dos, I use checklists on a few To-Dos rather than having a large number of To-Dos that might sit around for weeks. In fact I don’t put things in Habitica as a To-Do until the week they will be done. I have a notebook where I write down “Things That Need To Be Done Sometime But Not Right Now”. This means I don’t really have any red To-Dos (other than ones from challenges that relate to posting a month-end update) as they’re only there for a week at most.

Dailies are a staple for many users, but Ehlyah talks about how they use To-Dos to avoid being punished for being a little forgetful:

I use to-dos instead of dailies since even if they’re overdue or not for that specific day, they won’t go away and they’ll keep reminding me. As someone who is immensely forgetful, that really helps. I also use checklists since it keeps even big tasks from becoming entirely overwhelming!

silverbooksitter makes great use of the due dates on To-Dos to stay ahead of the game:

I like the due-date feature for to-dos. There are some things (like scheduling a doctors appointment, or reaching out to a professor) that I want to get done a specific date, but i don’t want them cluttering my homework calendar, so putting them in as a to-do is great, even if it does turn red cause I put them in as soon as I think of them, sometimes months in advance.

shanaqui‘s been struggling with burnout lately, so they’ve been using Habits and To-Dos as a more forgiving option… and they use Habits to power up To-Dos, as well!

Personally, I’m having a lot more luck with habits and to-dos lately. Since I’m rather burnt out, the fact that they won’t damage me is really helpful — I can still set up things I need to do, but there won’t be negative consequences if I don’t do them. In addition, habits pair really well with any kind of difficult task: I have all the units of my module on statistics listed on a to-do to check off as I go along, but I won’t get any reward from that until the end… so habits jump in there to give me a bit extra motivation: each completed unit gives me a +1 on that habit. So habits + to-dos are my secret weapon right now, while my handful of dailies keep basic self-care tasks ticking over.

Of course, there’s no single correct way to use Habitica, so if you have your own ideas, we’d love to hear those as well! You can share those in comments here, or hop into the Guild to chat with other users.

If you are a member of the Guild, or you join up now, you’ll be able to add your say for our next Use Case Spotlight! Keep an eye out for the announcement of the new theme… and if you’re looking for tips right now, you can also check out all our past Use Case Spotlights for more ideas. We’ve written on all kinds of themes and shared a lot of users’ wisdom there!

Use Case Spotlight: Impactful Dailies

Illustration by Vampitch

Our Use Case Spotlights post series highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This round, we asked people about their most impactful Dailies — the tasks they’ve added which really help them level up in real life. You can read them all in the Use Case Spotlights Guild, but as usual, we’ve picked out some examples!

juarezmiranda‘s contribution emphasises the importance of a morning routine, which some other users mentioned as well:

I’d say [the most impactful Dailies are] my morning routine tasks. Right now my morning routine consists of waking up at 7 am, make my bed, take quick a look at Habitica and Google Calendar to see what I have for the day, have a cold shower and brush my teeth, and have a heathy breakfast. When I start the day and do these it’s kinda easy to keep going throughout the day with confidence and motivation.

KittyRoid99 has a similar suggestion, noting that self-care tasks are particularly important for them:

Self care. Some examples: Get Up With My Alarms; Take My Pills; Spray Deodorant; Brush My Teeth; Drink at Least Three Glasses of Water; Eat Vegetables With at Least Two Meals; Do My Physical Therapy Exercises (which basically keep my body together); and Bed Before 3am.

moor-rose has a suggestion for a single Daily that has really helped:

I don’t have many longstanding dailies as I’m still figuring out what works for me. The one that I find makes the biggest difference in my day-to-day life is planning the next day’s meals the evening before. I have targets for servings of fruit and veg and variety, but if I don’t have a plan, I tend to just eat toast (or skip meals).

SweetOz talks about using Dailies to help keep them on track with their To-Dos:

I also use daily tasks to keep me on track for my very long “to do” list. I create a calendar “to do” that lists the whole month with the days as check boxes. Each day is filled with whatever is most important for me to get done that day. I use active editing to keep this calendar flexible as my month goes on, adding or moving items as needed. And in my “Daily” tasks, I have a reminder “Do the most important item for the day!” This keeps me on track.

And -Silky- has some ideas for students!

For me personally it’s my study guide. The semester is currently over so I don’t have this daily active until it starts again. But basically I’d assign a subject a day in the check mark box (ex. Cyber Secuirty 101: Monday) then when the study for that class that day I’d check off the whole daily. It clearly outlines my week and what I need to study for that day making the semester so much easier.

There are more contributions over in the Use Case Spotlights guild, and they’re well worth checking out!

Don’t forget, if you’d like to add your say for our next Use Case Spotlight, you can join that guild and keep an eye out for the announcement of the new theme. And in the meantime, if the ideas here have caught your interest, you can also check out all our past Use Case Spotlights for more ideas on how to enrich your Habitica experience!

Use Case Spotlight: Doing New Things

Each month, our Use Case Spotlights highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This month, we asked people about how they use Habitica to do new things and have adventures, and we got some great suggestions. You can read them all in the Use Case Spotlights Guild, but we’ve picked out some examples!

mememry kicks us off with a suggestion about how to use private challenges for this:

I easily get overwhelmed with new projects in my life. So I use challenges. I created a private guild to hold my own challenges, and I create a challenge with a to-do for each task in the project, often numbered, so I can keep track of where I am and what still needs to be done. It helps me two ways – first, I get a clear idea of what needs to be done to accomplish my goal. Two, it lets me track my progress.

It can be particularly helpful for a new recipe – my recipe challenge includes the shopping list as well as the directions. As long as I remember my phone, I have my shopping list on hand at the store! No more forgotten items.

In a similar vein, shanaqui explained how they use public challenges to get ideas about things to try:

Personally, when it comes to doing new things, I’m… kind of unadventurous. So mostly the way I use Habitica for that kind of thing is finding things to try. Challenges can be a great source for that kind of thing: reading challenges can get me to try books I’d never have looked for on my own, or let me know about causes I want to support (I learned about Zooniverse through Habitica, for instance)… and sometimes branch out and try new things like new foods or new experiences. Habitica has such a broad community of people from all over the world, so there’s always something new!

SuperSaraA also talks about using challenges for inspiration, and discusses using To-Dos and checklists to help keep adventures in mind and plan things out:

I use Habitica to help me do new things and plan new in real life adventures in a few ways. The first one is by joining challenges and doing tasks I may not have thought of on my own. Things like walking barefoot in the sand (at the ocean), visiting new informational websites (and seeing cool places virtually), and more. These tasks I might not have thought of without Habitica.

I also like to make to do tasks of things I want to do someday and then use the checklist feature to plan the smaller steps to get the task done. Things like my long time dream to ride a horse (a new adventure for me) are on that list.

Challenges were big in these responses — but we’d love to hear more new ideas! How do you use Habitica to plan out your adventures, or spur you to try new things?

If you’d like to be featured in future Use Case Spotlights, join the Use Case Spotlights guild and keep an eye out for the next prompt in the chat and in the News posts by Bailey!

Use Case Spotlight: Pets

Illustration by Hachiseiko

Each month, our Use Case Spotlights highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This month, we asked people to share how they use Habitica to help them take care of their pets — that’s the living, breathing kind, not the ones that hang out with your avatar!

CaptJnet had some great suggestions for taking care of her kitties, with specific examples of how to use the ability to schedule dailies to excellent effect!

I have a daily for feeding them, mostly to make sure I don’t forget to feed them their wet food for lunch or give them dinner too late.
I have a checklist daily for my evening daily cleaning and one of the items is scooping the litter.
I have a weekly for brushing them.
I have a tri-weekly for changing the litter and cleaning the litter boxes (I use a corn based litter which lasts much longer than clay).
I have a habit for playing with them.

CQMom added a To-Do idea — including a clever tip about adding the date you do the task:

Using the To Do- I have a general Things To Do This Month list, where I add the less frequent recurring jobs like changing the filter mediums and rinsing the pumps. When I actually do that particular job, I will add the date I did it, so when the month ends, I can see/plan out the next month’s target date.

ReDtheWolf has a great example of how you can set up a routine that meets multiple needs — your pet’s needs as well as your own!

I adapted AKC’s Fit Dog Program into a Habitica challenge that I used to set a goal to improve both my own daily walking and the time I spend with my dog! To qualify for the AKC reward, a dog owner needs to walk 30 minutes total (two 15 minute session for dogs or people that benefit from shorter walks) 5x a week for three consecutive months. Turning it into a habitica challenge kept me motivated to take a walk even on days where the weather was a little rainy or I was “too tired.” I was so impressed by the increase in energy in both myself and my senior dog! Walking is now a daily routine and how we both unwind from the end of the day.

leomona has a story to share, but just FYI, it does involve a pet’s terminal illness, as a warning before you read:

Habitica was incredibly useful when I was caring for my late cat who had end stage renal failure. I have ADHD, and there was a lot to keep track of – medicines that each could be up to thrice daily, supplements that needed to be added to some meals but not at all, subcutaneous fluids, weekly vet appointments but various tests on more irregular schedules, different foods that needed to be ordered early enough that she wouldn’t ever run out because it wasn’t the kind of thing the local shops stock… keeping track of all of that was extremely cognitively demanding for me even with this app’s help, and would probably have been impossible without it. And so I wouldn’t forget in between all the medical concerns, I also gave myself dailies for brushing her and for sitting with her and watching bird/squirrel videos.

She lived for nearly a year after reaching stage 4 and kept excitedly chattering away at those squirrels throughout, so I’m pretty happy with that outcome 🙂

Check out the full posts by these users and a bunch of others in the Use Case Spotlights Guild! Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the new theme announcement, too: if you contribute to the next topic discussion, you could find your examples shared here to help guide other Habiticans in their own setup.

You can also check out all our past Use Case Spotlights for more ideas!

Use Case Spotlight: Hobbies

Illustration by Leephon

Each month, our Use Case Spotlights highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This month, we wanted to know how people use Habitica to make time for and organize their hobbies — a challenge I’m sure many of us are familiar with!

yesmarielle talked about keeping Habitica specifically to manage their off-time:

I am a recovering workaholic and dedicate Habitica purely to hobbies and self care — no work tasks allowed! Doing this has really helped me make progress on drafting a novel, keeping up with my Spanish lessons, and making art again.

One of my specific habits is “Write 100 words” — making the word count small and getting to tap plus for every 100 words is highly motivating for me. I went from 0 to over 13000 words for my novel idea since joining Habitica in August.

Another habit I have is “Practice 15 minutes of Spanish” which can be a module in my Rosette Stone app, writing in my Spanish journal, or actively listening to TV or music in Spanish. Fun bonus – if I write 100 words in my Spanish journal, I get to tap both of those habits.

Sometimes I want to level up or buy new equipment or a fun background (I subscribe, but only let myself buy gems with the gold I earn from tasks), and I will do one of my hobbies that I wouldn’t have bothered with before. It’s been great!

lindala has a great suggestion for a daily:

I also have a daily reminder to be creative for 15 min which I love because it can be anything: cooking a new meal (or even just picking some edible flowers to add to my salads), drawing a bit, sewing, etc. It also helps me make sure I do at least something tiny every day that brings me joy, even on days when I need to study a lot or have a long day at work.

…and both lindala and moor-rose suggested a guild that has helped them, Digital Addicts Anonymous. moor-rose also suggested how to create some habits inspired by that guild:

I’ve created some habits to encourage healthier uses of odd moments: read instead of procrastinating on the computer, colour instead of checking my phone, etc.

–_Vwendwe_– explained how they’re using a mixture of task types to keep track of a long-term big project:

I’m currently making a granny square blanket with 150 squares.

I have a to-do called make the blanket where I have a checklist with the things I need to do to finish it: crocheting the squares, blocking them, sewing them together, attaching a border etc. It’s set on hard because finishing sth like this is hard for me. Also the long time it’s sitting there gives me an extra nice bonus for eventually finishing it so it’s further motivation.

Then I have a progress bar in the notes section where I keep track of how many squares I did.

A daily task reminds me to crotchet 5 squares a day. This will change to sth like “sew 10 together” when I have them all done. Most likely I will have a daily at the end of “weave in ends for 15min”…

Do you manage your hobbies via Habitica? Has this post given you ideas? We’d love to hear all about them! You can share them in the Use Case Spotlights guild… and don’t forget, if you share your stories in response to next month’s prompt, you could also be featured in next month’s spotlight!

Use Case Spotlight: Creating Positivity

Illustration by Katy133

Each month, our Use Case Spotlights highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This month, we wanted to know how people use Habitica to create (and maintain) positivity in their lives — so here are their answers!

EliotThe has some task suggestions, to start off with:

I have two Dailies that I use to help me keep a positive attitude throughout the day. The one for the morning is titled “Morning Reminder Today is an opportunity to become a little bit more like the person I want to be.” The one for the evening is titled “Evening Reminder My best is good enough.” I check them off whenever I have acted according to these beliefs. Usually the morning one gets checked off, but some days I don’t check off the evening one because I’ve been unreasonably mean to myself for falling short of my goals. These tasks help me practice self-love: I should expect myself to do no less than my best (the morning reminder), but I also should not demand more than my best (the evening reminder). It may seem silly, and I was even a bit embarrassed to have these in my list for a while… But over time I realized that these “tasks” are harder than they seem. They’re also very motivating!

Langerhan offers a suggestion for a powerful Habit for positivity:

I have a habit to “find the positive in a situation”. It helps me keep track of how I’m approaching things, and if I’m looking to score more gold or XP, it’s a way for me to approach a situation with new eyes.

moor-rose discusses how just getting organised and being able to reflect on her progress has helped her mood in general:

A lot of my tasks and habits are aimed at creating balance in my life – working hard and then relaxing, in particular through being mindful and spending time with friends. Challenges focusing on self-care and awareness of the seasons are my favourites at the moment – eating seasonal food, noticing and appreciating the weather, checking in on mood and energy.

I have a lot of anxiety around organisation and performance, so the help that I’ve found here in breaking tasks down and cultivating ‘flow’ has been terrific for my mood! But I’d say the three things that have really led to a boost in positivity since joining Habitica have been increased self-awareness, increased self-empowerment, and the sense of rhythm it’s imparted to my day.

In other words, there’s a lot of gentle built-in self-reflection in Habitica. I feel more aware of my mood and better equipped to identify and address problems – if I don’t know what to do, there’s almost always a relevant challenge! And what I learn from them gets fed back in to the basic routine and structure of my day.

And FayTheUnicorn pointed to Habitica’s community as a huge asset:

[T]he biggest and most surprising way that I use Habitica to create positivity in my life is through participating in positive and supportive communities that I find here. These are not things that have actually existed in the real world I’ve been living in, at least not that I can recall. But here I find people who want to grow and evolve, and who are willing to work hard to do it. I find people who are caring, compassionate and supportive. I find people encouraging, coaching, advising, and consoling others. That alone makes my subscription totally worth it!

We’re glad to hear that Habitica can be such a positive force for everyone! Do you have any stories to share about how Habitica has helped you create positivity, or stick to it despite the odds? We’d love to hear your stories! You can share them in the Use Case Spotlights guild… and if you stick around and share your stories in response to next month’s prompt, you could be featured in next month’s spotlight!

Use Case Spotlight: Supporting Your Loved Ones

Illustration by UncommonCriminal

Each month, our Use Case Spotlights highlight user stories and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, refresh things to add new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep at it! This month, we asked users to share their thoughts on how they use Habitica to support their loved ones — which for some people is totally key to a satisfying life, but can also lead to struggles with balancing conflicting needs… or just remembering everything that needs to be done!

SuperSaraA started us off by really emphasising the importance of self-care, but also how Habitica has helped her understand people better:

The social aspects of Habitica also help me to be able to support my family and friends in a healthy way because the guilds (and tavern chat) give me a safe space to vent in general if I am having a bad day and serve as a great dose of encouragement to keep going even when it is hard. Because of the users in Habitica who kindly send comforting words into the chat, I can often be kinder in real life because of letting go of my frustration in a different place (while following the community guidelines of course). Being a socialite contributor in Habitica also helps me to support my family and friends because it has taught me to stop and think about what the question really is and to analyze what the person needs to know (and if they understand or not). Thinking on a world wide scale (something helping in the Tavern chat has really made clear to me) also allows me to have a larger view on things from many perspectives which makes it easier for me to relate to and respect members of my family and friends who have different views on topics than I do. Differences are what make the real world (and Habitica) a beautiful place.

maxmoon shared how they use Habitica in a very practical way, to help them switch between different types of tasks:

I have physical tasks helping family members, especially while a pandemic is going on, because they need some help, like carrying heavy stuff or using the pressure washer to clean up the terrace or other heavy physical task older family members can’t do anymore. Having the todo row organized in physical and non-physical tasks helps a lot to switch between those kind of tasks, especially if a family member doesn’t live around the corner.

QuartzFox uses Habitica to reinforce a well-established habit of speaking to her mother daily, to help keep her connected to the world:

QuartzFox: I hardly need a daily to talk to my mother, but I have one anyway, and I think it’s the one I’ve had the most consistency in maintaining. She lives alone and especially with things the way they are, I know I’m one of her few links to the outside world and it’s a great boon for both of us.

And shanaqui mentioned how transformative that kind of habit can be, even if you keep the bar really low:

I do have a daily task to reach out to a friend or family member. It doesn’t have to be something big, just as simple as saying hi, but I have to do it every day. It’s really simple and there are no rules about it not being the same friend two days in a row, and it’s not meant to be massively transformative… but it kind of is. I’m back in touch with friends I miss from university, I’ve spoken to my aunt more in the last few months than in the last few years, and I know what’s going on for my friends in time to support them instead of finding out from Facebook or Twitter when it’s over.

We hope these ideas are useful for you in figuring out how to use Habitica for this kind of task! Don’t forget, you can read other tips and ideas in the Use Case Spotlights Guild, or by digging through the backlist of Use Case Spotlight posts… and we’d love to hear about you support your loved ones, whether it’s as a carer, a parent, a shoulder to cry on, or something else.

If you’re interested, you can also participate in next month’s Use Case Spotlight and potentially get your response published in next month’s article! To join in, become a member of the Guild and watch out for the prompt explaining what the next theme is. Just post your thoughts in the chat, and your response could get included in the blog post!

Use Case Spotlight: Challenges

Illustration by gully

Each month, we try to highlight some user stories that might help you set up your own tasks or figure out new and more motivating ways of using Habitica! This month’s theme is Challenges: we asked users to tell us how they use Challenges to enhance their Habitica experience — and here’s what they shared!

Trangon talks about using Challenges to gamify the experience a bit more:

For me, discovering the Adventure Challenges from the D&D guild completely boosted my productivity and fun using Habitica, as my real-life tasks allowed me to attack goblins, cast powerful spells, dodge traps and level up my character. And because each day I required a different set of in-game skills, I also had to work on different aspects of my life that I tend to procrastinate more, like keeping in touch with friends and family or self-care. There is a lot that I would just not have achieved if it weren’t for these Challenges!

shanaqui talks about using Challenges to add some tasks they might not otherwise have done, or even thought of:

I have a lot of my routines set up elsewhere, e.g. my work routines and some more flexible goals, so my Habitica list was looking a little bare. I use the Bulletin Board group to find new challenges that just add a little extra something. I use @MaybeSteveRogers‘ Goblins Anonymous challenge to help give me specific tasks for cleaning the house, or I use pomodoro challenges in guilds I’m part of to add some motivation to a busy week. I like browsing the challenges and just jumping into a random one now and again, to add something different to my day!

SuperSaraA describes all the things that Challenges help her to achieve:

I really enjoy both participating in and creating and running challenges here in Habitica! I have enjoyed being in at least a few challenges each month (often five, six or sometimes more) because they encourage me to do things that I want to do more of (like hobbies such as reading and pixel art and self-care tasks like taking naps and being kind) and regular life tasks like chores (such as washing dishes) or healthy lifestyle tasks (like body care and exercise). I enjoy some challenges that have a theme that makes it gameafied (the tasks have a theme or tell a story so it is more fun to do them!) One example being the [Dolphin] Dishes challenge where participants are encouraged to “Feed the [Dolphin] each day by doing your dishes” washing dishes has never been so fun for me as now when I imagine the friendly dolphin happily eating the dishes as I wash them.

MaybeSteveRogers also finds a place to mention that creating Challenges can really help as well:

I’ve also found that creating challenges enhances my experience of Habitica a great deal. It’s honestly the best feeling to get the occasional message from someone saying how they benefited from a challenge I made, or how proud and happy they are to have won! To me, Habitica really reinforces how a “challenge” should be a way to motivate and lift each other up, not a battle.

We hope these ideas are useful for you in getting the best out of Habitica! Don’t forget, you can read other tips and ideas in the Use Case Spotlights Guild, or by digging through the backlist of Use Case Spotlight posts.

You can also participate in next month’s Use Case Spotlight, if you want! To do that, join the Guild and watch out for the prompt letting you know what this month’s theme is… and then let us know your thoughts!