Today, during our daily stand-up meeting at Stampede, our front end developer shared this quote:

As we reframed the quote to our daily experiences, it is evident that most of us could relate to procrastinating. While the tasks get accomplished later in the day and we felt good about it, too many times we wish we could have done it sooner, or should have done it sooner, or the next time, “I would have done it sooner”.

As the tasks piled up, we often wonder, how can we stay productive? What could make us become more productive?

Gamification and productivity

As we often develop enormous amounts of inner resistance to these seemingly small tasks, it is worth to mention that success is the result of consistently achieving small goals. It would be great if we could turn the chore of completing these small tasks into the illusion of vanquishing an evil troll kingdom — so surely there is a way to apply the elements of gamification to our productivity habits by inculcating rewards, leaderboard, sense of progress, storytelling, competition and many more.

Also, in a separate research, it shows that when employers implement gamification elements into the workplace, employees’ productivity can increase by up to 40%.

Here are some gamified productivity apps for you to try — and now it is time for you to become The Knight of Google Analytics Demystifying!

Habitica

Habitica, formerly HabitRPG, is a fun productivity app that reflects your real life in an RPG setting. In Habitica, you have an avatar that has a health and experience bar like you would find in RPGs. To level up, you must complete tasks on your to-do list, dailies, and good habits. Health is lost in Habitica by failing to complete a daily or continuing a bad habit that you’re trying to break.

In the beginning you are only given a health and experience bar. The mana bar is unlocked at level 10 when you pick a class – warrior, rogue, mage, and healer. Everyone starts off as a warrior. You may read more about the review here.

Streaks

You got it right — Streaks is inspired by Jerry Seinfeld. The idea is really simple, don’t break the chain. In order to form good habits, do it once. Then do it the next day. Then the next, and the next. Every time you do it, it gets easier. If you stop, it gets easier to stop the next day. Read more on Streaks here.

EpicWin

With such fun interface, EpicWin is built on the premise that it’s much more fun to complete a 40-hour RPG rather than going to the gym. Similar to Habitica, this app rewards your real-life accomplishments with in-game points which help you level up your character, score some gold, and increase skills.

When you complete tasks, you move forward on a quest map, and at each new location, you pick up and share via social media all of these rare items with hilarious names like The Helm of Questionable Appeal (!). Epic Win also has unique little features like fight music as you “battle” your chores, and staying true to its completing tasks goal, it has the ability to save all your completed work to a history log so you can look back and beam with pride of how you have finished your tasks. Read more about the EpicWin here.

Chore Wars

Chore Wars lets players pick a name and a character, then form a “party” with the people they live with — this includes that lazy roommate of yours who had never done his dishes in his entire life. Each completed task awards your character XP, and you can even defeat monsters, pick up loot, and unlock extra treasures. Over time, you level up your character with the more housework you get done, and your character’s class even changes to match the kind of chores you’ve been doing. This makes Chore Wars really fun if you have a family you’d like to assign chores to, without having them grunting and throwing tantrums about having to do housework. Read more about Chore Wars here.

Zombies, Run!

Often dissatisfied with most of the fitness apps, I leapt with joy upon the prospect of running and escaping from zombie apocalypse. That’s the premise behind Zombies, Run!. Aimed at runners, this app puts you into the role of a zombie apocalypse survivor. In order for you to avoid being eaten by the zombie hordes and save hundreds of lives, you need to run a set distance (in real life) while collecting supplies and building up your digital “base.”

The app also allows you to accept “missions” which will increase your overall health. You can also use your own music and create custom playlists, all of which will be periodically interrupted by cryptic radio messages detailing more elements of your story and explaining how the world succumbed to a zombie apocalypse. Read more about Zombies, Run! here.