If you are like me then you know that forcing yourself to do something sometimes is… hard. Very hard. If I could I would do nothing productive. I would sit in my room for a whole day and watch movies, play games, read books, listen to music and chat with friends. And yet I still get up every day, go to work, study, write code and even write this blog. And it makes me happy. In a different way of slacking off but still happy.
Every time it’s internal fight with yourself. And every time I try to lie with “In 5 min I’ll do that / Only 5 more minutes of doing nothing / soon I’ll finish relaxing and do that” etc. If I surrender to that feeling I’ll lose fight and after a few hours, the only feeling will be dread that I did nothing productive… again.
So, of course, I try to fight with it and when I succeed I feel this kind of fulfillment from finishing this task. It can be anything. From washing dishes to finishing function for program. Working hard makes make me happier in the long run, even if I feel that I need to push myself to do literally anything.
So… finishing tasks and being productive is making us happy and fulfilled. And yet we still slack off and don’t want to do that. Why?
In simple words: We are lazy and want to feel good right now. Not in the future. (even if it’s not good in the short or long term)
Solutions:
So now I’ll give you my solutions for this. It won’t be easy but in the long run, it gets easier and easier as you do this more and more.
- Think and analyze pros and cos of doing and not doing task that you have to do.
Let’s analyze something really simple. Like brushing your teeths.
Pro: You don’t need to see dentists as it’s waste of time and money.
Con: You have to go to bathroom, waste few minutes and move your hand a bit.
Conclusion: Let’s save money, brush teeths.
Yes. Analyzing sometimes sounds dumb and that’s good. If arguments against sounds stupid there is more force to do it. - Make a habit out of it.
If there is something that you will have to do in intervals (like emptying thrash bins, preparing food, posting a post on social media, creating video etc.) then set yourself a specyfic time to do that. Select day, hour and force yourself to do that in selected timeframe. First few times are easy, problems with this method comes after some time and then you will feel that “you don’t want to do that NOW“. So of course, you need to force yourself even harder to do that in that specyfic time frame and don’t fall for this trap as after single break next will come much easier. - Get External Validation for this task. (short term only)
After doing something tell someone that you trust that you made it. Get appreciated by someone. But remember not to depend on this method in long term. If you depends only on this your self-esteem might go down with time as people will appriciate your achievment less as you will get better and better. Your true friends will keep saying good work but most “standard” friends will get bored and you might start thinking that you are doing worse than on beggining (which is not true). - Simply force yourself to do something.
Simplest and hardest thing to do. Just use your willpower to force yourself. It won’t be easy or nice but works.
So yeah, these are my methods to force myself to do things I have to do (and things I want to do). If you got any other method of forcing yourself to be productive please, leave a comment down below or send me an email at contact@xeiciu.com. I’ll gladly accept any tip on how to be more productive.