Like myself and others with motivation and productivity issues, I'm sure you encounter "breakthroughs" where you seemingly discover something that seems like a no-brainer but you haven't been employing it in your life thus far. That's where I'm at with doing what makes me happy.
Yesterday was a particularly bad day. I slept late, so I woke up late and had to miss a day at my internship. I woke up at 1:30 pm and spent about 2 hours lying on my bed scrolling on my phone. I spent the rest of the day doing easy household chores and lounging around. Does this sound familiar to you? Does it sound fun? It sounds fun if you're a busy, productive person who needs a break. But it isn't fun at all if this has become routine for you.
I forced myself to go to bed early last night, and due to the large amount of sleep compressed within 24 hours, I managed to wake up very early today. I spent my morning doing important things I'd been putting off for a few days, but at a leisurely pace. I realized how good it felt to do these things. None of these were groundbreaking tasks. I still have to go to work. I still have to clear my email inbox. I still have to work out. I still have to apply for jobs. I still have to figure out convocation for when I graduate in a couple weeks. I still have to figure out my notes for an upcoming presentation. I still have so much to do.
But unlike yesterday, these tasks don't feel daunting. These tasks no longer overwhelm me because I've gotten a few small but important things out of the way... and I had fun doing these tasks.
Pushing oneself to the utmost limit, clearing an entire to-do list, supercharging productivity... these tasks are barely conceivable for ordinarily functional people. You and I, considering our motivation issues, should not have the same goal. We should endeavour to tackle as many tasks as we can, and the more enjoyable the tasks, the more of them we can knock off the list.
You can't force yourself to be productive and motivated if it isn't fun to do productive or motivational things. For example, I may not get around to working out today because I can't figure out how to make it fun. I'll work on it, this I promise to you as I type it out. But until then, I can't guarantee that I will follow through with working out today. However, the tasks that I can make fun, I will definitely follow through on.
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Going to my internship: I'll be learning something from an expert in the field today, so I have that to look forward to. I also got a kitten recently, so sharing pics of him with my work friend will be fun. This is my last week at my internship so I'll be making my rounds saying goodbye to everyone and making sure I leave a lasting impression, and I look forward to that.
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Cleaning out my email inbox: I'm a neat freak, so this is an important task to me. I won't have free time to do this today so I'll have to do it work. So that's another enjoyable task I'll have to do at work, which makes me look forward to being at work even more.
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Working on my presentation notes: I love to present, and I love that I was solicited to present. While making notes is not particularly fun, I absolutely love to organize. It's a weird tick, but being clean and tidy gets me going. So today, I'll be spending my free work hour gathering the materials I need for my presentation and organizing it into a structured format.
It's no wonder we can't move ourselves to do the things we have to do, because often the things we have to do aren't the things we want to do. But if we can find a way to make some of these tasks - if not all of them - slightly or significantly more enjoyable, perhaps we'd be a little more enthusiastic and motivated to tackle them.
Thoughts?
P.S. I know that the core problem with motivation is not that you don't WANT to do the tasks. More likely is, you want to do the tasks but you can't find it within yourself to move and get going. This is simply a suggestion to make the getting-going part slightly easier.
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from Things that motivate you http://bit.ly/2VYGF45
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