Motivation vs Procrastination

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

Just set one day’s work in front of the last day’s work. That’s the way it comes out. And that’s the only way it does.

— John Steinbeck

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

Der Psychologe und Forscher Timothy Pychyl, inzwischen im Ruhestand, beschreibt Prokrastination als "emotion-focused coping": Indem wir Aufgaben aufschieben, vermeiden wir das unangenehme Gefühl, mit einer potenziell schwierigen Herausforderung konfrontiert zu sein – und unter Umständen zu scheitern.

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

. Von außen mag es aussehen, als würde man sich mit Netflix ablenken, dabei läuft innerlich ein ganz anderer Film. Denn Prokrastination ist keineswegs einfach nur Faulheit oder mangelnde Selbstdisziplin oder schlechtes Umgehen mit der Zeit, auch wenn ich mir das sogar selbst vorwerfe: Die Wissenschaft widerspricht eindeutig.

"Es gibt keine

Putting challenging timeboxes on projects in a healthy environment can lead to serious innovation and creativity. Doing the same with impossible timeboxes in a toxic environment will lead to all of the bad things that you expect.