This is a Hobbit, but we're not talking about Hobbits today.
We are talking about habits.
Now, you may have heard the old adage that it takes 21 days to form a new habit, but
you might be interested to learn that there's some researchers at the University College
Of London who figured out in their studies that the average participant took 66 days
to form a new habit concretely.
Now whether the actual number is 21 days, 66 days, or something else, the gist of it
is this: building a new habit is difficult, and you probably know this yourself if you've
ever tried to get into the habit of running every day, or getting into a reading habit,
or anything of the sort.
Building habits is hard, and when it comes to building them we could use all the help
we can get.
Today I'm going to show you a tool that I've been using that can help you build really,
really strong habits, and have a lot of fun doing it.
The tool is called Habit RPG, and it's a web app that helps you get the motivation to build
habits and get things done by taking concepts from video games, specifically RPG's.
Now, maybe you're wondering, "How can concepts from role playing games apply to the real
world?"
Well, let me give you an example.
As a kid, my absolute favorite RPG was Pokemon Red for the Game Boy.
Now I know this wasn't a typical RPG since you make these little critters fight, gain
levels, and take performance enhancing drugs instead of doing the work yourself, but deal
with it.
Aside from that one little distinction, the mechanics are all there.
You've got your ultimate goal of becoming the Pokemon league champ, and you've got to
get into the habit of fighting countless battles against all matter of weird looking things
to get there.
Seriously, what is this thing?
The game does a fantastic job of motivating you to keep this habit up by providing your
Pokemon with experience points for each battle won.
Eventually they'll gain levels, get stat boosts, and even evolve.
All the while, you're getting other rewards like a bicycle, new powers that let you explore
new places, and a complimentary gambling addiction.
It all comes together into one fantastically engineered package designed to keep kids from
ever knowing the areas their parents drive them through.
Throughout dozens and dozens you put into the game in order to reach the end, you almost
never feel your motivation waning.
Battle after battle is fought without draining an ounce of the will power to go on, and this
can be attributed to two main factors: number one, the game is just damn fun; but number
two, the makers have designed smart reward mechanisms to keep you going.
These reward mechanisms, experience points, leveling, gear upgrades, they're all built
right into Habit RPG.
The only difference is that you have to practice your daily habits and get things done to earn
them, rather than telling a small mouse to shoot lightening at a turtle.
Let's go through the main features of the app.
Once you sign in to Habit RPG, you'll be greeted with an interface consisting of a few key
features.
First and foremost is your character.
You'll notice that he's got a couple of bars right now.
One of them is for experience, and the other is for health.
Below that you'll find found different columns: habits, dailies, to do's, and rewards.
The habits column lets you track habits that you're trying to build or break.
When you create a new one you can decide whether it's a positive habit, a negative one, or
both.
If you want to eat more vegetables for example, you'd make a positive one, and if you're trying
to stop drinking soda, then that would be a negative one.
The dailies column is for tracking habits that you want to practice at least once per
day.
For me this is the main attraction of Habit RPG: I have my entire morning ritual here
along with several other habits, and that ritual helps me get a productive start to
each and every day.
By the way, if you'd like to learn about how I build my morning ritual and go about it,
then the description will have a link to my blog post on the subject.
The to do's column lets you track one off tasks, so you can actually use Habit RPG as
a task manager as well if you like.
Finally, there's the rewards column.
This column is a place where you can reward yourself for consistently good behavior.
At first you only see custom rewards, things you can create for yourself like "watch an
episode of game of thrones," but eventually you'll find gear and spells for your character
here as well.
Rewards are paid for with money, and unless you're getting money from Obama or the tooth
fairy, then usually you gotta work for it, and in Habit RPG that's the case.
Every time you practice a habit and check it off your list, you'll gain two things:
experience and money.
With the money you can buy upgrades, gear for your character, and lots of other things,
and the experience will eventually let you level up, which unlocks more things and let's
you pick things like classes and other advanced features down the line.
Eventually you'll be able to join parties with other players, and for me this is the
reason that Habit RPG is such a motivating tool.
When you're partied with somebody else and you go on a quest, your actions have consequences
that affect both you and the other people in your party.
That means if you don't do a daily, not only will you lose health, but your friends will
lose health as well.
If they lose all their health and die, they'll actually loose a level and a piece of gear.
If you don't do your dailies, you're going to be hearing about it from your friends.
This entire process is called "Gamification," and for me, gamifying my habits has been incredibly
useful, especially since I'm held accountable to my roommate and will actually harm his
character if I don't do my dailies every day.
The app's not just for desktop browsers either.
You'll find apps for both the iPhone and Android platforms.
If you're looking for a new tool that can amplify your habit building abilities, then
give Habit RPG a try.
Also, if you're interested I'm going to be setting up a guild for College Info Geek raiders
on Habit RPG.
If you check the link in the description below you'll find the companion blog post for this
video, and there you'll find the link to the guild once it's up.
Hey there!
Thanks for watching my video tutorial on using Habit RPG.
If you found it useful, I'd absolutely love it if you could give the video a like and
share it with a friend.
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Below that you'll find last week�s video, so check it out if you haven't seen it yet.
You can also find notes and links that go with this video by clicking on the orange
video right over there, and if you're interested you can also get a free chapter of my book,
"Hacking Productivity," by clicking the cover.
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