I just plan some self-reward for completing a task, and this gives me motivation.
I used to give myself a preward but I noticed with time that those are highly ineffective.
Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
61–70 of 143 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#62This is a true for me, probably not true for you, partly tongue in cheek reply: nurture intense anxiety around not doing things. I hate having "jobs waiting" and not feeling like I'm doing something. Even if I'm relaxing I'll generally be doing a sudoku, puzzle, listening to an interview, or getting lost in Wikipedia extending my knowledge of pointless trivia for University Challenge.
There are pros and cons (washing the pots up before eating dinner is never popular, but oh so necessary..) but I feel better than when I used to be tomorrow-man. It helps if you live with people who tolerate this approach. Am I always doing the right things? Ha, no - that's a separate challenge orthogonal to having the motivation to act at all.
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#63Exercise. Nothing helps me clear my mind and renew my focus like going for a long run. Different exercise modalities will work better for different people. But honestly, except for the few times when I have suffered a training-related injury, I have never regretted taking some time out of my day to go work out.
YMMV (literally!)
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#64You need to build habits to replace motivation.
Its important to recognise that its going to take time to change your day and its not reasonable to expect yourself to change how you spend half of your waking day (8hours) quickly. I don't know of any reliable science on the realistic adoption rate of new habits but it could be as low as 1% a month. Given that you need to make incremental changes that move you towards how you want your day to be gradually and adopt a habit or extension of a habit for at least 4 weeks to bed in.
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#65[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#66Habit. Stop looking for motivation to drive you. Sometimes it will and sometimes it won't. There's a pretty common saying that motivation is a result of doing stuff. You just do it whether you want to or not. I know that's simplistic but that's really all there is to it. Easy to understand but harder to implement. It helps me not to think too far into the future and break stuff down into daily goals so I don't get ov…
Agree with everything, the only thing I’d swap the word “habit” for “discipline”.
I have issues building habits where people say do it for 21 days and then you’ll start loving and “will do it for the rest of your life”.
No you won’t.
Sometimes you won’t feel like doing it, even if it’s your habit.
What keeps you going is discipline.
Regardless of the external circumstances, whether it’s cold, raining, you didn’t sleep enough or you feel sad, you still do it.
That’s the basis behind the 75 Hard too. I say it’s not a fitness program, it’s a mental toughness program, you do what you agreed to do.
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#67In general: discipline ("I am going to do this") trumps motivation ("I want to do this"), because the latter is fleeting.
Either you can make yourself do what's necessary or you can't. What you can reasonably focus on is:
- making sure that you are motivated more often and don't need to rely just on discipline all the time
- looking for ways that you are more disciplined and can rely upon it when necessary
- if you find that you lack motivation altogether or have no discipline, look into whatever the cause for that might be
Something like coffee, exercise (if not a habit) or a divide and conquer approach, or the pomodoro technique can all be temporary bandaids, but if there are underlying problems you might eventually still feel too bad to get things done.
For example, I have enough motivation to do the things at work that are actually nice to deal with: writing my own code that's testable, well commented and reasonably simple, using new technologies and improving development processes in general.
I have enough discipline to force myself to deal with the other aspects: particular mindsets held by certain individuals that can sometimes be an impediment to getting things done, dealing with code that isn't commented or user friendly, legacy codebases and so on.
I acknowledge that some things will get done later: a growing list of ideas for personal projects, that I can't fit in my current life circumstances.
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#68Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#691) Find people to do it with; become socially accountable. 2) Break your tasks into sub-tasks, and consider the breaking-apart a task in itself. 3) Timebox solving an appropriate amount of sub-tasks at the right time. I'm supposed to "redo my budget" -- but that's not actionable. What's actionable and simple is prepare a spreadsheet in the right folder, download bank statements for the appropriate months and save the…
Your supervillain equivalent is a housemate who does things as big jobs, and think you never do anything.
Of course, from their perspective, you're the supervillain.
Re: Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?
#70I start every day with the creation of a shortlist of MUST-DO tasks. Things I must absolutely finish not just to stay out of trouble, also to not consider myself a failure. I willingly instill a sense of urgency and remove optionality for these tasks, even if I have to dramatize it. These tasks typically add up to about 4 hours of work. For me this is a sweet spot, a kind of minimum where even if all else fails, I can look back on a reasonable day and feel OK about myself. It's a contract with yourself. Nobody cares if you're motivated to honor a contract, a contract demands you honor it regardless.
By doing this as a habit, you train yourself to keep some momentum even when not motivated. Kind of an auto pilot thing. If you'd even struggle with this block of work, look for ways to make it more fun. Play some music, take short walks outside, play with your pet. Yet avoid things that suck you in, like Youtube.
As for the rest of the day and tasks, I ride my energy flow instead of fighting it. When I feel slow and weak, I read email and update notes. When I feel better, I do more challenging tasks.