How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/02/how-to-make-yourself-work-when-you-just-dont-want-to/

by tmbsundar • 12 years ago

328 108 12 years ago

blogs.hbr.org

a3voices2• 12 years ago

Why would you want to force yourself? Life isn't about how much work you can do. If you feel like working, then work. If you don't, then don't work.

rcfox• 12 years ago

Right, and what if I don't feel like working, but I do feel like eating?

krapp• 12 years ago

You can't eat comfort.

MiddleClassGuy2• 12 years ago

Some people do not have such a luxury. I cannot arbitrarily decide to ignore my daily duties simply because I don't feel like working. I'd be fired. The same goes if you are a business owner in charge of your working hours. You cannot arbitrarily decide that your client portal outage doesn't matter because you don't feel like working. Your client is going to fire you.

a3voices2• 12 years ago

If you get fired, then what? Even if you don't find a new source of income, you're not going to starve. Only a few hundred people starve per year in the U.S. What's the big deal? It's all just psychological issues in your brain. Either way is actually fine.

chaz2• 12 years ago

If you feel like working, then work. If you don't, then don't work

I know this is HN, but please don't over-parse the headline. Telling your boss or customers that you just don't feel like working today is a luxury that almost no one has.

arjie• 12 years ago

Because of the idea of ultimate goals vs. proximate goals. Greedy algorithms are poor ways of finding happiness.

I know that I find work fulfilling. However, I don't like starting work. If I took your advice, my life would be far less pleasant (and not only materially).

bnegreve• 12 years ago

That's how it should be, but I suspect that in most cases, people work simply because they are supposed to.

E.g. (quoting the article)

If it is 2pm, then I will stop what I’m doing and start work on the report Bob asked for.

What's the long term goal here? Being in good terms with Bob? Keeping your job? Are those the goals that you should care about?

ozim• 12 years ago

I don't know but all this looks like Reptilian conspiration telling young people if they don't feel like working they should not. You should party hard YOLO and that kind of stuff, then comes reality and depression, creating miserable adults who are lonely and have unrealistic expectations of life.

jafaku• 12 years ago

It looks exactly the opposite for me. People realizing work is slavery, and that they were only given a little freedom to prevent revolts, and the Reptilians are giving us techniques to continue working no matter what. They tell us if we can't go on it's because we are depressed or whatever, and we need to take some pills to make that feeling go away.

einhverfr2• 12 years ago

I think the larger issue is that usually when you are forcing yourself for a long time, your quality and quantity of work suffer. So I agree with you on the whole.

However the question usually isn't whether to do a task you don't want to but how to start a task you don't want to start out of fear or feeling like you don't have a grasp of it, or just aren't in the mood for it. If you can start a task, then you shouldn't have to force yourself to complete it. If you do, that's bad.

But there are things we have to do that we may not want to at any given moment. The question is how to structure one's work so they get done.

pekk2• 12 years ago

If you don't feel like working, the bills don't take a vacation and the kids still eat and get sick.

chaz2• 12 years ago

I have found the Pomodoro Technique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) to be helpful. I can't do it for a whole day, but a short sprint to grind through something is a near, achievable goal. For extended, head-banging frustrations, it's helpful to step away, think about it without the distraction of the screen, and coming back at it with fresh eyes. The time AFK is not to be underestimated: http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

Uehreka• 12 years ago

Pomodoro saved my butt during my senior year of college. I put off a book report until the last minute and found myself needing to read 5 chapters about medieval Italian republics in 3 hours. I allocated 1 Pomodoro to each chapter, and said that if I hadn't finished the chapter before the end, I would skip to the next one. This forced me to speed read and skip confusing parts (instead of re-reading them 10 times). The report wasn't one of my best, but I wouldn't have finished it at all without the structure I got from Pomodoro.

I used the focus booster app for OS X, I highly recommend it: http://www.focusboosterapp.com/

rtpg• 12 years ago

I second this. Usually I get distracted anyways, so I program 8 hours and get it done in 12 or so. It's harder to use when you have a lot of outside constraints in scheduling (you can't really walk out of class for 5 minutes every 30 minutes), but I use it on weekends and when I have a free-ish schedule.

joelrunyon• 12 years ago

Posted this a few weeks ago, but workstation popcorn [1] is sort of like pomodoro this on a macro scale throughout the day & has helped me a ton with being more productive & simply getting stuff done.

[1] http://impossiblehq.com/workstation-popcorn

enscr2• 12 years ago

I found this post too specific i.e. it may or may not help - depends on your type of work.

desigooner• 12 years ago

Shameless plug for a site I created once: http://tomato-timer.com

ninjakeyboard2• 12 years ago

I use this sometimes - thank you!

NoahTheDuke• 12 years ago

I use that nearly every day. Thanks so much!

ninjakeyboard2• 12 years ago

I was just going to comment that I'm using pomodoro as well. Glad I'm not alone. I wrote about the combination of strategies I'm trying to use to kick start a side project and pomodoro is one of them: http://refactoringfactory.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/the-side-...

tzs• 12 years ago

It's interesting to note that the Pomodoro breaks, at least if you use the 25 minute interval most commonly recommended, fit in well with this recommendation from the Cornell Human Factors and Ergonomics Research Group [1]:

   Sit to do computer work. Sit using a height-adjustable,
   downward titling keyboard tray for the best work posture,
   then every 20 minutes stand for 2 minutes AND MOVE. The absolute
   time isn’t critical but about every 20-30 minutes take a posture
   break and move for a couple of minutes.  Simply standing is
   insufficient. Movement is important to get blood circulation
   through the muscles. And movement is FREE! Research shows that
   you don’t need to do vigorous exercise (e.g. jumping jacks)
   to get the benefits, just walking around is sufficient.

[1] http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html

raldi• 12 years ago

The conclusions on that page seem to be completely at odds with the study it claims to use as its source; please be careful about propagating quotes from it.

Details: http://redd.it/kfjet

scotty79• 12 years ago

Pommodoro Technique is so effective that instead of avoiding starting work I began to avoid starting pomodoro timer.

angkec2• 12 years ago

As funny as it sounds, this is sadly my experience sometimes.

toddmorey• 12 years ago

The magic of this technique is that mechanically and reliably takes impossible tasks and makes them actionable. All that's required, you tell yourself, is 20 freaking minutes. I can do that. Anyone can do that.

What I usually find is that after the first session, I'm engaged enough to keep going. My emotions have caught up, my determination sets in, and now the desire and confidence to complete the task are strong enough that I rarely need to do more pomodoro sessions.

Fasebook2• 12 years ago

What exactly are you building that building it isn't already its own reward? Oh, really? I see...

acoyfellow• 12 years ago

I'm not sure if I'm misreading this, but your tone sounds quite snarky. That kind of attitude is not exactly the normal tone for comments at HN.

So, I appreciate this article, but the content does seem somewhat redundant to HN. Every now and again a new life-hack article will appear, and then talk about Pomodoro, then people posting links to their time saving apps. It's a tested technique, so why not? Maybe it really will help someone today get their project shipped. It's not the worst thing that can happen around here :)

I like that the HN community supports constantly trying to be more productive. "Building it" can be hard for people, depending on their background and what "it" is-- and I don't think having a sarcastic oppositional stance is going to encourage or help anyone.

Fasebook2• 12 years ago

Productive doing what exactly? Nevermind that, money!

plcancel• 12 years ago

Personally, ~80% of the time it's this one: "You are putting something off because you are afraid you will screw it up."

visakanv2• 12 years ago

Yes. A baby step in the right direction here is to chunk big things into little things- it's harder to screw up little things.

chegra2• 12 years ago

I said this in another comment, but what works for me is publicly pledging to work for x number of hours on y project or else I give z dollars to some charity.

Where x is normally between 2-10

y is anything

z is normally 10

If you are procrastinating right now, give it a go. Go on twitter or facebook and say if I don't work for 2 hours on Akasha(a project), I will donate $10 to watsi(the charity).

I think when setting goals we hope for some reward in the future, but the brain doesn't value rewards as much as it hate losses(loss aversion). YMMV

padolsey• 12 years ago

I'm not sold on the idea of aligning one's failures with charitable contributions. You'd inevitably learn to feel good at the prospect of not having to yield cash to a good cause. Also, dangling a piece of charity (say, to a watsi patient) and then ripping it away once you 'succeed' seems a bit... unethical.

ChristianMarks• 12 years ago

Yes, better to allocate the funds to a cause you actively oppose if you fail.

trendoid• 12 years ago

You'd inevitably learn to feel good at the prospect of not having to yield cash to a good cause.

Are you really saying this is like Pavlov's dog experiment? Since, the money goes for good cause, I think it might not act as a good motivation in the first place to finish the task. But yeah, publicly announcing this stuff can lead to many people comprehending this as unethical.

TeMPOraL3• 12 years ago

Tried that with Beeminder. It didn't work and I only lost money in the process. I know this works for some people, unfortunately not for me :(.

chegra2• 12 years ago

Hmm, was the goal set in a way that you can accomplish it? Like if you say I want to lose 100lbs in a day that wouldn't work. Even 1lb in a week wouldn't work because it is not the amount of weight you lose is not upto you but up to your body. The same way with working. You can't specify how much you want to get done just only how much time you plan on spending on it. The amount of work done will vary again with how you are feeling and some variables not under the control of your willpower.

But who knows this may only work for a certain type of people.

einhverfr2• 12 years ago

The one thing I find that works with nearly all these is reasonably simple. It may be a broader solution than the Pomodoro Technique but it borrows some of the same focus.

What I do is take a task I am avoiding and come up with a small piece of it I can reasonably do as a goal. It might be a task I can do in 15 minutes. It might be something I might need two hours to do.

I then follow that to completion, and then decide whether to bump the rest of the task of and get started on something else or whether to continue.

Usually for the tasks I feel like I don't have a solid grasp on how to do this helps, but I may still bump part of it down the road. For the tasks I am avoiding for administrative reasons or don't feel like, this gets me started.

An important point though is that the bumped task is less intimidating and smaller than it was when I started, meaning it is less likely to happen again.

asdashopping• 12 years ago

I have suffered from depression for years and it is destroying my life. I read articles like this and think that what they're saying sounds like a great idea, and then proceed to completely ignore it.

I have tried multiple types of antidepressants and found the side effects unbearable. They didn't make me feel happy, they made me feel nothing.

I have tried CBT and regular therapy, both of which have failed because I was unable to motivate myself to actually go.

Maybe it is just a matter of changing how I think, but it's hard to change how you think when you don't even feel in control of your own thoughts. No matter how hard I try, I always fall back into the same patterns.

I don't why I'm writing this here. I don't know what else to do.

b1daly• 12 years ago

Not to be obvious, but have you tried medication? Like a lot of things YMMV but it can help a lot, and also make those other approaches more effective. Hang in there...

slowmover2• 12 years ago

He mentions that he's tried multiple antidepressants in the third sentence.

hiphopyo• 12 years ago

You can't fool your feelings. If you're stuck in a ditch, medication or "changing the way you think" (advice from other depressed people) won't help.

You need to surround yourself with people you want to emulate as well as beautiful women 24/7. And don't forget to travel the world. This should activate those dormant parts of your brain and make you real happy.

Some of us, however, need to get rich before this can happen. So if that's the case with you, go make those apps!

dasil003• 12 years ago

I've suffered from depression in the past, mostly during my late teenage years and early adulthood. The first thing I will say is that depression and motivation are different for everyone, so you can take this with a huge grain of salt, but here is what helped me:

* Get sunlight — I grew up in Minnesota where if it's sunny in the winter that usually means its too cold for exposed skin outside. When I moved to Santa Fe (300+ sunny days at 7000' elevation) the first winter I was amazed at how much better I felt.

* Get exercise — Find some physical activity you enjoy (preferably outdoors) and do it. This is maybe harder for some than others, but I can't emphasize how important this is to me. I sit 10-12 hours per day in front of a computer, without outdoor activity on a regular basis I would wither.

* Check your diet — Okay, last but most certainly not least, there is more evidence coming out all the time about much diet and gut health can impact mood and psychology. One of the prominent books in this area is The GAPS Diet (http://www.gapsdiet.com), but I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. In short, if you live in America and you just eat what's easy you're probably eating a lot of processed grains that could be altering your health dramatically.

I hope those don't appear as facile answers, but the truth is those things have made a huge difference in my life. It wasn't an overnight thing, I had to grow up a bit, move away from my family, and establish my own life before I really started to feel happy. Best of luck.

hcarvalhoalves• 12 years ago

I can't stress enough how important sunlight and exercise (any exercise, even walking) is. It's ridiculous how many doctors don't prescribe this before drugs.

agumonkey• 12 years ago

I'm currently doing this, and it's having very tangible effects. One other thing I've noticed is that a little of mandatory yet unrewarding activity [1] profoundly affected my feelings, behavior and motivation. I became speedy, and time passed a lot slower [2] as opposed to when I have no obligations and everything starts to melt away.

[1] I had to work part time as a clerk at a store, it was insufferably dumb, but I left thanking them

[2] in the good kind of way, ability to be focused and do more and yet it has only been 5 minutes.

pekk2• 12 years ago

Get help, even if just to call a hotline or discuss once with a doctor. HN is a terrible place to get help. There are people with real expertise who can help you and want to help you, you just need to take the help.

Chronic depression is a lifelong problem, but it can be managed pretty effectively. The combination of CBT and meds is well proven with clinical trials and this does not require faith in the treatment. Just your compliance.

Unfortunately it's still your job to start getting help and comply with treatment one day at a time. Nobody else can fix this for you. Do you have something better to be doing?

The more you think you aren't in control, the more you should be following the guidance of a doctor. If you're totally lost you might need hospitalization. If that sounds bad, then take more responsibility for your own treatment.

nisa• 12 years ago

I read articles ... and then proceed to ... ignore it.
...unable to motivate myself to actually go
don't even feel in control of your own thoughts
I always fall back into the same patterns.

I'm not a doctor or professional, so take this with a huge grain of salt and get help outside of HN:

Did you consider having adult ADHD? - maybe the inattentive type? Do you have some disciplines where you still able to excel besides having problems with motivation and procrastination everywhere else?

I've lately read an adult ADHD CBT therapy book¹ and I was really surprised how it explained a lot of things in my life.

Depression is a common co-morbidity and while I'm more on the anxiety side your description sounds pretty familiar.

Knowing about these things accepting that I have to attack certain things from a different angle helps me a lot recently, I also don't feel like a stranger in the world anymore - I'm almost 30 years old and I have not much academically to show for in my life.

Maybe it's bullshit and you are better off ignoring it, but from your description I'd considering checking that angle too.

1: http://libgen.org/book/index.php?md5=b8e7b20b602fee2b1bdb1b1...

djokkataja• 12 years ago

+1 to this; I was diagnosed with depression first and a year later with adult ADHD (primarily inattentive). The depression treatments weren't all that helpful, but when I started getting treated for ADHD it was extremely obvious why I had become depressed in the first place.

Try a quiz; it's no diagnosis, but you could bring it up with your doctor if your result shows that you may have some form of ADHD. http://psychcentral.com/addquiz.htm

icu• 12 years ago

Hi, from my own experience getting out of depression and then later helping a friend out of it I firmly believe you can get out of depression if you want to.

Wanting to get out of depression is the hard part because you got to be willing to do what is necessary.

You are closer than you think to getting out of depression when you say, "Maybe it is just a matter of changing how I think." It is that. You are also right about it being hard and how easy it is to fall back into the same patterns.

He's what I've done and what I got my friend to do: break out of your daily routine.

I know this sounds like advice that isn't that different than what the other commentators have posted but it's because they are partly correct. The missing part is to incrementally break out of your daily routine by incorporating small changes as you go along.

So what do I mean?

Well try walking/driving a different way home even if it takes longer. Go to a different supermarket for food. Listen to a different radio station. Even if you hate a certain genre of music try listening to it and listen to it for longer than what you would normally trial it out for. Go to a different café or restaurant. Eat or cook new food you have never considered trying. If you can, try to do stuff you wouldn't ever 'normally do.'

The trick here is to not overwhelm yourself with too many changes too quickly or to try things that are really hard for you. This way you can actually keep to the incremental changes you are making and you don't fall back into your old patterns.

Keep sticking to these changes as you make them. Soon you will find that they will start to stack and you start to feeling new feelings. As you are going along try to stretch your routine to do ever different things. Don't rush, and don't beat yourself up. If all you can do is one thing then do that until you can do the next thing.

All the best and you can make it.

9248• 12 years ago

What you described is quite close to how I manage my own depression. And it's working flawlessly, btw.

But, at least in my case, obsessively pushing myself into doing something I wouldn't ever 'normally do' had the opposite effect. I realized that there was/is probably a reason why I never tried it before, the chance that I will somehow magically start liking it now is too slim, and the only thing I was doing at that time was wasting energy that I could had otherwise spent on doing something I would've enjoyed.

The only thing that's left to add is to never push yourself into doing something you don't enjoy in hopes of finding somehow happiness. (I guess a lot of people fail here, or at least I did)

mseebach• 12 years ago

You situation sounds like mine a few years ago.

I did CBT and ended up going (100% no-show fee can do that) - I'm not sure if it was the method (CBT) that worked, or just having a stranger say "and why is that?" a lot. Basically she did a "Five whys" on my life. It was all so simple, but I couldn't see it.

For me it was low self esteem, but veiled: I consciously knew that I was pretty good at what I did and had my life reasonably in order - I checked all the boxes, so I should be happy. "Just pull yourself together" seemed like reasonable advice, but I just couldn't do it. But subconsciously, I had huge doubts about my self worth. The first step of the solution was to reflect every evening over what I did that day and what went well to reinforce a positive self-image.

I also changed jobs (this was pre-CBT, so not a direct effect, but in retrospect it's all related) from a high uncertainty contracting gig with a promise (ha!) of becoming a start up to a bog standard full time programming gig in a good company. The new job gave me many more chances to get good results and much more time and opportunity to learn stuff and self-improve.

One habit I've taught myself is to pay attention to a certain "jab" in my stomach that I get when something is wrong. I immediately stop what I'm doing and carefully analyse the cause. More often than not, I've seen, heard or read something that plays into a subconscious fear about my self esteem, and by forcing it out into the open and applying reason to it, I can make it go away fairly simply. It's worked wonders for my overall feeling of happiness.

You situation will obviously be different from mine, but your post resonated a lot with me. Feel free to email (see my profile) if you want to continue the conversation in private.

RivieraKid• 12 years ago

Have you tried LSD or DMT? I've heard that it helped people with depression.

thret• 12 years ago

This may not help you, but it might help others understand what you mean: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/adventures-...

I kind of agree with everyone else though, some exercise and sunlight every day. And time. Change is part of life, it happens eventually.

slowmover2• 12 years ago

I have nothing to offer except that I'm right there with you. It's a daily, hourly struggle. Email me if you'd like.

sheff• 12 years ago

Another very simple thing I use when procrastination strikes is Seth Roberts Magic Dots technique. ( http://blog.sethroberts.net/category/procrastination/magic-d... )

He came up with it based on reinforcement studies in pigeons. There are more details on the linked page, but basically whilst working you just put a dot on a piece of paper every 6 minutes in the shape of a square, then join all the dots with a line. Something about doing this essentially meaningless thing improves motivation and throughput for me.

enscr2• 12 years ago

All these sound interesting to read but none are really practical when it comes to implementing. To a large part, when things have to happen, somehow circumstances contrive you to accomplish it. These 'techniques' are rarely ground breaking for the true-to-the-spirit procrastinator.

What works without fail is peer pressure or a stinging comment.

Disclaimer : Personal experience, may not be generalizable.

visakanv2• 12 years ago

I was watching Trainspotting with my wife the other day and it both amused and troubled at how the drug addicts' behavior reminded me of how I typically procrastinate. People vastly underestimate how elaborate, nuanced and complex the procrastinator mind can be.

nickthemagicman• 12 years ago

Made me laugh but it's so true.

nathell• 12 years ago

There are problems with all three techniques.

The problem with adopting a prevention focus is that it doesn't work. Or, rather, it might work when the fear of failure is the only fear at stake, but -- at least for me -- it seldom is. For example, one might have thoughts like "I really need to be doing this, otherwise it might be too late ... hang on, it already might be too late ... I really should check ... but what if it's already too late? I'd feel awful ... no, let's not feel awful, let's check sometime later." Poof, thought gone until next time. When you suffer from GAD or any other psychological disorder involving anxiety, about the only thing you can do is understand your fears and your reactions to them, and take small steps towards reinterpretation. Fighting anxiety with inducing more anxiety is not going to work.

The problem with ignoring your feelings is that it's much easier said than done. Good luck ignoring the urge of turning off the alarm clock when you're not even half-conscious, you feel dizzy, sleepy and have headaches. While in #3 the author advises to "embrace the fact that your willpower is limited," here he seems to forget all about it. In situations like getting up in the morning, techniques involving subconsciousness like [1] are more likely to work.

We are more feeling-driven than we think ourselves to be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those feelings are there for a reason, and ignoring them might just not work. Indeed, the author acknowledges that "on some level you need to be committed to what you are doing" and I think when he says "ignore not feeling like doing something," he actually means "_trick_ your mind into starting feeling like doing that."

The problem with using if-then planning is that for some people, it's all too easy to change the decision, even if it's already been done; the unconscious mind keeps re-examining the decision and re-pondering the issue at hand. So when the time comes, you end up re-considering the decision instead of deliberating what to do. That's not exactly the same thing, but it still eats up willpower.

[1] http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right...

read2• 12 years ago

Some of what you say doesn't contradict the author. You might also have an incomplete understanding of some others.

(1) A prevention and a promotion focus are two types of focus people have a disposition to. You can't adopt a prevention focus if you are promotion inclined. Maybe you, personally, work better with tasks requiring a promotion focus.

(2) The technique you mention does not contradict the author. I agree with you though that often tricking your mind into starting something works wonders.

You can't ignore that having a process is tremendous help.

Murakami describes his writing process as an extremely rigid daily routine: he wakes up at 4 a.m. every day and writes for five to six hours, exercises in the early afternoon, and then reads or listens to music before his 9 p.m. bed time. Murakami adds: “I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”

(3) Have you tried writing down your if-then plans? Because there's a huge difference in outcome between saying you will do something and writing down you will do something. Writing makes you commit. It keeps the unconscious mind away from sabotaging your decision.

If you're wondering why 3% of Harvard graduates make ten times more than the remaining 97% combined it's because they didn't just think of their plans but instead wrote them down.

http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/why-3-of-harvard-...

acoustic• 12 years ago

Regarding your last point, the Harvard goals study doesn't actually exist: http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/fact-or-fiction-t...

nothiggs• 12 years ago

Simply ignoring your feelings to get a job done is just a tactic, and IMHO, not a very good one as it is not sustainable. You should always want to do what you are doing; not necessarily in the sense that this is what you would like to be doing for the rest of your life, but in the sense of recognising that this unpleasant task will get you closer to that something you would like to do the rest of your life.

I think the best method to get something done is to first have a clear vision and passion for the bigger picture. Then, understand how this unpleasant task gets you nearer to the goal of that bigger picture that you want. If it does, you won't need to ignore your feelings. On the contrary; your feelings will push you to do it. If it doesn't, there's a good chance you should be doing something else.

edw519• 12 years ago

What's next?

"How to Make Yourself Have Sex When You Just Don't Want To"

"How to Make Yourself Eat Krispy Kremes When You Just Don't Want To"

"How to Make Yourself Love You Children When You Just Don't Want To"

Here's a dirty little secret: You should have an emotional attachment to your work similar to the emotional attachment you have to having sex, eating Krispy Kremes, loving your children, or whatever else is your thing. Others should have to drag you kicking and screaming away from your work.

If you "just don't want to work" then the wrong question to ask is:

"How can I make myself work when I just don't want to?"

The right question is:

"What the hell am I doing working on something that I just don't want to work on it the first place and what should I really be working on?"

Find the answer to the second question and you will never encounter the first question again.

JoeAltmaier• 12 years ago

Yeah, if work were all strawberries and kisses, sure. But sometimes its doing the paperwork, and it has to be done, and you have to do it.

reboog711• 12 years ago

That last part sounds like nonsense... in any given job or career or life there are both good and bad parts. You can't avoid the bad and still do the good.

As one example; I don't like dealing with the marketing / networking aspect of m,y business; but if I didn't do that I'd go out of business.

_delirium• 12 years ago

Well this isn't that hard to answer for a lot of people:

"What the hell am I doing working on something that I just don't want to work on it the first place and what should I really be working on?"

Because what I don't want to work on pays, and what I do want to work on doesn't make money! If I were independently wealthy, I would have no trouble at all allocating my time to things I find productive and enjoyable to do, and give the results away for free. For example I have a backlog of several projects relating to improving OpenStreetMap data waiting for time to work on them, but I can't think of a way to get paid for doing them. I think the results would be valuable to many people, but it's hard for me personally to capture that value, since improving OSM data is kind of a public good that anyone can use freely (when your work enables a profit-making business based on OSM data, it's not like they pay royalties to all the people who enabled it).

flaviusb• 12 years ago

Sometimes you get sick, and you just don't want to eat (even Krispy Kremes), but you know that you have to eat to get better, so you force yourself to eat. This applies analogously with work: sometimes you are burnt out, sometimes you are bone tired, sometimes you fucked something up earlier and now have to do a messy triage, sometimes the most essential thing you could be doing with your expertise is boring scut work that no one else in your company can do... nevertheless, unless you are in a situation where you can just say "Fuck it, I'm going on holiday! See you losers when all of this is sorted out!", you may have to force yourself to work, both to get through the doldrums and also to keep being able to afford to eat.

super-serial• 12 years ago

That's the reason I've started 10 projects and finished 0 in the last year. I did awesome for the first few weeks starting a project, but then I don't "feel like" finishing.

Since I'm releasing nothing... I decided to take on smaller and smaller projects. Instead of making a mobile app, I'm now making a small plugin to release on CodeCanyon.net. I put all the CSS for the demo and the actual plugin in the same file to begin with, and now I don't "feel like" separating the demo's CSS in a separate file because it's frustrating and boring. I'd rather code new things than mess with this stupid CSS on a project that probably won't sell, that took way longer than it should have.

But this time I said I'm not doing any other project until I've finished this one. And now I've done absolutely nothing for 2 weeks(except my part-time job), and procrastinated by watching TV shows and studying Japanese.

As someone who always changes their opinion on "what should I really be working on" - I think I need something more than "asking the right questions." I'm still not sure what that is, but I'm hoping that one day I will find it.

matwood• 12 years ago

The problem with your line of thought is no matter how much you love something there are going to be parts you hate. There is a reason it is called work. I love creating software, but I certainly did not love it when I spent a day debugging a tx deadlock in our test harness last week. Did I want to fix it instead of working on something else? Not really, but I did it anyway because it is my job.

mistercow3• 12 years ago

I guess this is marginally better than your typical motivation article, but not much.

I really want our culture to shift in a direction where it's economically feasible to research nootropics and find ones that are seriously effective.

As far as I know, the last time someone put a serious effort into researching a pharmacological aid to "drive" was in the 60s when selegiline was discovered, and it worked. Selegiline is now used for Parkinson's. After 40 years they also started using it for depression and dementia.

But our society is so averse to transhumanism that not only has that research not been followed up in the last 50 years, but the one drug that does improve motivation is not legally available to non-depressed people with motivation problems.

pknight2• 12 years ago

Not to discount research and the potential benefits of drugs for individual use cases, but why fight the symptoms (apparent lack in motivation) with drugs instead of the cause. Why not figure out how to organize things in a way that less people struggle with these kinds of things in the first place.

mistercow3• 12 years ago

Sure, we should still be researching that too, but people have been trying that, and not with all that much success. What works and doesn't work tends to vary wildly from person to person, and at best people tend to find answers that let them scrape by, not answers that really fix the problem.

And I think it's quite possible that there isn't an organizational solution. It seems very likely to me that humans have evolved to basically be as lazy as we can get away with.

It makes sense as a survival strategy to put in exactly as much effort as it takes to get your basic needs met. For most of us throughout history, this meant working our asses off to subsist. Pushing ourselves further than that would be a dangerous gamble on our resources.

So in first world countries today, many people have this problem where we can subsist on relatively little effort, compared to, say, a farmer in 8000 BC. So our motivation scales down to that context. Send someone with that little motivation back to 8000 BC and ask them to start farming, and they'd starve - except that their motivation would probably rescale to fit the new context.

And yes, there are those who find motivation easy, who don't have these problems. But I think they are significant outliers.

So my point is that I'm not sure we can really ramp up our motivation without finding ways to stress ourselves the hell out. And I don't mean "this report is due tomorrow" stress, but "winter is in one month, and I don't want to die" stress.

I'd really rather have the pill that turns me into an outlier.

nitrogen• 12 years ago

The brain, more than any other part of the body, exists within a complex web of feedback systems that can't be separated into a simple cause and effect So if the problem is environment->thought->neurochemistry->action->environment (picture this as a cyclic directed graph), it might not matter which element of the loop is altered as long as something is done at some point on the cycle.

jaysonelliot2• 12 years ago

I was hoping to see one for my personal bugbear: paralysis of choice.

The most common situation for me is to be faced with a list of projects and tasks that are more than I can handle, and doing any one of them means ignoring the others, which are all equally urgent.

I know all the GTD and Pomodoro techniques and everything else, but it's in my head where the problem lies. Once I settle in to one specific task, I can focus and get into the zone to finish it. But that first step—committing to which thing I'll do—is the hardest one. Hours can go by while I'm avoiding the question altogether. I can literally feel the anxiety in my chest whenever I try to pick one and start doing it.

arrel• 12 years ago

I get the same problem, and I use my calendar as a weapon against it. If you have three things you need to do, pick one and block a time off on the calendar to focus on it and ignore the other two. After that it's the calendar telling you what to do, not your own self doubting brain.

thatthatis• 12 years ago

In cases like this I use a binary comparison tree:

Task a vs task b: if I don't have an opinion about which I should do, I flip a coin.

Task c vs task d, task e vs task f, task g vs task h.

Then winner ab vs winner cd, winner ef vs winner gh.

Then winner abcd vs winner efgh.

I almost never make it all the way to the end as by round 2 ive considered the urgency and value of every task and the winner is usually obvious.

In the cases where I truly don't have an opinion about any of them, the coin flipping only takes a few seconds and getting started on somehing now is often better than spending the time trying to gather enough evidence to form an opinion.

The trick is in forcing relatively easy binary comparisons vs hard absolute or exhaustive evaluations. Our brains have lots of good hardware to make binary and trinary decisions, but we have to use software once we pass 4 or so competing choices.

It works for me. Ymmv.

pandler• 12 years ago

The coin flip works surprisingly well for me, and for the exact reason you stated. Given the choice between two options that I can't decide between, I flip a coin. The actual result of the flip is irrelevant, because I'll invariably know which result I want before the coin even lands. It forces me to make a decision in spite of myself.

kamaal• 12 years ago

>flip a coin

That's actually the best test. Flip a coin and then for a moment no matter how small when its in the air, you will hoping for a result. Work on that option.

leviathan• 12 years ago

I have the same issue, and I solve it by offloading the burden of choice to someone else. My wife is a project manager at a company, while I'm self employed; so I give her the job of scheduling my tasks. It's very refreshing to just open your tasks software, see what you have to work on next, and just do it. No overhead of wondering which task to start with.

jaysonelliot2• 12 years ago

Your approach is my favorite. I've had an assistant in the past to do just this kind of thing, but now that I'm doing a startup, I can't afford to do it anymore.

It would be great if there were a matchmaking service that teamed people up to do this for each other. I find that it's a lot easier to schedule someone else's tasks than your own—I'd love to trade task-making responsibility with someone else.

habitue• 12 years ago

What about the super common: "I don't want to work because there's a much more immediate source of dopamine release right here on this page of interesting internet links..."

legohead• 12 years ago

What about: I am having so much fun doing other things that I don't care enough about what I should be doing? (or replace 'should' with 'know that would make me happier in the long run and also be better for my family')

leeoniya• 12 years ago

what works for me, at least in getting through difficult software grinds is commit to some deadline and a presentation of progress to a friend or better yet several friends at once.

seeingfurther• 12 years ago

I'll read this later.

callum85• 12 years ago

I think this is terrible advice. I got much better at motivation over the last year by thinking in exactly the opposite way from what this article recommends. I accepted that I had virtually no willpower, and that I wasn't just going to just magically develop some, and that I didn't need it anyway. Instead I needed to get more skilled at 'coaxing' myself into doing things – at steering my feelings into more constructive areas, and then letting my desires drive my actions. I applied my tiny amount of willpower to this 'steering', rather than trying to use it to drag myself kicking and screaming into doing things, which it clearly is not powerful enough to do. It worked, and I'm much happier. You can't "just" do stuff if you don't feel like it, as this article suggests. That's completely unsustainable. Any approach amounting to "just fucking do it" is going to last only as along as that little glimmer of resolve lasts, which is obviously short term. Instead you need to break down the wall between your gut desires and your cerebral strategies, and make those two parts of yourself acknowledge each other and collaborate.

skunkworks• 12 years ago

This is really interesting and I'd like to hear more about your approach. What is your inner monologue like when you're integrating the two opposing forces?

eaurouge• 12 years ago

You can't "just" do stuff if you don't feel like it, as this article suggests.

And yet every morning, millions of people get up and go to work to do a job they really don't feel like doing. People still do back-breaking work just so they can put food on the table. I'm not saying it's a recipe for happiness but people have been doing stuff they don't enjoy for millennia. And even in present day, only some of us can afford to choose when, where and what to work on.

gedrap• 12 years ago

This. Sometimes, I feel really guilty when I 'don't feel like working', although I know that hour worked is hour paid (working from home), and my hourly rate is the same as my dad's daily rate in a sweat shop in Lithuania.

We have such a luxury and we fail to understand that.

mynewwork• 12 years ago

It takes far less motivation or willpower to do manual labor than mental labor. I had multiple manual labor jobs before becoming a developer and I could do my work on the factory line even if I was tired, unhappy, apathetic, distracted or preoccupied. I find it far harder to code under those conditions.

gravedave• 12 years ago

Because you don't need focus and creativity to carry shit around. Anyone can dig a ditch while not feeling like it, but very few can actually do intellectual work in the same state.

angkec2• 12 years ago

Please make some examples when you apply it. I'm eager to hear the applications as the other commenter!

Grokit• 12 years ago

Just because you can't, doesn't mean other people can't. I had actually realized basically everything they were talking about a few months ago, and since then I have improved my decision making significantly. Depending on your feelings to power you through things is very unreliable.

crucialfelix• 12 years ago

The advice was to actively drain your emotional response. Rather than fight your feeling, work to quiet all of your feelings - be like Spock.

You won't reduce them to nothing, but you will get them under control enough that you can then steer them just as you are saying. Otherwise your aversion feelings are overwhelming and it's impossible to steer as you say.

Your steering technique is good. I like it.

chubot• 12 years ago

This is kind of funny as I just started reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahnemann.

In those terms, this article is very much about "type 2" processes, which is conscious and slow monitoring of the more intuitive type 1 processes.

A consequence is that following this advice will result in "ego depletion". By exerting your willpower in one area, you deplete a common store of it, and thus you're more likely to overeat, act lazily, think lazily, etc. in other areas.

I think this probably manifests in people who work too hard getting fat, since they don't want to watch what they eat or exercise (if those things require willpower; for some people may not)

Note that "conscious willpower" is the opposite of a "flow state". And flow is what is necessary to write good software.

Like all things, there has to be a balance. You have to exert your willpower, and all new things involve this pain, but you can also set your life up so it isn't a constant problem.

jaibot• 12 years ago

I'm working on a way to shame yourself into doing it. http://powershame.com

datawander2• 12 years ago

Until I see hard data supporting one way or another, it's all bunk and personal anecdote.

Though I will comment and say I do like the one about "just show up" rather than waiting for being in the mood.

How to Make Yourself Work When You Just Don’t Want To

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