Two things I really like: tools that help make my life better, and jokes about pop culture terms.

A client recently recommended an app to me that was helping him get through his to-do list and was pretty fun. His actual words are far better than my interpretation could ever be:

“I got a new to-do list app called Epic Win, which is hilariously awesome. It’s like a Dungeons and Dragons game: I get to create quests (to-do’s) and select whether each one is a quest of strength, stamina, intellect, social, or spirit. I then select the level of ‘epicness’, which is basically how many points the quest is worth. When I complete a task, it makes dramatic music and drums and eventually explodes into coins. Then my avatar moves forward on its journey collecting ‘loot’. My avatar is an Ent (tree creature). I am currently at level 2. Please note the shade of red on my cheeks as I write this to you, as I acknowledge it as one of the geekier things ever. It’s awesome though.”

With a review like that, I thought it must be pretty useful. And the pop culture term “epic win” turned back into something related to an actual epic and then flipped into a to-do list context? Loved that. So, I recommended it to another client, and I started using it myself. Highly recommended for the fun of creating your own avatar, and for the dopamine rush of getting rewards. Gamification of productivity? It works for me!