User blog:Taldin/4-01-2014, 1400, +1 (One Year In)

My original user ID was 'taldin4012014'. I shortened it to 'taldin' because the rest was kinda annoying. Only Ryan can pull off having digits at the end of his name and make it look cool.

The reason I picked that name was I wanted a record of when I started playing on Habits -- April 1, 2014. And I couldn't figure out why I was an onion. But I got better the next day.

The first things I did was put on some initial Habits and Dailies I wanted to be better at doing. Fixing my eating habits; drinking more water, and being honest about getting productive work done. Getting in to work on time. The hardest part was figuring out what to reward myself with, because I'm one of those folks that aren't motivated by material things. But hey, cheesecake made the list. (Which was at odds with 'Eat Healthier', but sometimes you can have your cake and eat fit too.)

I got into a few guilds that were in line with what I wanted to admit to doing to other people. Writing, mainly. Programming. And I mostly spent time in the Tavern being me -- which includes lots of puns.

(For some strange reason I seem to have an odd fascination with inflicting puns on unsuspecting people.)

I asked a bunch of questions on character classes and mana that weren't in the Wiki pages. Since I already knew how to edit Wiki from my day job as a technical writer, it wasn't too hard to edit the pages. And then I meddled and put together a quick reference card for scribes that encapsulated that giant list of rules for style. And then I decided that the FAQ needed reorganizing....

...and then when a quest description didn't pop up for a few days, I took it upon myself to figure out how to add it...

...when I click the Save button, this'll be edit #1400 for me. I never expected to be in the top 20 contributors list, much less at #2 (though a part of it is sheer luck). Mostly I'm a documentation nut that likes giving back to the site that changed my life.

In one year I've: Sure, the equipment isn't real, and neither are the pets. But that doesn't matter. I spent a good year going 'Ooo!'  and 'Aah!'  and 'Okay, that pet looks awesome.'  and looking forward to the next surprise on the News posts.
 * Lost 13 pounds and kept it off for four months.  This is after three years of inconsistent dieting and exercise.
 * Won NaNoWriMo challenges in April and July, plus November.  Normally I only do November, but the company of other NaNo folks got me into it.
 * Made a solid habit of getting in to work on time; at worst I'm a few minutes late due to traffic, as opposed to when I used to roll into work an hour late (the curse of flexible hours).
 * Kept the stove and sinks clean.
 * Kept the junk mail to a minimum.
 * Stopped forgetting Thursday is trash night.
 * Made deadlines more often.
 * Learned Github and enough Javascript to make patches and fix bugs.

When I tell people about being a HabitRPG player, either they get it, or they don't. But that doesn't matter to me;  I'm always excited about being here, and I miss it when life gets busy. But updating Dailies only takes a few minutes, and keeps me honest. I liked it enough to bring my friends and spread the word, and even though sometimes we get killed because someone forgets to sign in, it's all in good fun and said person has become _worlds_ more responsible since joining up.

This last year of experiences has been nothing but positive change for me,    And as far as the Wiki stuff goes? It's a nice change from my day job. I still have things I want to do for the Wiki because I said I would. I still have coding I want to do for the game, because I see things I'd like to change. These are things I know I have to push a little harder to do, but I'm willing to, because it's fun-effort instead of work-effort, and so it's always there just ahead, waiting to be done.

Looking forward to year two. Where I need to make a habit; Make More Time.

I am very thankful to have found this site, and a year later, I have no regrets, only benefits.