You probably already know what an ideal day looks like—you just can’t seem to have one consistently. From personal experience, I can testify that closing this gap is a lot more difficult than it seems. That said, what helped me the most was trying to gamify my goals, and these three FOSS apps became the backbone of that system.

Why I wanted to gamify my life

Because games are more interesting

Credit: Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek

I had a clear picture of what I wanted my days to look like:

• Write two articles
• Spend time experimenting with a new tool or workflow as research for future articles
• Exercise
• Drink enough water
• Meditate
• Use social media intentionally to grow my network
• Wrap up my day by playing video games or watching a show

However, in reality, I was only able to finish my due articles, watch some TV, and sleep. Sometimes I’d let myself research a tool or workflow, but I’d get so absorbed that my article output would slip, and I’d spend the next few days playing catch-up. This gap between my ideal day and my actual day was slowly eating me up from the inside.

Now, I don’t think my ideal day is too ambitious. I personally believe that the goals aren’t the problem—the system is. As a freelancer, I work alone from my room, and without external accountability, it’s easy not to follow through. So I decided to build a gamified system—one that creates the structure and pressure of a regular job, but on my own terms.

The problem I faced—and the strategy to fix it

In my head, an article should take around three, maybe four hours to finish. Two articles a day is eight hours of work—a typical workday—which should leave plenty of time for everything else on the list. However, in practice, I spend around 12–14 hours from the time I start working until I finish both articles. If I can only get that down to eight hours, I’ll have six extra hours to do everything else on my list.

I also knew I was not spending seven hours actively writing an article. Most of that time is lost during research—getting sucked into rabbit holes—or procrastinating when I can’t figure out the right angle. The only way to fix this is by knowing exactly how much time was going into research vs. procrastination vs. actual writing.

And so, I set out to build a system that tracks how long I actually take versus how long I should ideally take—and pushes me to close that gap. Think of it like a racing game, where you’re constantly optimizing your technique to improve your lap times. That’s the kind of system I needed.

ActivityWatch helped me quantify my errors

You can’t improve what you don’t measure

ActivityWatch is a passive, local activity tracker. You install it, and it quietly logs every application you use and every window title—entirely on your machine. It just runs in the background and records.

In my setup, it acts like a summary HUD in a racing game, showing me exactly how much time I’m spending on different parts of the track.

I let it run for a week to collect data on how I actually work. By the end, I found that I was indeed spending around three to four hours outlining, writing, and editing an article—the meat of the article. The real time sink was hitting writer’s block—usually when I couldn’t figure out the right angle—and then drifting into Reddit, YouTube, or even a quick game of chess. Research for article ideas would also blur into the writing process, mixed with low-effort “breaks” that were really just procrastination.

With that data, the solution became clear. I was losing time to constant context switching—jumping between research, writing, and editing—which disrupted my flow and slowed me down. So I tried batching: all the research first, then outlining, then writing and editing, and finally admin tasks. I was still doing the same work, just in a different order.

After a week, the numbers made it clear this was working. The batched workflow reduced my procrastination, and the original math checked out—each article took about 4.5 hours. Under pressure, I could even get it down to four. But knowing I can finish an article in under four hours didn’t necessarily guarantee I was meeting that time. I still needed something to keep me moving when there wasn’t any external pressure.

Super Productivity added a necessary pressure layer

Compare your current self to your ideal self

Super Productivity is one of the most feature-packed FOSS apps I’ve come across. It’s a to-do list and task management system with built-in Pomodoro timers, a Kanban board, an Eisenhower matrix, and more. For this workflow, though, I only needed two of its many features.

The first is estimated versus actual time. When I add a task, I set how long I think it should take. As I work, it tracks how long it actually takes. Over time, you end up with two numbers side by side—your estimate and your reality—and closing that gap becomes its own challenge.

Seeing that an article I estimated at 3.5 hours took five is hard to ignore. It forces me to figure out why. It’s like comparing how you actually drive on a track versus how you need to drive to hit your target time.

The second feature is voice reminders (previously Domina Mode). You write a message, set an interval, and Super Productivity uses text-to-speech to read it out loud while you’re working. I have mine set to every 15 minutes because ActivityWatch showed me that’s roughly when I start drifting. The message just reminds me of what I should be doing at that moment.

It’s similar to when you wander off the main objective in a game and your companion nudges you back—“You were supposed to be heading to the marker.” Except the marker is the section of the article I’m supposed to be writing.

Habitica is the glue tying everything together

Build your game of life

Habitica is one of the oldest FOSS habit trackers built around gamification. It turns your real life into a game where you build a character, and what you do—or don’t do—determines what happens to that character.

It has four core components:

• Habits are behaviors you want to reinforce. You can log them positively or negatively, and they adjust your character’s stats.
• Dailies are tasks you aim to complete every day—finish them and your character stays healthy; miss them and they take damage.
• To-Dos are one-off tasks that reward you with experience points.
• Rewards are items or perks you can unlock using in-game currency.

I added a habit that tracks whether I meet my estimated time in Super Productivity. If I do, my character gains experience, levels up, and earns gold. If not, it takes damage.

I also created dailies for building healthy habits like drinking 3L of water and exercising—even something as simple as a walk. The simple pressure to hit my walking goals helped me come up with a clever idea where I could combine walks with ideation sessions—I can just walk and talk and capture ideas as voice notes on my phone.

For rewards, I set up things like playing video games or watching TV shows. I can only “unlock” them if I have enough in-game currency, which I earn by consistently completing my habits and dailies.

Did these apps solve my procrastination problem?

Being completely honest, I’m not yet living the ideal day I described at the start. But the gap is smaller, and more importantly, my days feel more structured. I know what I’m working on, I have a realistic sense of how long things take, and most nights I end with a clearer picture of what actually happened. That’s enough to keep building on.

If your ideal day and your actual day feel persistently far apart, ActivityWatch is the most honest place to start. Knowing where your time really goes is the only foundation worth building on.