Motivation vs Procrastination

This task is near the top of my list; it bothers me, and motivates me to do other useful but superficially less important things.

Try writing about why the work is important, or spend some time reflecting on times in the past where you’ve felt most connected to it.

This gives us a roadmap to doing more creative work. What we need to do is, in the exploration phase, raise the perceived value of doing the work, raise the perceived costs of not doing the work, and lower the perceived value of doing other things.

Instead of allowing myself a slow morning after a restless night, I go for a run.

Instead of relaxing on the couch, I'm teaching myself how to code.

Instead of avoiding a difficult conversation, I embrace it.

These things share one important truth: I know that I will feel better once they've happened. These actions are scalable because they optimize

The limitations we’re trying to avoid when we engage in this self-defeating sort of procrastination frequently don’t have anything to do with how much we’ll be able to get done in the time available; usually, it’s a matter of worrying that we won’t have the talent to produce work of sufficient quality, or that others won’t respond to it as we’d

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.

Manchmal frage ich mich, ob ich ohne diese Prokrastinationsspiralen produktiver wäre. Erfolgreicher. Ausgeglichener. Oder ob gerade dieses Hadern, dieses ewige Ringen mit mir selbst, nicht auch eine Form von Qualitätskontrolle ist. Ob nicht gerade die Deadline – dieser Sonnenuntergang der Arbeitswelt – eine Art kreatives Momentum erzeugt, das

When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.