Just do a small fraction of what needs to be done. If I commit 1-2 minutes to the task I’ll likely do more once I actually get going.
I was frozen yesterday at the beginning of my work day. New job, too much complexity, overwhelmed, and I just wanted to avoid at all costs.
Finally I decided I had to un-freeze myself so I found my big to-do list and one item was “call this person and get their email address”.
Rest of the day I was able to keep moving, and I felt so much better.
Cleaning my immediate workspace so it’s tidy and minimal used to help me get out of an unproductive funk, but I became kinda obsessed with keeping it that way, so now there’s nothing left to tidy up…
Why limit yourself to your immediate workspace? I think I have a rather productive opportunity for you…
In all seriousness though I hate when someone else cleans my space.
I find it helpful to categorize all avoidant behaviors in the same bin.
Like over the years I’ve been addicted to weed, video games, reddit, etc.
When I’d stop one addiction, another would begin. Eventually I realized I had an addiction problem. The way to fix that was to go to a men’s group and face some demons and clear up old trauma.
It freed me up so I don’t feel as motivated to avoid awareness. With the basic demand for escape reduced, I stopped cycling one addiction after another.
Think about the work that is to be done and try to break it into smaller tasks. Usually I get excited at the chance of finishing something easy and quick from the list and before i know it I’m already in the flow.
Listening to classical music. It’s the thing that works wonders for me every time 😊
Yeah flight of the bumblebee always helps me feel less anxious and more grounded.
It really depends. Sometimes it’s actually more productive to just rest, or if it’s because of a specific issue then fix that. I don’t struggle with being productive in general, but if you’re not legitimately tired or having symptoms of physical or mental health issues, then the best thing to do is set up an environment where it’s more costly to be unproductive than being productive. Put your phone or other distractions away so you can’t see or reach them.
Model your willpower as a limited resource and stop over-spending it.
If you make a big push, you will have less in the tank for later. It’s nothing to be ashamed of it’s just biological fact.
The way to maintain some productivity when you’re feeling unmotivated is to already have habits in place which get things done without requiring willpower.
One of the hardest things to do is to get over this implicit model of willpower as an infinite resource.
What willpower as a limited resource really, really means is this: stop spending it indiscriminately!
People think it is always the right move to do the difficult thing. But you don’t get to do an infinite number of difficult things each day. You have to ration them out.
You can have “work” sessions where instead of working, you’re just planning.
Separate your planning work from your implementation work. Trying to plan and implement at the same time requires a lot more working memory than separating them.
So sit down and make plans and break your plans into smaller and smaller pieces and then … DO NOT get started right away!
Plan your plans, then rest. Implement in a later, separate work session.
Amphetamines
Modafinil works great for me. Not a legal drug where I live, unfortunately, and near impossible to get past the toll after the covid for some reason.
Aren’t there a bunch of generics you can get?
For me it helps to plan ahead and assign tasks to the upcoming days/weeks. It shows me that not everything needs to be done at once, and clears my mind when I’m overwhelmed with too many things on my todo list.
I seem to feel like that all the time :-). Going for a short walk helps. So does breaking work down into baby steps and just doing bits at a time.
Actually have deadlines. Doable deadlines
I try to get it done as soon as possible so I can go back to doing the things I like
But “it” is the thing I like.
Isn’t this the soul purpose of coffee??
It depends. If you’re lazy because of lack of motivation coffee helps. If you’re lazy because of anxiety coffee can make it worse.
Sometimes for me when I struggle with making progress e.g. programming it helps to just step away from the PC and just think through what the smallest possible thing is that will let me make progress, even a suboptimal solution can help as improving that iteratively later is much easier than trying to make something perfect from the start.
Meth
