Motivation

Procrastination is a huge problem of mine. In fact, when I sat down to start working on this post, I went on the internet instead, only to wind up taking a quiz on which Disney princess and Marvel hero best represent me (I got Merida and Iron Man, by the way). The few times in university I finished a big assignment even a full day early felt like a massive accomplishment. A lot of this came down to not understanding how to motivate myself. Even today, I had a different idea of what to write, but I put it off, and put it off, and finally this felt like the more apt topic to work through. I had found myself unmotivated to write a post and needed to give myself a reminder of how to get it back.

Routine

As far as I’m concerned this is the most important thing in building motivation. The times I’ve struggled the most are the times where I’ve recently taken an extended break. When I get into the zone of writing every day, or working out every day, it becomes so much about habit that it feels unnatural not to be doing it. At one point in working on a draft of a novel, I became so determined to finish it that I would wake up at five am every morning just to get an hour and a half of writing in before I had to leave for work. That felt hellish at times, but the pride in getting it all down was worth it in the end.

Timing

I don’t think everyone is the same level of productive at the same times as everyone else. I used to think I worked best late at night, when everyone else was asleep, and I could be focused on my work. As I grew older, I tried experimenting a little. Turns out, I’m most productive in the mornings. There is the same sense of people being asleep, or too busy, so I’m not worrying about being distracted by texts or other communication. But the morning has the benefit of having just woken up, rather than waiting to go to bed, so I lost the need to finish fast so that I could sleep.

Eliminate Distraction

I usually set vague time limit, where I claim I will work until, say, 10am. In this time, I’m not allowed to open anything not directly related to what I’m working on. Sometimes this becomes a much stricter adherence to time, because I have somewhere else where I need to be. Other times it is just the starting point and I push a little further. The biggest point here is that I need to keep going until I reach that end time, or whatever other goal I may have set (say, word count). I know that the second I start opening the internet to look at social media, or maybe just watch a quick Youtube video, I could easily lose an hour.

Deadlines

There are firm deadlines in life, like for this website where I try to keep up with a release schedule for the blog and the podcast, but there are often softer ones as well. When I set out to work on a personal project, I have made a habit of setting some form of tentative due date. This date might be for the final product, or it might be for a smaller step on the way, such as an outline or a draft.

I’ve come to find that usually when I set these dates for myself, I actually finish faster. My last major piece of writing I ended up giving myself a date for mid-June to finish the draft. I calculated approximately how many words a day I would need to do for this to be possible. And then, it ended up working out that I rarely stopped at that word count. I finished in early May! That wasn’t an isolated incident in my life either. I find that so often when I start something, if it is just the vague sense that someday I’ll finish, it may take years (if it ever gets finished at all). Just by setting a date I can usually guarantee it will get done.

Conclusions

By now it’s probably become obvious, none of these things are meant as miracle motivators. I have come to find that there is no way to just suddenly motive myself, and it is instead about cultivating motivation over time. No magical words or actions can make me feel like working. No, it’s all the boring stuff that gets the work done. In the end, how did I finally get to writing this? I sat myself down at my desk and, eventually, shut off the online quizzes and everything else, and forced myself to work. I’m far from perfect on the whole motivation front, but these little things have come to help me over the years.