Gamification of My Downtime - Week 1 Reveiw

Funny thing... I did a lot of reading this week. Haha!

Unfortunately, I lost the screenshot I took of my 'Control' week, so you'll just have to believe that the below stats are slightly higher than that of a normal week.

The legend is as follows.

• Yellow: Housekeeping
• Light green: Better Me
• Dark green: Health
• Blue: Melbourne/moving/settling in
• Purple: Helping others/doing things for others

Ignore Monday's (today). I should have taken the screenshot on Sunday.

So as you can see, I still ignore my health. But I guess not everything can be 'hacked' and I think that's just proof that I need to be more disciplined.

The one new habit I've started due to this experiment is making the bed each morning. What started as an easy way to earn 5 minutes game time, has actually turned into one of my favourite chores in the day. Mostly because the feeling of walking into the bedroom at bedtime and seeing a tidy bed just seals the deal to a well-achieved day. Not to mention, that the bed feels fresher to climb into each night, which is a feeling not to be overrated!

Thursday was an interesting day, since I knew I wouldn't have time to game due to bouldering after work. I then chose not to squeeze in tasks during work. It made for an unbelievably productive work day and simultaneously (and surprisingly) relaxing. The duration of deep work time was longer than usual.

The other thing that struck me is that, normally, I habitually feel like I haven't done enough in a day to reward myself. Keeping track of points has helped me to remember that I don't get nothing done each day (which is how it feels), and that even if I don't remember all the items I ticked off, I know I deserve some downtime. And the downtime is just that much sweeter because I know I've earned it.

There were also days I wanted to game, but didn't have enough points to warrant a really good session. That's when I turned to other methods of downtime. This week, reading. I've got three books on the go at once (which is a different blog post in itself) but it's meant the reading itch is stronger than ever.
When the activities available to me are limited, I'm very good at finding something to do. Not once did I become paralysed with what to do during my free time, and the result was more quality downtime!

This week was busier than normal, with errands to run every lunch break and after-work hours booked up every day, so I will continue to track this week's activities to find some trends. This week is forecast to be less busy.

Now I did crash incredibly hard on Saturday. And I'm unsure if that is due to the busy week, or the pressure I was putting on myself to earn gaming-brownie points. We'll see how this coming week goes.

I'm not making any changes to the rules except to mention one I omitted in my previous blog post.
I may use game time I haven't earned yet. This happened last Monday which was a public holiday. I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity of a long session knowing I might not get another chance that week (and I was mostly right).

Earned: 235 minutes (3.9 hours)
Used: 155 minutes (2.5 hours)
Tasks: 47 completed
Goals: Be more discipled regarding health (physio) this week