Sunday, January 10, 2010

Procrastination Motivation

I often get discouraged, and worry that I will never really feel extremely motivated. I forget that this is a lifelong struggle for a lot of us. I am throwing an open question out to you: What do you do to motivate yourself to get going or to work on something you don't really want to do?

Like the greatest procrastinators of all time, I usually distract myself with something I'd RATHER do instead of what I SHOULD be doing. That is classic procrastination, no?

I figured out a positive way to procrastinate... but it can backfire. I've learned to give myself another choice of something else I'm procrastinating and decide to do the "lesser of two evils". It works pretty well.

An example is cleaning my office. If I'd rather not clean my office, I give myself another choice of cleaning my bathroom. I'd rather clean my office than clean my bathroom - so I end up cleaning my office to procrastinate cleaning my bathroom. Then, when I think of exercising - I will clean my bathroom before going for a walk. It can be bad if there is something I REALLY don't want to do, because I think of a million other things I can do instead. This is where things fall through the cracks.

What do you do to motivate yourself? Do you have a similar form of distraction? This form is not always positive, but it works for me. Now that I've distracted myself from cleaning my office and then working, I think I'll get up and go clean the bathroom so I can exercise. ;)

2 comments:

Sheriff said...

Hmm . . . Procrastination? I'd have to say that I make myself tasks. I focus on the most important things first, and then as those get done the less important things get done as well. The thing that motivates me most is that I find I usually have more time after I do what needs doing for what I want to do. Not sure how that works, but it does. Plus I always feel great after doing what needs done.

Derek said...

I seem to put things off until I can't anymore. For example... I put off cleaning my room until I literally can't walk in there anymore. I put off my homework until if I don't do it that day, I'll fail my class. I should really just take notes from the way I work. At eBay, I have a routine of getting my stuff done.