Daily Planner

We lead busy lives. We need to find ways of keeping ourselves on top of it all and organised. How you plan will make a difference to how you manage and thrive. Carrying everything in your head or in a way where you never truly have it clearly set out, means you are using up unnecessary  emotional energy. Habitica is an app I have blogged about and that really does keep you organised and in control. You don’t have to engage with the gaming and questing part of it in order to benefit from the app. You need an internet connection, though.

Daily-Planner is a pre prepared downloadable pdf which comes for free from the Paulina website. You might like to buy her a coffee if you use her ready made planning tool. She likes scrapbooking and graphic design and is creating some very helpful tools. The pdf has an A4 format with two days per page or an A5 format with one day per page. You can print it or screenshot it and fill it out in a paint programme. The main thing with this design is it covers some  health and fitness for you as well as the things to do and the interface is clear and well laid out. You can have it on your desktop or phone /tablet screen. You can pin it up in front of you  way or another.  It’s versatile as well as helpful. One page at a time means you’ll stay in the here and now and won’t feel swamped. Visual planning allows you to see what you need to do but it also gives you ready feedback on what you have achieved.

Habitica

I said I would test Habitica for a month to see what I thought because I wasn’t sure. In a month I achieved a lot but for me the game part of Habitica was superfluous to requirements. I then did not use it for a fortnight, again, to see. I signed back in yesterday and was so glad!

In terms of functionality the site works really well. It is easy to load and navigate. I don’t find the app so helpful but I have grown used to it in the time I have used it. The app conforms to progressive disclosure as most apps do these days. I prefer to see the options and choices as you do on a website and take it from there. I find the app is handy to update my lists either by adding or completing tasks , to dos and dailies. The site for me, though, is more usable. I like to see it all in a glance and then drill down to the next lot of information if I want to. I guess the app is my quick look and check place and I use the site to think and plan.

Why am I back on Habitica? Why use an app where I am not interested in half of it? The half which works for me gives me back a lot of brain real estate. I don’t have to have a head cluttered with things to do and then hold and carry them around. I can write things in my diary or make notes on my phone but then it is all over the place. Habitica has sorted out my goals from my habits and then there are the things I need and want to do. Now that I am back I am using the dates on the to do list more. I really would like a forward planning list which captures my future plans if I have the time and wherewithal to complete them. My wish list. I do have a done list now and that is so handy. I can see all I have done. It is there for if I ever think I am not doing enough. It also shows me just how much I do.

Others really do like the gaming aspect of Habitica. They love the Guilds and Quests. It is not for me. Not right now , anyway. For others the gaming aspect keeps them on their toes, they get rewards and they are encouraged to achieve their goals in a nice way. Habitica is a very friendly, positive site and a site which focuses on positive performance and encouragement. I love the pixellated pictures and it fits right in with my current game Stardew Valley.

You don’t have to pay for Habitica. You can subscribe, donate or buy parcels of gems but there is no pressure to do so and no trickery in terms of forcing you to.  I am happy to dress up my avatar, grow and feed pets and just benefit from the positive feel of the site. When I use Habitica I get my ideas planned and worked out in the morning and then I can spend the rest of the day achieving them, adding to them, changing them and I do plan ahead now using the dates. I can achieve everything more easily with Habitica but the best thing is I don’t have a head full of garbage…it’s on my lists and ready to go!

Habitica

It is week 3 of my trial and Habitica now is easy for me to use and I can manage it according to my needs. I am feeding 3 pets to see what happens. I still haven’t felt the need to be part of the questing and gaming aspect of Habitica. You have to be part of a party (group) to follow quests. The idea is they will set you quests to help you or you participate in quests to help yourself. It is all about achieving your goals and improving your life. If the wolf is part of my avatar it is because I am a bit of a lone wolf. You can’t do quests alone or just for yourself and be responsible for your own achievements. This is why the gaming aspect holds no real interest for me. I don’t actually need another layer of involvement to get things done. Others are finding it highly motivating and are loving it and have enjoyed participating in the social, challenging aspect of Habitica. Habitica itself puts out some good quests and challenges to help keep people real, honest and prepared to tackle the tough side of not achieving. It is really noticeable just how much Habitica does to encourage people to do a reality check and then find the tools, quests and people who will help them move forward and upward. It is a very positive, can do approach which is established. I am automatic now in how I organise things and I have shifted some of that stuff to OneNote into tabs so I can follow my project based way of achieving my goals. I really need a pending list and wishlist. Habitica, though, reminds me every day of how much I can and do achieve and so I don’t fall victim to the mindset that says I am not doing much.

Habitica

I  lost 3 mana points just by being there this morning. The red bar is health, the yellow experience and the mana is blue. It was a new bar which came up when I went up a level and I was just doing my usual of checking things off and getting things set up for the day and boom! 3   mana points gone. I shall try and work it out myself , if not, the Habitica help guild is very prompt in getting a reply back if you need help. I have been on Habitica just over a week and there is plenty to do and learn. In my last post I said I would trial it for a month. I have learned a lot in a week and can only expect to be so much more in control by the end of a month. That’s the thing. You have to give new apps and sites an opportunity to allow you to learn before you make any real judgements. I have found I have distinguished between what I want to form as habits as opposed to those things I want as a daily routine. I have then been able to add the things I want to do each day and this site is stopping me from doing things and not acknowledging them. I put everything on there and so I notice what I am actually doing. I don’t do things and then wonder where all my energy has gone. I took a look at the guilds and they are really impressive in their breadth of interest so that like minded people can encourage each other. I was really pleased to see one for Duolingo because it’s an app I have recommended, one I use and one we used to use in class. The guilds really do cover some interesting topics. I worked out how to grow 3 pets and feed them and how to create my avatar picture. I keep looking at those little pixilated pictures and thinking they would make cute little cross stitches. So the plan is to find out about mana and how it works. I have put it on my to do list. I have always been organised but Habitica is enabling a clearer version of my organisational skills. I’d like another list where I could put a wish list of things I want to complete but am waiting for the right time or equipment or whatever. You can put checklists under the main headings and so on. With  a wish list you’d have time to work out what you needed to do in order to achieve that wish. It would be like forward planning. As it stands I do that in my paper journal . The gaming aspect of Habitica isn’t something which appeals to me at the moment or something which will encourage me to do better. It certainly has some real pulling power with others, though,  and you can see that on the site. They do involve themselves in the gaming aspect of the site and love it. It does help them to do better and improve.