AskMe: Motivation to do things you dislike

motivation solutions? | Ask MetaFilter

Good Ask Metafilter thread on finding ways to motivate yourself to do things you don’t want to do. Good advice so far includes:

  • Incentivise yourself, e.g. ‘If I spend an hour cleaning and tidying, I definitely deserve <insert vice of choice here> when I’m done’.”
  • I set the timer for one hour every weekend and make myself tackle chores before I’m allowed to do anything else. When the beeper goes off, I stop and do something fun for a while. Repeat all day Saturday until everything truely essential is done.”
  • Don’t look at everything all at once! Otherwise you won’t get anything done other than worry about all the stuff you need to do. You have to pick at it, otherwise it overwhelms you.”
  • just pick one thing and do it, I pick the smallest thing if I’m feeling unmotivated. As you start chipping away the motivation will come to tackle the larger things.”

Great tips, and a good time to mention The Procrastination Dash and most especially The (10+2)*5 Hack.

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