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How do you motivate yourself?

How do you motivate yourself even to get to the stage of motivating yourself TO motivate yourself?

I procrastinate a lot at work and end up doing a day's worth in the last couple of hours..

Any advice?

Scottw's picture

Procrastination is a trait of...

Procrastination is a trait of ADD. Just because you procrastinate, doesn't mean you have ADD, but if you have ADD, you will probably procrastinate.

In fact, sometimes we become addicted to procrastination. In a weird way, we enjoy the "after burner effect" of getting things done at the last minute. I know I do, although I don't wish I was that way.

When I first started the GTD method, I got organized and I got things done and I felt great, and it opened up the ability for me to do MORE and so I took on a TON of new stuff, didn't deal with the GTD method very good in relation to it and then crushed myself with it all and had to push some stuff off and then go rest in the corner for awhile, to gather myself back together.

I have found, breaking things down into REALLY SMALL pieces, like crumbs, to be very helpful on tasks I hate or have lost interest in. Even then, it is hard to make those crumb(y) lists, but I find that if I can start breaking it down, then I can start to move the gears a little easier.

I also find that I know I should be working on A, and A alone, but can't motivate my self to do it, so instead of working on B, C, D, E, F, G and H... I just become motionless, stuck. This is a mind thing obviously. It feels great getting things done on the other things, but I feel bad knowing A really needs to be done now.

Breaking A into the small pieces and doing 1 thing on it, then something on the others, then go back to 1 thing, makes it easier and slowly it gets done.

 
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