There are so many apps designed to gamify life. I started to lose track of how many of them exist. I would like to have everything listed in one place. Every comment in this post should be about a different app (or some plugin like template for Notion). It should have a name + link where to get it. Additional info can be provided in the inner comments. Edit: there is a lot of them missing - I will be trying keep it updated.

Game Draft Basic description in my previous post: 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 This is a quests game. There are three types of quests: Traffic, Conversion and Retention. In order to succeed in developing a community all types of quests need to be regularly done. Best - everyday. When the game starts only three quests are enabled - rest needs to be unlocked by paying in the main resource in the game - gold. The equation for daily gold resource increase is: ΔTraffic Quest Done × ΔConversion Quest Done × ΔRetention Quests Done + Create Quests Number For example If I did 2 traffic quests, 1 conversion quest, 3 retention quests and additionally created 2 new quests then the increase will be: 2×1×3 + 2 = 8. I wrote why I designed it this way in my previous post linked above. I additionally reward myself for creating new quests as this action is both necessary and not very pleasant. The goal of the game is to never be in a gold debt. There are two types of sinks (actions that cost gold): boosters and rewards. Reward can be anything but I selected only the number of minutes spent on the internet (biggest time waste for me). Boosters are actions that allow you to add new quests (either new random task or selected task - this is more expensive). It's also possible to prolong existing quests by a few more repetitions.

Saying that 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 is about using techniques known from computer and board games in "real life" isn't very explanatory because it doesn't convey many important details. In this post let me tackle first distinction: how do you want to play the game. 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵es There are two approaches how to "gamify life": 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 and 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 - it's the mindset of playing a game with your life. You just mentally imagine you are playing a game with your life and "act like a hero of the game". In order to play this game you need to have some vision of yourself (hero) and you can execute (simulate) actions of this imagined hero in "Real Life". This is to some extend similar to visualization exercises (like the famous people council from Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow" book) or make-believe games that children are playing. 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 - you have a accountability tool that you use to gamify your life. This can be a custom-written software, spreadsheet, Power Point, Notion, Habitica or similar and last but not least: classic pen & paper. With gamist approach the system (or "tool", or "game") have some underlying goal (and it's not equivalent to the "real life" goal). So for example you can have a goal to lose weight and you use a game tool where there are "weight points" and the goal is to collect 1000 points in 90 days - by meeting the game goal, you will also meet the "real life" goal (if the game rules are designed well, obviously). I am personally much more interested in Gamist Approach. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒. 𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 - 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑡'𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑢𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡.

If you take a look at how people manage their productivity you can see that they typically use: - TODO Lists (e.g. Todoist) - Habit Trackers (e.g. Way of Life) - Metric Trackers (e.g. exist.io) - Calendars (e.g. Google Calendar) - Pomodoro/Focus timers (e.g. Forest) I distinguish two base types of gamification in productivity: - Tasks Gamification - Metric Gamification Habit is a specific type of a metric (they are boolean true/false metrics). However you can also view them as a repetitive task to be done every day. Calendar appointments are tasks with a start/end time set. Pomodoro/Focus timer is just an efficient time metric that takes into consideration that the brain requires breaks after some time of intense focus. Tasks: - Resembles "Quests" in a computer game. - There is a Definition of Done - They can have a deadline - They can have a difficulty/importance set - They can be compounded: be a set of other tasks Metrics: - They have a value attached. This value can be time, number of repetitions, weight, energy, some kind of score etc. The value is typically an integer, a real value or (in case of habits) a boolean value. - They have a default (typically zero) value that is set if nothing was done. - They need to be updated repetitively (in case of gamification of life it has to typically happen on a daily basis). I will go deeply into topics of tasks and metrics because they are crucial concepts that permeate everything related to gamifying life. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒. 𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 - 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑎 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑡'𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑢𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡.

People have goals. Apparently, (most) games have goals too. Gamifying Life means we play a game with a goal that is aligned with our goals. Thus let's review what types of goals people can have. On the most basic levels there are two strongest meta-goals: 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹 and 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. Survival meta-goal is about doing everything that decreases the possibility of a person's death. Reproduction meta-goal is twofold: is about doing everything that increases the probability of extending person genes and/or memes. Extending genes is rather self-explanatory - is about having children and raising them. Extending memes is about leaving some legacy - that is some product of our work that we will be remembered for by other people when we are gone. Majority of things people do and most of the goals people have can be explained in pursuing one or both of these meta-goals. From the game design perspective it's important to understand that 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗮-𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀. Why are goals that are related to these meta-goals so important? They give a huge, constant drive to do something. In this sense they are easier to gamify because people can focus on them for a longer period of time. In other words - the game can have more design flaws but still will be working because the goal is important. In another post I will put attention on "weaker goals" that aren't directly coupled with mentioned meta-goals. Let's list most common goals people have and how they relate to each meta-goal. 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗶𝗱𝗲 - Getting into a healthy lifestyle - Getting a job - Learning a language - Quitting bad habit like drugs, cigarettes, alcohol - Reduce anxiety - Finish education - Learning certain skills (like programming) - Saving money 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗶𝗱𝗲 - Be more fit/athletic - Finding a partner - Starting a family - Launch a business - Get a promotion - Be a better parent - Buy a flat/house - Improving relation with others - Actively participating in social life - Developing interpersonal skills