Motivation vs Procrastination

To-Do List as a Menu

📝 If you feel overwhelmed by your to-do list, try a new perspective:

• 🍔 Treat your to-do list like a menu. Instead of a list of chores you must complete, see it as a menu of options you get to choose from.


• 🤔 Acknowledge that you won't finish everything. This is a key part of shifting your mindset from overwhelmed to empowered.


• ✅

The Ju/’hoansi, for example, were often content to spontaneously take a day off from foraging simply because they didn’t feel like it. Even if they were hungry, they knew that putting off the food quest for a day would not have any serious ramifications. For farmers, by contrast, taking a day off just because they need a rest is rarely an option.

Reframe non-productive time. One of the reasons the exploration phase of the work is low value is that most of it doesn’t look like work. It’s lots of reading, and sitting and thinking, and doodling, and trying things that lead to dead ends. Non-productive time feels like a waste—but it doesn’t have to! One way to think about this kind of time is

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by

Neurowissenschaftler haben mittlerweile gezeigt, dass bei chronischen Prokrastinierern tatsächlich eine veränderte Hirnaktivität im präfrontalen Kortex – dem Bereich für Selbstkontrolle und Planung – messbar ist. Das macht Prokrastination zu einem neurobiologischen und nicht nur zu einem Willensproblem.

This tempo and cadence is crucial for effective leadership. Even though you may not think that people want it, and even if people themselves think they don't want it, knowing that things need to be done by deadlines that are just on the cusp of the comfort zone forces real, tangible progress. If you think that a prototype might take a month, why

The most effective way to overcome both procrastination and reluctance and resistance to practicing is to just do it. Nothing works as quickly or effectively as diligence. The simple act of consistently sitting down and placing your attention on the meditation object, day after day, is the essential first step from which everything else in the Ten