Wouldn’t be cool if real life was more like a video game? I sure think so. That’s why the title of this blog is “Pwning Life” and not “Life and Hip Hop.” I’m certain that many of you feel the same way, which makes EpicWin, a soon to be released app for iPhone, look so sweet.
I’m looking forward to reading the reviews of this app once it’s released and I hope it lives up to the hype but… What about those of us (me included) that don’t have iPhones? How can we turn life into an “Epic Win”?
Keeping It Old School
The digital age can make things a lot more complicated than they need to be. I’ve often thought about tracking my goals with a good ol’ pen and paper, but never got around to it. While researching goal-tracking tools I came across an article about Benjamin Franklin. It seems that he was one of the original hackers of life.
What he devised was a system comprised of 13 virtues. He would focus on 1 virtue per week, but he would reflect on all of them each day and put a mark for each infraction. Here’s what one week’s chart would look like:
An example of Franklin's weekly chart
Once he completed a cycle he would go through it again, so he’d do 4 cycles per year. That seems like an AWESOME way to develop good habits. Focus on one area of your life per week, reflect each day and watch the progress unfold. I think I might tweak his virtues a bit to better suite me, but I love the system. I also found a place with templates so you can build your own and print them out.
As I type, I’m thinking that this has the potential of being a better system than having a daily to-do list comprised of things like run, read, meditate, practice an instrument, eat breakfast, brush teeth, etc. Perhaps instead you had 13 “virtues” that embodied all of these things and you focused on one each week (while trying your best to do all 13). Maybe instead of 13 virtues I’d make a list like this:
- Fitness ninja -- I stretch, train and rest my body daily to combat the forces of evil
- Top chef -- I prepare healthy food for my body (even if it’s microwaveable
) and eat enough each day - Spiritual Guru -- I meditate regularly and am a student of Eastern philosophy
- Relationship Expert -- I’m an awesome son, brother, cousin and friend. I treat my lady like a princess
- Change the World -- I volunteer time and resources to make my community and world a better place
- Productivity Ninja -- I don’t waste time doing meaningless tasks. I get things done
- Financial Wizard -- I spend wisely, track my spending and save for the future
- Cleanliness -- Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation
- Order -- Everything has a place to go and I put things where they’re suppose to be
- Leisure -- Work hard. Play harder.
- Always Learning -- I constantly learn and study new things
- Captain of the Industry -- I strive to grow myself, businesses and blogs to “epic” levels
- WWLD -- What would Laozi do? Be “Daoist“
That list is a quick example, but how fun would it be to continually do a 13 week training program tailor made for epic winning awesomeness?
Mixing The Old School And The New School
I don’t like to admit it, but brushing my teeth wasn’t a habit until just recently (getting a tooth pulled helped motivate me 
). A website that helped me track the progress was Joe’s Goals. I actually got a kick out of watching my daily score go up and down and watching my combo get longer and longer (I didn’t want to break my streak, so I HAD to do it!)
The problem is once you miss a couple days updating your goals it gets hard to get back into the rhythm. It was easy for brushing my teeth (I was doing it everyday), but harder for other things that I did more sporadically. My solution to this problem is going to be tracking goals with a pen and paper and updating the Joe’s Goals website once or twice a week. The reason why I want to track everything is so I can see the progress I’m making in different areas of my life.
So Joe’s goals could get filled with positive and negative points for the 13 “virtues” with the addition of one new habit you’re trying to form. Basically:
Ben Franklin Type Daily Reflections + Joe’s Goals + 1 New habit at a time = Epic Win?
What do you think?
Simply put, I love the equation. This is what I’ve been thinking about, commenting on the Override the Default blog: a focus, a set frame for, or immersion of though/practice/anything for an entire week. I had read Ben Franklin’s idea before, but I never thought about putting it into practice. This seems like the best way.
You might even change the weekly habit/practices over the course of the year depending on where you’re going in life, or it can be the same as Ben Franklin where you are training values that effect every area of your life. What I was mainly think of was basically deleting all other options for a week and setting yourself in an immersion environment that would fit you to the mold you set, although your idea is awesome as well. I wonder if there was some way to make an effective mix.
It depends on how much it will cost, but since I have an iTouch I will be buying and trying out the Epic Win app. I’ll review it, try it, and use it to its full extent (maybe even put it to the test in a 7-day or 30-day trial), but I will most definitely be using your model, with my model combined.
Tyler recently posted.. The Dream Manifesto- Do Reworked
Awesome! I was hoping someone in the tribe could do a review of that app since it’s very relevant to our interests. Perhaps you could do a “guest post” of sorts after playing with it for a while.
Sure! I’ll be logging and testing it on my own blog as well.
Tyler recently posted.. The Dream Manifesto- Do Reworked
This is one of the best posts yet! There’s alotta info that I’m gonna put to use. I never thought of an infraction system that focuses more on virtues than direct tasks, but if it’s effective, that’s what matters. I’m gonna try this out for sure!
Simplecomplex recently posted.. Pwning Life via an iPhone
Yeah, I really like that Ben Franklin system. I’m still messing with how I’m going to set it up, but I like the idea of having virtues/values that you focus on instead of actual tasks.
miltownkid recently posted.. My Money Or My Life July Evaluation
Yeah, I think it’s set it up like intentions. If you were to set the intention of the day in the morning, like,”I intend to have one of the best days of my life”, it very often happens. The same way, I think, by setting the frame for a week by setting an intention/expectation of yourself to act in these virtues.
Tyler recently posted.. The Dream Manifesto- Do Reworked
How did I not see this post until now…? That’s some hardcore stuff! I’ve finally fixed my sleep schedule, and I’ve found it so much easier to get around to doing everything I want to. I’ll probably keep trucking forward on what I’m doing for a bit, but this 13 values thing sounds too good to pass up.
Oh yeah, I had a great idea for the Chinese lessons that I think would make them easier for you to get around to each week. Basically, now that we’ve got some of the basics of pronunciation down, I think moving towards small, specific “weekly” learning goals would be awesome. They could be pretty short and I think would bring more focus to it!