As March comes to an end, I’m wrapping up playing Health Month, an online game that helps you integrate new habits and change behavior. Here’s my review of Health Month and a recap of what I experienced. I have to say, I don’t think I really explored it to the fullest, but there were a couple of things I really liked about it and a couple of things I didn’t connect with in the design.
So, with one week of Health Month under my belt, I think one thing is clear: I picked some pretty lame rules for March! I mean, they’re pretty plain and looking at some of the other options, I definitely could have picked something more interesting. I chose: Bring lunch to work 3x per week Track food at least 6x per week Exercise at least 5x per week
I picked those rules initially because I thought they would be easy to track and measure and because I had already been working on them in February.
Part of playing Health Month is signing a contract to commit to follow your rules….and I was really surprised when I did it! One of the things I’m thinking about while playing is how this is different from simply tracking what you eat, when you work out, and even setting goals in other areas. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal to actually sign this commitment, but it was.
I’m pretty excited to try this one out. Health Month is a behavior change game where you set rules to follow each month and do daily tracking, with rewards and penalties for how well you follow them. I’m just digging into it, but so far it looks like you can choose “do more of this” or “do less of that”. I like the idea of limiting the scope of the goal to a month (what BJ Fogg calls a “
