I've recently been using Habitica again after a long hiatus (as this article predicts) and I have to agree. For those who don't know about Habitica, it tries to address the reward component of the problem by gameifying the TODOs; completing tasks rewards you with XP for your character and gold to spend on items, whilst failing to complete daily tasks or succumbing to bad habits damages your character. The problem is, the reward is meaningless unless you're invested in the game. If the RPG doesn't interest you or, like me, you lack the time to make sense of what exactly you're spending your virtual gold on and why, it doesn't feel like a reward at all.
That said, what does give me a real sense of reward is the streak tracker for daily tasks. Seeing how many days in a row I've managed to do a task _is_ rewarding to me, but as soon as that streak is broken, I lose a lot of the motivation to maintain it (which I believe is, again, a problem predicted by this article).
That said, what does give me a real sense of reward is the streak tracker for daily tasks. Seeing how many days in a row I've managed to do a task _is_ rewarding to me, but as soon as that streak is broken, I lose a lot of the motivation to maintain it (which I believe is, again, a problem predicted by this article).