Hi guys,
I have been using an app called EpicWin for a while now and I want to share with you what the experience has been like.
EpicWin is a to-do-list style app in the theme of a RPG. You get to choose from a selection of avatars for your character and you put whatever name you want into the app.
Your character has various stats:
Strength
Stamina
Intellect
Social
Spirit
The character also has an overall level. I'm currently on level 6.
But how do you build up your stats?
That is where quests come in. This is the to-do-list part of this to-do-list app.
The app uses dates. You can set quests to only occur once or to repeat. This is where this app is very helpful, at least to me. When you set a quest, you choose which stat it is a feat of. I use strength for exercise, stamina for stuff like housework, intellect for study and creative pursuits as well as job searching, social for social activities and tasks that involve caring for my pet shrimp (as I class stuff with my pets to be a social thing) and spirit is basically meant for things that are good for you and I use it for the one time on a day working at home that I have video games as a task (only once a day so I can't farm xp by playing video games multiple times - same goes with exercise - I can break it up but I can only get xp once a day for exercising) as I find video games are good for me and help me be productive immediately after playing and I also use this category for anything like appointments that are good for my health etc. Exercise is good for me too mentally and could also fit in this category but I put it under strength as that seems to fit better again. As you can see with my exercise task it repeats every single day every week.
Before discovering this app, I changed from focusing on goals to focusing on using a system. The way the system works is to have categories and then have minimum things to do and when under those categories. Some things are everyday and some things are one day a week with an aim to do it on one particular day of the week. You can read more about my system at around the time I implemented in (1 week in) here: @birchmark/a-week-of-using-a-system
The system could not get completely confusing by adding too much information though and it didn't help with things which were fortnightly etc and I'd need to remember to do those tasks on that particular fortnight. It also didn't let me basically cross things off after I did them and feel as much accomplishment for doing the task. This is one area where EpicWin really shined. I could set tasks for every second Thursday or every Wednesday etc (I could do the every week one on the system too but it was a balancing act of not making the system too big and convoluted). This worked great in the app. If I had to pay a certain bill on a certain day once a fortnight I could mark it in on that day every fortnight for example. That way I would not forget to pay it. The app is great for all those things you might forget (and things like paying your bills on the right day can be pretty important!).
The other thing that is nice is that you check off your quests. You hold down on a quest to complete it and your character completes it and you gain experience (XP). This is how you level. It creates more of a feeling of accomplishing something when you can check it off in some way. There is a beaten tab down the bottom and if you click on it, you can see the quests you have previously beaten. From here, you can also click on the beaten tasks and choose "Do again".
You also get loot in the app occasionally when completing tasks but this loot doesn't do anything. It is simply there for novelty and humour. And it has its place. I recently got the loot "The Art of War by Leeroy Jenkins" which says "Planning and executing a flawless raid? This book has it all. Apart from the planning and the flawless elements". The loot is a good little extra and can be humourous but it doesn't do anything.
I have found this app to be very useful. When I switched from focusing on goals to using a system, my productivity improved. Switching from just a system to also having this app improved it moreso. But what could the app do better?
Well like I said the loot is humourous but essentially pointless. Which is the same as the XP system. You level but you are levelling to nothing. There is no end-game nor any game play. It is a game-adjacent app where it focuses on productivity but gives a game like feel, with no gameplay. You could say it is a productivity app so therefore shouldn't have gameplay, but that is a little short sighted. We're not kids excited to get yet another gold star that essentially is collected for no reason with no outcome from getting yay many stars. Collecting XP for nothing is better than doing it without the app with no helpful list or XP to see your progress, but it is still an exercise in futility. Just like that kid's gold stars has no real value, neither does this XP or the loot as they don't do anything or reach anything new (apart from more loot that does nothing) and an adult will know it is heading nowhere and has no real value. I gave the levelling system a value for myself. The work I am getting done is incredibly valuable in its own right, but how I make the pressure to bother levelling up still is through making a deal with myself. I have a deal with myself that I will reward myself in a particular way when I reach level 10. I created the payout for the levelling of my own accord. This is one way to overcome this downside to the app. However unlocking gameplay through being productive wouldn't be the dumbest idea either. People who play video games in their lunch break were found to be more productive when tehy returned to work than people who spent their lunch break differently so video games are not at complete odds to productivity. For me they actually help me work and concentrate better immediately after playing them so I use them to my advantage and play every day I'm working or studying from home (but I choose things with defined endpoints like matches such as Overwatch, PUBG, Fortnite etc - most often Overwatch - rather than something open-ended like WOW or Minecraft which could inadvertently destroy productivity due to not realising how long you are spending on those games - I play stuff like WOW other times just not as a productivity booster).
On a similar note, concentrating on things immediately after exercising has a very similar effect to concentrating on things immediately after playing video games, and I incorporate both exercise and video games into my working day / productive time when at home. Due to the futility of collecting XP for nothing, and the positive benefits of video game play, I feel unlocking gameplay would be the next step forward in productivity apps from such an awesome app as EpicWin. It won't suit every person who would use a productivity app (some would probably scoff at the concept of combining games with productivity), but it would suit those who are using it for certain reasons and to overcome certain productivity challenges. I am loving EpicWin and it has made some great changes to my life and has become an incredibly useful tool for my productivity, but I think I CAN DO BETTER.
I would highly recommend EpicWin as a productivity helper and a remembering things helper too. It is better than any other app in this area that I have experience with. It is fun and portable (being an app rather than a browser based thing etc) and it has very useful aspects to it, such as being able to set repeating tasks with various timeframes, and a way to check off tasks which enhance the feeling of achieving the task you just completed. Given how much it has helped me, compared to most other things this would easily get a 10 / 10 but since I see ways it could be improved that makes it a
9 /10. EpicWin is great and I definitely recommend it for the time being, but I want to make the thing that will be even better than EpicWin is. And I'm going to try to do so.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my review of this great app!
LINKS
Birchmark Website: http://birchmark.com.au/
Dlive: https://dlive.io/@birchmark
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BirchmarkAu
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Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Birchmark/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birchmark/
Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/birchmark?asc=u
Threadless: https://birchmark.threadless.com/
Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/Birchmark
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ANOTHER POST OF MINE YOU MIGHT ENJOY: @birchmark/confusing-earth-chapter-17-glasses
A POST I ENJOYED BY SOMEONE ELSE: @darlene.kitchen/stress-management#@monajam/re-birchmark-re-darlenekitchen-stress-management-20180510t081922772z
Thank you for reading!