Gamification is adding game elements to activities. This motivates people to do things they will not normally do. A great example is Habitica, a platform for nurturing habits in an RPG way. Players gain experience points and coins by completing daily tasks. They level up and buy new equipment to attack monsters in quests. I have used Habitica for a years and I recommend anyone to try it to grasp what gamification is.

However, as my level grows, the numbers becomes less and less meaningful. I felt that this is just a glorified to-do list. The reason is obvious: A game is not a accurate representation of reality. My avatar is at level 88, but what does that mean? Maybe that was a reward of I being a good learner, or having a great habit of exercising. I can’t tell because all the things I earned have been mixed together and there’s no record keeping track of them. I want the number to be meaningful, like that actual stats in RPGs that can do actual damages.

Therefore, I want to create my own system to represent my real life. I focused on experiences and knowledge because they are easy to quantify and cannot regress. I first started my test on my drawing practices. I took pictures for every pages on my sketchbooks and tag them according to what skill I’ve trained when drawing those pages (using a tool called filetags (github)), I wrote code to automatically count the tags and convert them as progress bars on this page (class Painter). I listed all the possible goals I may have as a simple wish list.

However, my current system can’t go beyond skills and knowledge because most other things in life are hard to gamify. Either they don’t grow as a simple straight line, like health, or they are impossible to quantify, like relationships. I’m still finding possible ways to gamify those aspects of my life.