What Is the Finchcare App?
Finchcare is for people like me, and maybe you, too, who need a little something extra to manage to take care of themselves. Like, why is it so hard to remember to brush my teeth? Why is showering such a chore? Why can’t I focus on the right thing at the right time?
If you don’t need that and just do all those things naturally without a fight, well, I’m super happy for you. But there’s lots of us who do need it.
(You may remember that I mentioned Finchcare in a recent blog post but really, you need more details, right?)
That’s what Finchcare is for. You take care of a little birb friend and they help you take care of yourself. It sounds silly. It’s simple. But it works. Help your birb grow up, learn about compassion, and explore the world to become more happy and confident.
Here’s the kicker – you take care of yourself and the birb grows with you! For each little thing you do, you get rainbow stones and you can use those to buy things in the store for your birb. You can buy cute clothes, shoes, and accessories or furniture to decorate their room.
My birb is named Garcia (after Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds) and I love picking out new outfits for her and choosing room themes. I’ve been playing for several years now and I’m on a 650+ day streak! Currently, Garcia is rocking some gaming gear and a gaming room from September’s gaming themed sets.
Why It Clicks for Gamers
Gamers are a different breed of human. I feel like a lot of us are on the neurospicy scale. So, “just create a habit” doesn’t work for us. When your brain is only motivated by quest logs, you need more. Self-care is boring. What’s the reward. Oh ya, being healthy. Woop-dee-do. I want a new outfit to slay in or maybe a sword..
Finchcare is for everyone but I think it is a great app for gamers because it turns your life into a cozy game!
It speaks quest language.
Every task you choose to work on (choose from suggestions in the app or create your own) is a small quest and every quest has a reward. Drink a glass of water, earn rainbow stones. This works for us gamers. We love the quest. Main quests, side quests – they are all fun. But now? The loot you get from your quest is feeling better, being healthier, and building good habits. And getting that cute clock for your birb’s Halloween themed room.
The quests are tiny on purpose.
If you struggle with depression, anxiety, ADHD, or being social you know that it is hard to stay focused because you can’t get the big picture out of your head. Everything feels huge. “Get your life together” is not an actionable quest step. But “step outside for two minutes”? That’s a tutorial-level task, and Finchcare gets that. You get to choose the tasks you work on – there’s no timeline in Finchcare. The suggested tasks are small but if even they seem big, you can choose your own.
It hijacks your decoration instincts.
Not all gamer are cozy gamers but most of us can appreciate getting lost in setting something up just right. Personally, I’ve spent way too much time choosing and arranging the exact right furniture for my kitchen in Animal Crossing while I’m still living out of laundry baskets. You know what I mean. In Finchcare, you can scratch the same itch by doing things to take are of your mental and physical health so you can get those rainbow stones. Now, putting away your laundry is part of the game! Going for a walk for five minutes is the side quest that will help your birb get cute wings to complete their fairy outfit!
It has no fail state.
For those of us who struggle, this is a big one. There is no ranking. No punishment if you skip a day. There is a streak function but you don’t have to use it. It doesn’t give you anything other than satisfaction if that is the kind of thing that works for you. Your birb won’t die if you don’t check for a day or even a week. And there are no timers. If you need a week to finish a task, take a week.
Caring for the birb is a backdoor to caring for yourself.
Your birb gets a name you choose. They develop a personality. Every birb becomes unique. Through adventures, they learn about the world and they learn lessons. And when you do things for yourself, you are helping your birb become who they are. This is why it works.
It’s easier to drink that glass of water first thing in the day for your birb than it is for yourself.
Suddenly, you’ve remember to take your meds every day for a month and you’ve finished that task you’ve been putting off all year. You’re feeling better and your room is clean. All because you wanted to help your birb go on their next adventure and learn that new thing.
My Birb Garcia
I’ll be real with you – I suck at taking care of myself. My kids? When they were growing up they had teeth brushed, hair braided, and clean clothes on. Me? I ran around wearing the same clothes for days and forgot about brushing my teeth. Now, my kids are grown and I had to find a way to take care of myself.
I downloaded the Finchcare app because I was desperate. And it worked. I became motivated when I saw all the cute furniture I could use to decorate her room. So, I added more self-care tasks. And I did them.
Garcia is growing up confident. I’m working on doing the same.
How to Start
- Download it and meet your birb. The onboarding takes five minutes. Name your birb something that makes you smile.
- Pick three tiny tasks. Not ten. Three. Make them embarrassingly small — drink water, open a window, stretch for sixty seconds. You can always add more later.
- Check in once a day. Treat it like collecting a daily login reward, because that’s essentially what it is. Or check in several times a day. Whatever works for you.
- Spend your rainbow stones guilt-free. Decorating your birb’s space isn’t frivolous — it’s the reward loop working as intended.
- Be honest with the reflections. Nobody sees them but you. The birb doesn’t judge.
Ultimately, You Gotta Show Up
We know from gaming that you don’t progress if you don’t show up and play the game, do the things, and communicate with others in your party. Finchcare teaches us that life is like that, too. Show up for yourself. Talk to yourself about what is going on.
If you feel like you suck at the game of life, try the Finchcare app. You might discover that you’re not so bad it it – you just need a little birb to show you that you absolutely can do the little things.
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