Motivation

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:11 pm

Currently I'm working on a personal project and my todo list is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I find that it's becoming a little overwhelming and I find my motivation dwindling. How do you deal with motivating yourself? Do you have little tricks like rewarding yourself, or do you punch yourself in the taint, or is it a particular discipline that you find you either posses or lack?

Jeff Hauze · Post by **Jeff Hauze** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:35 pm

Generally? I just give up. So long as it isn't job-related. Success scares me more than failure.

That would have probably been funnier if it was actually a joke.

It's almost like I said this somewhere else recently.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:21 pm

Wish I could help, Deev, but I'm willing to bet that I need more help in that department than you do. Mostly I just procrastinate horribly, then berate myself for having done so, then do whatever it is and end up not feeling very good about having accomplished the task. But. You know. Denying yourself the feeling of accomplishment (and the resulting byproduct of happiness) is something I can heartily recommend against. Maybe just knowing that you're likely to be much happier if you accomplish the task in a timely manner will be enough for you.

If anyone else has any ideas, I'd like to hear them too.

Bethyaga · Post by **Bethyaga** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 7:09 pm

Strangely, Caz posed the exact same question on Nerd Pride a couple days ago, and here's the answer I gave then:

Mike wrote:Step 1 is to have your brother write a novel... a really good one. This apparently only takes six months. Then you'll realize how much you're wasting your life on mindless crap. This will motivate you to finally get moving on that next big project you've been telling yourself forever that you need to get done.

At least, that's what worked for me.

But I don't have any good answers. Part of what helps me is deadlines, which are usually not present in personal projects... or at least not with the same urgency as otherwise. If it's possible, you could try to make a commitment to some other person that hinges on you achieving some goal of your own, that might help you create a deadline, because now someone else is counting on you to get this done.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 8:29 pm

For my music, it's the freaking competition. If I'm not at the best I can possibly be for that performance, there's always someone else who can take my place, and when I'm just starting to find my voice in the damn place, I don't want anyone to take that away. I will never ever be good enough at the cello, and everyday it's going to drive me to be better at it. There is no best. You can never achieve it, and I want to see how high the ceiling goes.

It's kind of like those stupid Final Fantasy RPG games, I always liked seeing my numbers go up.

Pdyx · Post by **Pdyx** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:07 pm

I've been reading "War of Art" and find it is helpful in driving up motivation. I'm big on these kinds of books, and a lot of them work for me. In particular, "War of Art" seems like it would work well for people I know that have trouble with motivation and finishing things.

I have lots of thoughts on this, because I feel like I've learned a lot from doing plays, comedy, building puppets, etc.I think it depends on you and the project as to what you might consider doing, but here's some suggestions.

One idea is to break your huge to do list down into smaller lists, such as short terms and long terms. Then break those short terms down into smaller lists of next steps and start using a small ass post-it note for your current to do list and focus on accomplishing those smaller objectives.

Build in a reward system. Deprive yourself of something you like (gaming? booze?) for a weekend or day or whatever until you knock off the couple of small objectives on that small post-it note. Or save up a little money and use it to celebrate when you finish a stage.

Get a partner. Sometimes doing projects with others will help. When you're not feeling motivated maybe they are. Having someone to answer to helps.

Be realistic. Don't try to do too much too soon. Giving yourself difficult deadlines or a giant to do list for one day isn't realistic. Just chip away when you have free time, especially if this is a 'hobby' and you have a 'real job'.

Have some sort of deadline, beholden to others. Can you enter a contest (preferably one far enough off, where you think you'd have more than plenty of extra lots of leftover time to get it done) or something like that?

I'll think more on this and maybe share some other ideas. If you can provide more details on the project, maybe we can help with more specific suggestions.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:45 pm

The calendar thing! I forgot.

If I have something huge coming up, I actually schedule my practice time on the calendar and I treat it like an engagement. If someone else wants to do something then, I physically reschedule the practice spot.

I had to learn pretty quickly how to work at home, and it was painfully difficult at first. Being at home (after school, and even other jobs) felt like where I went to relax. First it came from realizing that I was falling behind. Then we had a dedicated space to working and teaching for both of us. Now that we own a house, we made the basement the workspace and we each have our own studio to work in.

Both of these ideas center around the idea of defining 'what's work' and 'what's not.'

As far as motivation, I did NaNoWriMo (and I made it to the 50,000 words) if I did not make my writing the first thing I did in the morning, it would be something I had a lot of trouble getting to. But the mornings I made it the first thing I did, (even if I had to go away and come back to it later) I could pound out 3000 words or more that day. Something about the way my brain is wired I guess.

Does that help more than what I said before?

FlameBlade · Post by **FlameBlade** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:13 am

Sorta what I'm doing now, Eli.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:42 pm

If someone finds the secret key to motivation, please, share it with me. The only thing that motivates me is love, so I manage to take care of my daughter more-or-less properly, but beyond that, it's hard for me to give a shit about stuff. I used to be pretty unmotivated - I'd go so far as to say I was renowned for it - but in the last five years, I've basically just turned into a puddle of goo, essentially becoming people's worst expectations of me. I think it's entirely possible that I'm finally too broken to fix myself, but I do my best - which isn't that good - to act as if that's not true. Given that I've started college, and found a job for the first time in 2 years, I'd say I'm making progress toward finding motivation, but I strongly suspect that, as usual, full repairs may only be effected by an outside agent.

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:09 pm

3278 wrote:Given that I've started college.

I'm hijacking my own thread to say; Dude, that's awesome. What are you studying?

3278 · Post by **3278** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:21 pm

Nothing, really, yet. I'm basically starting from scratch, at a community college [so, not a four-year university], doing my first semester of classes, which means really basic stuff: Introduction to Computer Programming [just adorable], Introduction to Music Listening [actually one of my hardest classes], and Western Civilization since 1500 [which I enjoy, but which unfortunately is being taught with a pacing I don't agree with: 10 weeks from 1500 - 1942, 6 weeks from 1942 - 2011].

My eventual goal is...hell, I don't know. I could do whatever I wanted for a living, basically, so it's just a matter of deciding. I'm leaning right now either toward some kind of programming, or else going into education [my original plan, 15 years ago]. I'd like to be able to telecommute 100 percent of the time, ideally, and thus do my job knee-deep in some random creek in Canada that has a cell tower in range.

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:58 pm

Sounds like a fantastic start.

Bishop · Post by **Bishop** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:49 pm

3278 wrote:. I'd like to be able to telecommute 100 percent of the time, ideally, and thus do my job knee-deep in some random creek in Canada that has a cell tower in range.

Tim has said much the same thing, except his was a yacht in the middle of the Caribbean waters, with Satellite connections, much of the time.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:28 am

And that's the future of the global economy in the information age, combined with the effects of global telephony. Many, many information-based jobs can be performed by telecommuting, which has a number of benefits, anyway [like not needing two places for a person to be: if you work from home, there doesn't need to be an office and a house]. And with the ability to transmit and receive large amounts of information from anywhere in the world, you can literally travel 100 percent of the time, own no home, and still do your job enough to make the money you need to support this lifestyle. I think if I were a professional writer, this is exactly what I'd do, once Ana graduated from high school.

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:40 am

I don't really believe in telecommuting. Or rather; I've never seen it done in a way where it wasn't a massive pain in the ass. Details get lost, time becomes even more precious and it doesn't improve cooperation in any way. Perhaps it's the future, but we're not ready for it yet.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 6:03 pm

Right now, it definitely depends on the job. Autonomy helps: the degree to which you can operate independently for long periods of time strongly affects how disruptive physical absence will be. Until we have some kind of telepresence - as opposed to just telephony - that's compelling, physical distance is going to introduce metaphorical distance, as well. Now, if you're a journalist, or a freelance magazine writer, or a blogger, this may not matter at all to you: it may in fact be required for you to properly do your job. Those guys from National Geographic have to telecommute, or else it'd just be articles about their building, which wouldn't be very interesting for very long.

Jobs, though, that require a great deal of collaboration will be enhanced by physical presence. But not every job requires every kind of interaction. Like, I've had jobs where I could do all the collaboration I needed to as long as I could have vocal conversations with the other members of my group; when I was a software tester, our room was set up in such a way that we all sat back to back, and thus couldn't ever see each other, and it had no effect on our ability to collaborate. All our interchanges were vocal or digital, and no one else in the organization ever communicated with us except by computer, phone, or talking with us. We genuinely could all have been sitting at home in our pajamas and done the job exactly as well as we did by being there, and arguably in many ways better.

Working in your pajamas from home, of course, introduces its own challenges beyond difficulties in cooperation, but depending on the situation, the benefits can outweigh them.

I really wonder what the next step in telepresence will be. Avatars, maybe? Like the telepresence robots some disabled students are now using to attend university? We can now exchange text, vocal conversation, and now visual communication [with limited mobility]. What comes next?

Eva · Post by **Eva** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:07 pm

I agree with Dennis, I've not experienced telecommuting in a way that doesn't make it a pain in the ass for people who /are/ in the office. I'm sure it's great for those staying at home but for people coming in (read: the people without children) their productivity goes down.