For a while, I was an enthusiastic gamer. I blogged and reviewed video games on a gaming site and for a (very) short while, freelanced for 1up.com. But then I gave up gaming in favor of getting my life back (I tend to fall into video games like bad guys in Star Wars fall into sarlac pits) and lately, the only games I’ve been playing are Facebook’s Scrabble and Bejeweled. Then, last week, a friend of mine mentioned this game on Facebook and, since it was free, I thought I’d give it a try. But only for a week. That was last Wednesday.
It’s called Mindbloom, and it’s a cross between the casual games of the Internet (think Bejeweled or Farmville) and the self-help movement (think vision boards and movies like The Secret.)
It’s really not so much a game as it is is a fancy to-do list, visualized as a tree. You start with three branches, each of which represents an area of your life important to you: Finances, Relationships, Career, whatever. In each of those areas, you create small, scheduled to-do lists. Mine are “write 500 words every day,” “yoga every other day,” “share a smile with a stranger every day” and “one to two hours of project every day.”
I check them off if I did them, and I get points for doing that. Sounds dull, right? That’s because it is.
Until earlier this week, I was ready to quit, actually. But then I realized something: It’s working. It’s seriously, honestly working. I’m getting much more work done. I’m working out regularly. I’m trying to be nice to be people, and I’m more or less succeeding.
Why does it work for me? I’m a list-maker. I make to-do lists all the time, in my head, on the backs of envelopes, on my computer’s Stickies program. But I rarely get through the lists, because I lose them, and there’s no accountability. Now here’s this game that awards me points for checking off my to-do list.
Thus far, the rewards are really unexciting – new backgrounds, new music – but the game does offer motivation: If you don’t do something on your list for a while, your tree starts to die. That happened to me a few days ago, when I skipped yoga two days in a row and didn’t make my 500 words over the weekend. My tree started to turn brown. Do you know how alarming it is to watch a tree labeled “My Life” begin to wither?
I don’t have any friends on Mindbloom yet, so I don’t know anything about the social networking/support aspect of the game, but for me, so far, Mindbloom offers more stick and less carrot as encouragement for ticking off my goals. Yet, completion of the goals is – and should be – encouragement enough.
After nursing my tree back from the brink of death to full greenness – and after checking off a lot of the items on my to-do list – I’m hooked. I do feel a little odd about using the Internet to complete my life’s small goals – I feel like Big Brother somehow is reading my list of things to do – but I can’t complain, because hey, I’m completing my tasks.
So, wait. This is no longer free?
It does sound useful, even if the “game” aspect isn’t terribly exciting.
As far as I’m aware, it’s still free. There are upgrades that cost money, but the game itself is free.
That sounds fairly clever, the art even looks good, awesome that it’s working for you! I am also a list-maker, but like Heather I’ll put some very ambitious things on there sometimes that I know 95% I won’t get done.
Also, slightly OT, but the second I read this post and comment, I knew Heather would be in!
This game sounds horrifying to me. I think it’s because I set myself utterly ridiculous goals. I’ve learned to feel accomplished if I even get about 50-75% of said goals at a time. If my life tree started to die, I’m afraid I’d have a quarter life crisis.
That being said, of course you used to be a gamer. ;D I’m pretty terrible at gaming myself, but I do keep an eye out to try and play the coolest ones that are still within my skill range. Now I want to hear about your favorites.
It really isn’t that bad! The game only lets you set three goals at the beginning, and you have to buy the ability to set other goals with points. So it’s manageable.
My favorite games? I’m about four years behind the times here, but I love, love, love Clover’s Okami. And I like Shadow of the Colossus and God of War II. And Katamari Damacy, just because it’s so weird.