Gamification

Written: Thursday. July 5, 2018.

A topic about living life as if it were a game is not so new to me, as I’ve accomplished doing that in many sorts of ways. but it didn’t occur to me, until a few days back, that this was actually a well known practice called Gamification.

Gamification comes from the word Game. Which means to put gaming aspects into your daily routine. To “Gamify Your Life” as Habitica says it.

This is a practice wherein you do the things that you would normally do, but with a prize or a reward once you’ve completed it. For example: If I wanted to buy another book, I would have to finish the one that I already have. The gamified aspect of that is:

Your goal is to buy a new book.
You have to read your way through to get to that goal.
Once you’ve finished reading, you’d accomplish 2 things:
  • Finishing the book you already have.
  • Gaining another book.

It’s a winning situation that amplifies the normal person’s motivation levels. It’s the fact that you know you’re getting something at the bitter end of a long journey that makes your subconscious want to actually go and do things!

Take school for example: You study for an exam, you get good grades. Simply put, it’s like when you need to learn a magic spell in a game in order for you to cast them to your enemy and earn experience points.

There are many more examples out there.

Once you’ve understood and practiced gamifying your life, results will actually show. You get more motivated to doing something because you reward yourself in the end. You gain damage by scolding yourself of the things you like doing if you don’t achieve your goal for the day.

Habitica is an online website and application that helps you gamify your life. It has a basic user interface that makes it easy for newcomers to join the ride! You get to control your habits, your to-dos, etc. If you fail to meet your tasks, your avatar gets damaged. Who knows if your life points run out? That would only mean that you’re not stepping up to do your part of game! See what I did there?

It may be overwhelming at first. But that’s only if you let yourself get overwhelmed by this new lifestyle. Remember, in games, you have infinite lives. It may not seem that way in real life, but if you put it into perspective, even if you fail a million times in doing your tasks, you could still do it if your will is strong enough.

Gamification has been around for quite some time. And only now did I learn about it and applied it to my own life style.

As of now, I’m focusing on being more productive in a day. And if Gamification is not working for me, then I might not as well have written this blog.

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