For anyone only interested in the most basic point of this thread, skip to the part below the line near the bottom of the post.


So I admit that I'm something of a professional procrastinator. If something needs to be done, I tend to put it off, not for the sake of avoiding doing it usually (though sometimes that is the case), but rather, more often than not, because I get my priorities mixed up and end up doing the less important things first, and saving what is important for a later time... and that later time never comes because I end up forgetting until it's too late.

Well that's changed -- for now at least lol -- because I found a new app that manages to make work into a game. And it isn't just work, it's exercise routines, healthy habits, errands, and anything else that you might want to offer yourself an extra incentive to do.

This app is called Life RPG, and it does exactly what it sounds like it does: takes your life (or your daily routine) and turns it into an RPG. See, how this works is you take each thing that you might put on a to-do list, and rate how difficult, important, and frightening (or intimidating) they are. You get XP based on how you rate each item on the list (they're called "missions"), and you also determine how many RP (reward points) each mission is worth. Next you set how often these are to be performed: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or continuously if they can be performed as often as needed. Then you decide if there are reminders, if there's a parent mission (like a group of subquests bundled into one mission, thus offering additional XP if you complete the whole set), and so on.

Oh and don't forget skills! Each mission can be marked with skills, and when that mission is completed, the skills listed on it also gain XP and level up along with your overall level. There are several other small features that add to it, but I've covered just about all of the important things.


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Basically the point is that the app actually manages to make the daily grind fun, if you're into RP' s anyway. I've tried three in total, and some had much more detailed systems replete with boss battles and social connectivity, but this one is more my style personally -- it's simple, entirely customized by you, and requires far fewer permissions (though it does ask for access to your images and sounds so that you can import your own icons, avatars, and sound effects if you want).

So yeah, hopefully someone finds this useful. If you get it, maybe let me know and we can compare stats...if you keep your XP payout fair.



Eniitan : I don't know if this will interest you or not, but I remember you making a thread a while back asking what others did to make work fun. Maybe you could give something like this a try sometime. It's actually spurred me on to not only do all of my usual daily tasks, but to take on more and become even more productive so I can level up faster. xD It's silly, I know, but it's fun.

When I was much younger, before apps but after the internet showed up, I thought about making something similar to this except having it related to social interactions. If you smiled at a girl you didn't know, you got experience. If you said hello or talked to one, you got more. The objective was to teach that it's not that scary going out and meeting new people and if you get rejected, it happens and it's not the end of the world.

Something like this is similar to something I saw online. There's a website, lvluplife.com if I'm not mistaken, that encourages people to develop other skills and talents, like going outside, reading books, having conversations, creating and writing and doing photography, and they get levels and achievements as they go. It's similar to what you're talking about.

I've seen enough TED talks to know procrastination is trouble and it'll probably stop you from advancing as far as others in life. If an app like this helpful, good. Use all the tools you can to get the work done and succeed in life.

Or, if you're real good and study hard at school and become better than others, you get a job you like. I like my work, and I've enjoyed going to work the past two years I've been there. It makes me feel good to achieve things and help people and I like leading my team, no matter how much stress I experience. That's the real trick: Do something you like and you'll never work a day in your life.

Ghostbear1111 : Procrastination is definitely a dangerous thing. I don't mean to sound arrogant because I'm not the best at anything I do, not by a long shot at this point, but I know that I'm capable of so much more than I've been accomplishing for the past few years even. If I had applied myself I could have met many of my goals already. I have a bad habit of getting started in a good routine and working hard at my goals, only to fall off later, the first time something comes up and derails my progress for one day. This app serves as a fun and helpful reminder of just how much I could and should accomplish, and whether I am doing so or not. Seeing a short term goal as well as a long term goal helps when I just don't have the drive to press on toward the long term goal that offers no rewards right now.


Being 29 and too poor to afford college, I do what I can, and I'm making real headway with some things. I'm progressing toward my goals, but more slowly than need be since I can become distracted. That's what I'm shooting for with this app: getting my productivity back up there. I believe that, in the US, anyone can succeed if they try hard enough, and that's exactly what I intend to do.

I did mess around with this a little while ago and when I first played it, I really liked it, but I quickly became bored of it, plus I cheated a whoooooollleee lot.

This is some thing that would be really good for me, assuming I can stick with it and not just get bored with it or stop caring a couple weeks in. 

I just so happen to be the King of all things Procrastination is possible for. It's a terrible, terrible habit I really need to break... 

zanderlex : lol Cheating? Methinks you missed the point, man! xD It's definitely something that still requires some moderation and imagination, but for a lover of numbers and stats such as myself, those little numbers on the screen are more than enough motivation.


Mynamescox44 : Well if you get it (I know it's on Android, and probably Windows, but doesn't appear to be on iOS) maybe we could swap some rewards ideas since my mind is stuck in full on RPG mode so all I can come up with is new names for bows, armor, amulets, potions...maybe I should think a little less standard RPG. I'm an incurable gamer though, what can I say?

lol! You know, I thought of trying out this idea many years ago except I couldn't find the time try out an actual program like this, and ended up having to just do all of the "leveling up" in my head. XD I also tend to get side-tracked a lot from my more important "main missions," so I ended up learning to make a poster with all of my lifelong goals (complete with long-term and short-term goals like what languages I wanted to learn and what sports I wanted to excel in) to put on a wall that I will always be face to face with at some point in my day, and then later, when I started using my phone more frequently, I continued on by manually setting up alarms and reminders to myself. XD

As for you, do you usually get side-tracked because you go off to do the stuff that you might actually unconsciously consider to be "more interesting" than what you set as your priorities?

Anyways, depending on how difficult and time-consuming it is to mark off each mission, I might consider getting this app just to see if it suits my needs. =P Thank you for sharing this app with us! =)

Eirinn :  
Thankfully I have an Android phone in that case lol. 

I'll try my best, but if you haven't already realized this from the little bit of writing you've seen me do, I'm not exactly what you would call a creative person XD. The only hope I would have of coming up with any decent reward ideas would be to simply steal them from the myriad of RPGs I've played over the years  

But I'll definitely look up the App some time in the next day or so, and get back to you about what we could do to make it a little more interesting.

Yuna1000 : I can't do that, trust me, I've tried. I used to have so many alarms on my phone that one was going off every hour at least, but I still didn't get things done. lol I would just turn the alarms off and go back to doing what I was before and forget the alarm entirely before I finished.

As for your question: Yes, that about sums it up. I tend to lean towards prioritizing the more enjoyable, or at the very least, the less tedious or difficult things on my mental to-do list and lose track of time. I use this app to help me keep track of just what I have done and need to do. The thing is, I look at my phone more times a day than I care to admit, and every time I look at it, I think of Life RPG, and I always keep it open. It makes it difficult to forget to do things, and even makes me push myself to score higher than I did on the best scoring day of the week so far, etc. And as I said to zanderlex, I have a fascination with numbers despite hating math in school, so I have an unreasonable desire to increase my numbers in the app by not only doing work and errands, but doing the harder ones especially since they award more XP and RP. So I work more and I work more efficiently.

Marking off the missions is as simple as ticking a box, but making them does require some time since you have to set the name, skills they affect, difficulty, urgency, fear, RP payout, and such. In the end it's worth it in my opinion.

You're very welcome! I was torn on whether I should make a thread about it or not, and finally decided "what is there to lose?" and just did it (take that, Nike!). I hope you find it to be useful!


EDIT: took to long to type it and missed a reply.

Ohh lol I was wondering how this game would be able to help you if you usually prioritized the "more enjoyable" tasks (which may include "playing" Life RPG =P ) but I guess if it's sort of like how I put up a poster of my most important goals where I could see it all the time, then I guess this game really could be quite beneficial for you. =) It's also nice that you don't shy away from choosing the harder tasks that award more XP (yep, that part is super important). lol

For instance, I know some people will always decide to ignore the toughest assignments on a list, opting instead to work on the shorter and easier tasks first (which might not be too bad of an idea if you're still progressively moving towards tackling the toughest assignments), but then they continue to only focus on those shorter and easier tasks as those tasks crop up, so they end up not getting to any of the tougher assignments at all that day. This pretty much means that they actually end up putting off the tougher assignments (which often also requires more time to complete) for days on end until they can no longer put it off/avoid it anymore, or they'll spend all their time programming in new missions and checking them all off, and then they'll wonder why they were being "so productive" and yet they didn't seem to make much progress at all. ^^0;;

For people like that, I'm not sure this game would help them very much, because they would essentially still be spending all of their productive time inputting hundreds of smaller tasks into the game over and over and then completing those tasks over and over, but since that's not what you appear to be doing, I think you'll be fine. lol

Good luck with meeting your goals and becoming more efficient while you're at it! =)

Yuna1000 : Thank you. And yes, the XP and RP systems are what keep me working on the harder missions first usually. For example: cleaning the house grants me probably less than 100XP (I don't recall the actual number offhand), but doing something difficult and unpleasant can grant me 2,000XP. I put a few systems in place to keep me from ignoring the less important missions altogether though, because while they may be easy, they're still important (imagine not cleaning a house with three adults and two small children coming over twice a week. How messy would that get in a week or two??).

What I do is I place missions inside of other missions (known as "parent" missions) and when I complete all of them, I can tick the completion box on the parent mission and get another bonus for completing all of them. The added boost, in turn, makes even the small payout missions worth something. Plus if I complete all missions in a single day I complete another special mission, and I have one for completing every mission everyday for a week.

Then I use the RP earned to purchase items that I make up in the reward shop, and use those items as key items that I need to complete imaginary missions (currently saving up to complete "Slay The Dragon" because what RPG is complete without that?) that when completed allow me to purchase special real life rewards that I set in place, such as "Day off" which lets me rest for one day without goals and no penalties (because if I fail a mission, I lose RP equivalent to that mission's reward). That takes several days of successful missions and a week or two of missions before that to unlock, so no worries. lol

So yes, I love nesting things if you can't tell. xD



Mynamescox44 : lol That's exactly what I've been doing: "Beginner bow/armor" "Hunter bow/armor" "leather boots" and so on. It reeks of generic JRPG checklists. xD I also, as I told Yuna, made some real life rewards that I can use my RP to purchase, like rest days and such. It's only a matter of time until I get a reward that's related to gaming.

But yeah, hopefully you like it and help me think up new ideas.

I'm sorry for taking so long to download the app. I promise I'll get on it either tonight ( depending how much more effort I want to put in to trying to score tonight ), or tomorrow morning. I have the entire day off tomorrow to relax, and the house to myself, so there's no reason I won't be able to get it done lol. 

That said, if you can remind me at some point later tonight or tomorrow when you're online, I would really appreciate it. My mind wanders to the point it would leave my skull if it had a hole it could fit through XD

I bet if normal people that have never tried an RPG used this in their daily lives, they'd probably get a bit more amusement out of their life, and make it more fun, making more people be positive around each other. Kind of a big stretch for just a harmless app, but it would be cool to see.