Easy Mode

I'm adding a couple of new suggestions to the instructions concerning lessons I've learned in this last maker. Here's a copy (I moved what I had as #1 down because these are more important).


1. Start off as easy as possible - your quest log should only have things you look forward to changing. As you gain confidence and create more time for yourself by doing the easy ones you can move on to higher difficulties.
2. Makers are easier than Breakers - always use a maker over a breaker if you can. Example - if you want to eat out less, don't make a breaker to eat out less - instead, use a maker to eat in more.

Success = Sweet

Some things are just so much easier once you get started. The eating at home more maker is working out great. My wife and I are enjoying having food in the house all the time and not having to go out every night.

I think there's another suggestion in here - that we should start off with makers/breakers that we look forward to, making it that much easier to stick to it.

Epic Failure

I'll just say that...every time I fail, I learn something new or something real motivational like that. I sucked at the 10 things cooked from my kitchen every week.

But truthfully there is something to learn here - there's not a daily thing to do in this quest - it's vague because it's a 10 times a week thing. It at least needs a better way to track it - a list to check off to track my progress through the week. I lost track of this one was really the only problem.

I'm going to try again with a check list this time. I'll start it on the best day there ever was - today.

Also, I don't want the lessons learned from these failure to be lost with me - and need to be redone by others so I'm also going to start some kind of suggestion list - what to do and not to do while making these lists - this lesson was, always make sure you have a way of continually monitoring your progress through the maker/breakers...something like that.

I'm adding it to the rule book.

Private Breaker 1

If you missed it, this post has information on what private maker/breakers are. The possible pitfall I see with these is that you could drop them without feeling any pressure because nobody really knows what they are. But I think if we say you can't just post them on your quest log and delete them if you fail - you have to post saying you are creating one and post when you fail so the pressure is still there.

Anyway, I'll give it a try - posting a private breaker now.

Rule Book goes live

I finally pulled the trigger on my rule book post. I'd love to get feedback. It should explain the game in full to anyone who comes here and hopefully answer any of the questions people would have. It should continually evolve as the game does and I'll be creating a link to it on the header of this blog.

Please make any comments on the rule book to help me make things more clear - is there anything you see I can change to make it better? Are there any areas of the game that aren't clear?

http://levelupnewb.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-play-lifecraft.html

thanks

Rule Book, Private Quests, and Kill Quests

So far Lifecraft has been about me, but I've always planned on doing work to make this easier for other people to pick up and try out on their own life. So I'm just putting together a rule book now.

This brings in a whole new set of issues, for example privacy. The major strength of this game is that I've sent this link to a lot of friends and family - that creates a huge motivation for me to keep going with it and succeed because I don't want to come here and write about failure. When it comes to things people want to change about themselves, some things should be kept private - some of the more important things, in fact. That is, if you have something you'd like to change about yourself but wouldn't want people to know about it - it's probably important and shouldn't be left out of your journey.

The important part about journaling my success and failure is the part where I say I made it or not; the details of the quest aren't as important. As long as I'm journaling enough to draw an honest picture of my progress. There's a real simple solution here - just call it a private maker/breaker and report the important part - success or failure.

This issue is important enough for me to think we should always have at least 1 "private" maker/breaker going - even if there isn't necessarily something private to change yet. But if it's a standard to always have at least one private in your quest log, people won't hesitate to use that and nobody will wonder why it's there or try to figure out what this issue could be that you wouldn't want people to know about. So if all of us use at least one it will act as a cover for anyone wanting to use it on something that really is private.

Another thing I want to mention that the game is obviously leaning towards having a growing number of quests as we level up, to at least 4 and then maybe hold steady at that for a bit. 4 should be able to cover your 4 focuses. It would be best to vary these as much as possible covering as many focuses as you can as well as different types of quests - makers/breakers/kill. That is the kind of thing that may change as I level up and examine my progress - I want to use my own natural progress and motivations as a starting point for this game - so we will see how it goes. This game will work best if it uses natural motivations and just gives them a little more support and encouragement.

What are "kill quests"? I changed the name of on-going projects that I put time in (like organizing the house) and 1-time deals to "kill quests" just to call them something that has to do with quests. This is a grey area for me right now - there are many possibilities of the direction this could go. The thing about projects that need to get done is that there will always be things to do, it's getting in the habit of knocking projects out consistently and in the right order that would be the life-changing upgrade.

I've also been toying with the idea of having a 4th type of quest that is similar to kill quests but a little different - some kind of "weekend quick list" - where there is 3 or 4 things I try to knock out over the weekend each week. I've been doing this kind of thing already anyway, so it's natural to put it in the game. Although I have been doing this, what I haven't done is track it and don't get as much of it done as I'd like and it's not prioritized. Bringing it into the game will help a lot with that - planning these things out makes it where you get the more important things done first and gives you clear goals consequently more motivation to complete them.

How to Play Lifecraft

Object of Lifecraft:
To develop new habits, break bad ones and prioritize and complete projects that will improve your life. Lifecraft is about improving your life via gradual and easy change over time.

Everything you need to play:
This blog has everything you'll need to play your own game of Lifecraft - all information is free and open to all. You'll need a way to track your progress - it is very much recommended you start your own blog for this purpose and track and discuss your progress publicly. Making it public and inviting your friends and family to check on your progress creates a bigger commitment from you. If any of the specific things you want to change are private, just write "private" for the description and track it like that - the content is not what's important, only the part where you write "I succeeded" or "I'm going to try again on this one" - that is what's important because that is what will help keep you committed.

Preparation:
The first thing to do is decide your focus. What are the 4 most important things in your life? All your work should have something to do with these areas. Begin to imagine what you want your progress through this game to look like - create a vision. Consider that it should start off gradually and build as you go along - careful not to burn out at the beginning - be ready for slow and steady progress. After you've thought about that, decide on your first quest (quests will be better explained below). The vision you have should be a reasonable amount of change over a long period of time - for example a ~20% improvement of your life over a year's time.

Game Play:
Quests are what make up the game of Lifecraft. They come in 1 of 3 forms - breakers, makers, and kill quests. Breakers are the breaking of a bad habit and makers are the forming of a new habit - I have been using 3 weeks as the time frame for daily habits but any time frame can be used and habits that are less than daily would need a longer time (for example a once a week habit may need 2 months to complete). After the goal is consistently made for the time you decided you reward yourself with XP points and post that it's complete - I've been using 10,000 XP for 3 week maker/breakers - that's a lot of points but if there was something bigger you may even want to use more XP as a reward.

Kill quests are generally a 1 time deal - like organize the storage room - you do it and it's done (at least for now). I've been using 1k per hour for on-going projects and roughly estimating any 1-time projects to be around that rate but don't stress over the details, just try to be consistent so you can plot your XP over time and try to develop a strengthening pattern.

Every 10,000 XP you gain 1 level and reset the XP - so if you are at level 2 with 9,000 XP and complete a 10,000 point quest, you go to level 3 with 9,000XP.

Lifecraft is in a constant state of evolution, especially right now. All these "rules" are actually just suggestions. You can take this game in whatever direction you want. Just have a clear vision of what you think your journey will look like. Be realistic; look forward to and take pride in gradual change. If one week is the smallest bit better than the last you are doing great.

If you are still unsure where to start - read my journey so far - here's the first page of posts start at the bottom and read your way up through time. This is just a good example of how to play, a way to start out - but you should allow your journey to form-fit around your life and motivations. As long as you are keeping steady easy pressure on yourself you will slowly change. Think of it like braces for teeth. You wouldn't want an orthodontist to try to straighten your teeth quickly like within a few weeks. The pain would be unbearable - you want the changes he makes to your teeth to be slow and gradual. The same thing is true of making improvements to your life.

If you start to feel a little lost at any point- not sure what to do - try to be creative and come up with any kind of solution, it doesn't have to be perfect just keep going.

Suggestions:

1. Start off as easy as possible - your quest log should only have things you look forward to changing. As you gain confidence and create more time for yourself by doing the easy ones you can move on to higher difficulties.
2. Makers are easier than Breakers - always use a maker over a breaker if you can. Example - if you want to eat out less, don't make a breaker to eat out less - instead, use a maker to eat in more.
   
3. Always have some way of tracking your progress through any quest. Even if your quest is vague - try to track regularly if by no other way but to make regular posts explaining how good you are doing with it.