Staying On Task - Let's Get Habitica Together!

Need motivation and inspiration to keep pushing through into finals season? Get Habitica and find fun in completing your tasks with your friends!

What is Habitica?

Via habitica.com

Habitica is a free habit-building and productivity app in which your habits and tasks in real life are treated like objectives in a role playing video game. In-app rewards and punishments are intended to motivate you to complete your goals. Your peers that use the app will serve as inspiration to keep on top of your tasks and to tackle neglected To-Dos.

The goal of the app is to help you to achieve your goals, to become healthy, hard-working, and happy all the while having some fun along the way. The app can be used in your web browser or on the mobile app!

In this post, I will be outlining the process of signing up and using the Android app, however, it isn't too much different on the iOS app or the web browser version.

Getting Signed Up: Signing up for an account

1. Download Habitica from the the App Store for iOS devices or from the Google Play Store for Android devices.

2. Sign up for an account - it's free! (Selecting "Register" on the start screen [the image on the left] will bring you to the screen on the right)

Complete The Tutorial

Once you're all signed up, you'll be prompted to complete the tutorial. In the tutorial, you will first be asked to create an avatar and select some interests. When you're done select "Let's Start!"

Getting Started: Finish The Tutorial And Start Entering Your Own Tasks

The in-app guide, Justin, will continue to walk you through the app. You will start with Habits, Dailies, To-Dos, and Rewards that are set up for you based on the interests you previously selected.

Go through all the different types of tasks and Justin will explain what each section is for. (I.e. select Habits, Dailies, To-Dos, Rewards)

I would recommend deleting all of the pre-made tasks and creating your own! (though you can use the pre-made ones as inspiration) Deleting tasks is shown above. Note: If you have a lot of tasks to delete, the web browser might be a faster option.

Adding your own tasks can be achieved by selecting the "+" icon.

Here are some ideas to help with making your own tasks:

Sample Habits: http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/Sample_Habits

Sample Dailies: http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/Sample_Dailies

Sample To-Dos: http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/Sample_To-Dos

Sample Custom Rewards: http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/Sample_Custom_Rewards

The interface might seem a bit daunting at first but you'll get the hang of it. Above, I have outlined the process of deleting a Habit, Daily, or To-Do. If you get stuck, access the Help & FAQ section to see frequently asked questions or to reset Justin's walkthrough.

Changing Your Display Name

- If you sign up by creating a username and inputting your email, the username you enter will be the credential you use to log-in to your account.

- When you first set up your account, your username will be the name other users will see. If you would like to change the name others see, go to Settings > Profile > Display Name

This is slightly variable between the platforms (Android, iOS, web browser). The above image is for Android.

Tackle Your Goals!

Start checking off your real life tasks in Habitica. It might take a couple days to really get into the routine of checking the app and adding tasks.

By completing tasks, you earn Experience, which helps you level up, and Gold, which allows you to purchase rewards. Rewards can be in app items or something in real like, like treating yourself to an episode of your favourite show.

Falling into bad habits or missing your Dailies will result in your avatar losing health.

The Habitica Experience and Health bars represent your progress towards your goals. Ideally, your real life will begin to improve as your avatar advances in the app.

Depicted above is the web browser version of the app. These are a few of the tasks that I have inputted so far.

Customization And Exploration of Habitica

Once you've gotten familiar with the interface, here are some next steps:

1. Organize your tasks by adding tags - Is your task related to school? health and wellness? Both? You can create custom tags and attribute them to your various tasks. You can choose to filter your tasks by tag if you have a lot of different tasks going at once. For example, if I wanted to see what I have to do for school, I could filter the 'school' tag to isolate school related tasks.

2. Customize your avatar - Change the way your avatar looks and the equipment they are wearing. Equipment can be bought under the Rewards section or earned by completing quests. (More on this in Parties)

3. At level 3, hatch pets by collecting eggs and hatching potions (This can be accessed under items within your inventory. By feeding pets enough, your avatar can ride your pet (ride-able pets are referred to as mounts)

4. Form a Party with your friends! (Social > Party) - Hold each other accountable to personal tasks, this is one of the best features of the app! Note: your tasks are only visible to you, however, you can see your friends' character level in addition to Health and Experience bars.

5. At level 10, choose a class and use class-specific skills to help yourself or the Party. In a party, members can initiate quests together in which you defeat monsters by completing your tasks. I.e. when a Party member completes a task, the task is associated with dealing damage to the monster. Defeating monsters provides some unique items to the participating Party members, ultimately improving your avatars.

Starting a Party!

The easiest way to start a party is via the Web Browser version of Habitica. Once you have set up your party on the web browser, you can begin using the mobile app again.

Note: You can only be a member of one party at one time. One party leader must invite all of their friends to their party.

Once in the web browser, click "Invite Friends" (This can be found near the top of the page where it says "Battle Monsters With Friends".

Next click "Create a Party". After creating a party, you should be brought to the party page. The page should read "[your username]'s party"

You can then proceed to invite friends either on the website or on the mobile app. You can invite friends that do not have Habitica via email or invite existing users of Habitica via their user-ID.

User IDs can be found under your profile on the web browser version or under Settings > API on the mobile app.

Note: In the mobile app, you can also add members to your party by scanning their unique QR code. When Non-party members select the Party section under the social tab, a QR code will appear. The party leader can scan this QR code by selecting "Invite Friends" within their Party section. This requires the "party leader" to have created a party on the web browser as stated above.

Some additional info to help Party formation is presented in the image above.

Those Are The Basics!

If you get really into the app, I recommend visiting the Habitica wikia to learn more: http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/Habitica_Wiki

A lot of the things discussed in this article are explained in much more depth in the wikia!

Bonus

If you're still reading, you can get a Gryphon mount. If that's not motivation, I don't know what is.