Ask HN: How to do that you need to do but not motivated at all?

When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad!

Threads like this are a great way of getting a wide variety of tips and ideas that you might not have thought of, but you need to keep in mind that there is no universal strategy that works for everyone. You should treat threads like this as a way of gathering ideas, not as a way of getting concrete advice.

Different people literally just react differently to different motivators, so there really isn't a shortcut around trying a lot of different things, seeing what works and what doesn't, and trying to figure out how your brain in specific processes this stuff.

----

That being said, idea list:

- focus on habits, not motivation. Do the same thing every day.

- give yourself permission to do an imperfect/bad job. Cooking a simple meal is better than not eating at all. Exercising in just one way for 20 minutes rather than doing a routine is better than not exercising. Repeat the mantras: "anything is better than nothing"; "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly."

- aggressively automate and restructure tasks. What is the most annoying thing about the task in front of you? Is there a way to make that specific part easier?

- focus on time spent on the task, not the task itself (ie, don't "do the dishes", instead "clean for 30 minutes").

- alternatively, focus on the next task and not the time (ie, don't do "I'll clean today", do "I'll take the dishes out of the dishwasher", then "I'll put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher", then do "I'll turn the dishwasher on."

- sleep more and eat better. Sleep/diet makes more dopamine available for your brain to use. This really isn't optional, you will not be motivated if you don't take care of yourself.

- preload rewards (if you're not motivated by rewards) so that you'll have dopamine immediately available. Purchase the game before you clean your room, not after.

- or, alternatively, do the opposite of that if you are motivated by rewards.

- cycle through productivity systems so they'll continue being novel and easier for you to focus on.

- body double, have someone work alongside you on their own tasks (if you have people around you that are available to do that).

- block distracting stimuli (I regularly block HN on my computers for weeks at a time or even months). If you don't have an adblocker installed, install uBlock Origin.

- see if you can rephrase the task in a way that's more motivating.

- give yourself permission to be imperfect (most people don't have consistent momentum in their day-to-day life).

- forgive yourself for not having already started. If you meant to get something done and you didn't do it, don't spend an hour feeling guilty, instead release those emotions and just try again starting now.

- find someone who will verbally/directly praise you when you finish a task. If you clean your room or finish a work project, send a text/photo to a friend/significant-other/family-member who knows your situation who will tell you "good job." Be vulnerable around those people, show them the before picture of your room when it was dirty too. Let people congratulate you on progress, not just results.

- Consider extensive therapy. If you find a good therapist, they can be great, and telehealth has made this a lot easier. I often treat my therapy session as a kind of review session and planning session, almost like a sprint review/planning meeting. Therapy can be expensive and inaccessible, and it is work to find a good therapist, but if it is accessible to you, then I can not stress enough how useful therapy can be just in general, even just as a way to force you to vocalize your emotions and describe them.

- If you think you're abnormally struggling with this, consider looking into an ADHD diagnosis and medication (alongside therapy, it's not an either-or situation). Too long to get into here. Not all procrastination is the result of ADHD, it can have a lot of causes, from depression to anxiety to environment to perspective to pure organization. And most people aren't perfectly productive. But sometimes it is ADHD.

I have this suspicion that often people who thrive at "school" suck at doing things, their whole life they are getting programmed to: a) do things for an quick and clear reward

b) always be in extremely well defined rules (when semester starts you see how people obsess over edge cases and their impact on grade with a professor)

c) always do it for pleasing someone else and get their admiration (teachers, parents, peers, etc)

d) only be motivated by fear

In a way the better you adapt to that system the more 'slave' minded you become and only do what is asked, when rewarded, given clear instructions and a threat of leashes is near. Often Top students in HS end up mediocre at college and life.

Lack of motivation plagues them all life as they have no clear guidelines, external threats, or third person providing validation.