To help me manage all of these things, I have found a super awesome tool that has gamified my life. It's called Habit RPG. I love it for many reasons, which I have totally detailed in (shocked face) another pie chart along with reasons you should join too.
For example, I grabbed a screen shot of my task list a little bit earlier today. There are four columns. In order, they are Habits, Dailies, To-Dos, and things you can buy with gold/spells to cast. The colors mean different things. Blue means I've been really good at keeping up with something in the Habits and Dailies columns. The grey in the Dailies column means I've done it for that day already. The red in the To-Dos means that that has been there for a while.
When I check things off, I get xp, gold, and sometimes loot. The loot is usually in the form of pet eggs, potions, or food for the pets. It's been incredibly motivating and fun to play with. I highly recommend it for keeping yourself on track and getting things done. ESPECIALLY with all the fiddly things I need to do to make sure I get this PhD done on time. I've used it for getting results, for writing sections of papers and my dissertation, for remembering to send things to my advisor/committee members, to apply for my degree... anything you need to remember to do can be put on your list of to-dos. And then you get to check it off. AND THEN YOU GET GOLD. I mean, that is just awesome.
Like I said above, I've been recommending it to everyone. It's an open source work in progress, and the tireless volunteers are working hard to add features and fix bugs. Once I have some free time, I plan to contribute to the site. It's been that helpful.
Bonus picture of Lois and a puppy dog:
Love that onesie. We gave that to my brother's daughter as well (when she was younger, of course)
ReplyDeleteIt is an awesome onsie. Even though she has grown out of it, we have it in her keepsake box.
DeleteI've started using a web service /browser plugin called Rescue Time that nicely nags me and tracks how much time I'm spending on what programs and web sites. It has been VERY helpful, but it doesn't have the gamification factor this does.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of Rescue Time. I will have to look more in to it!
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