To-Do lists.

I don't know how all of you handle it, but I have tried out a lot of to-do lists and other track-keeping things over the years. Calendars, special "get things done" thingies, hand-written lists, reminder calendars, you name it. Some of these worked for a day, some for a week, some for two weeks... and then I would quietly ignore them and go on with my life in some other way.

The method I currently have involves a blackboard (or something quite like it) that is hanging at the wall across from my desk and that holds several things, mostly long- and mid-term projects. Add to that a stack of paper snippets with lists on them directly on my desk - most of those are short- to mediumshortterm things. (Though there are some items that keep getting transferred from one list to the next. Gah.)

But yesterday I stumbled across a new sort of to-do list... one that is supposed to give you extra motivation by not just taking that task off a list, but by sort of Roleplayifying your life. (If you have never played a roleplaying game - pen and paper or computer - and have no clue what roleplaying means, here's the short one: you play a character that goes on adventures, kills monsters, saves people, finds treasures (to buy stuff that will help during the monster-killing and people-saving and treasure-finding) and gets better and better at stuff over time.)

So the basic idea is that you have a list of stuff to do - daily, weekly, or small things you want to make a habit - and each time you sucessfully finish a task, you get XP and gold. The gold can be used to buy stuff - either rewards you made up yourself, such as "have cake", or rewards available from the shop that will help you get more gold and more XP. Which sort of makes clicking "done" on these tasks... more fun.

I'm trying this out, and I can tell you: I had a lot of fun yesterday already, even though the to-do list is freakishingly long. And even if it will not work long-term for me, I will happily take a spike in productivity.

Oh, yes, the details: The thing is called HabitRPG. It's under development, it's free (unless you die and need to resurrect yourself), and there is currently a Kickstarter campaign running (which also features a video telling you more about the idea and the "game") to help develop it more, including a mobile app, and faster.