Or, if I know I have a lot to do and the size of the project is overwhelming me, I'll work in small chunks of time with short breaks in between. I've found if I tell myself, "I'll just work on it for ten minutes," I get myself moving and often even forget I was only going to do ten minutes-worth. The final trick that I find helps sometimes is working on something in small bites. Once I'm thinking about what I need to do, often it's a little easier to slip right into doing it. If my day gets hijacked or I find myself having a hard time getting to work, it helps to rearrange the items on my to-do list so that I'm thinking about what's most important to do next. Lately I've been keeping my to-do list in Google Calendar, which works well for me as it puts my to-do items and my schedule all in one place. (And yes, I'm blogging right now as a way to warm up to writing an article for a client.)Īnother trick I often use is prioritizing my to-do list. Blogging is often a good "warm up" exercise for me, since it's a way to get my writing muscles going, so to speak, without jumping straight into the deep end. Basically, I need either motivation or momentum, so when the motivation is lacking I need to find a different way to build up some momentum.įor me, a good way to get going is to start with something smaller. For me, working on it sooner requires a little bit of tricking myself. It's not always ideal to wait until the eleventh hour to work on something, though. Most writers know the power of a looming deadline to break them out of writer's block. For me, deadlines are targets, not last resorts, and quite often they're my main source of motivation, too. I know I've mentioned before that sometimes I really struggle with my productivity. But in the meantime, let me know in the comments: How do you make your to-do list meaningful and motivating? They're not epic life goals, but they do the job of reminding me why I wanted to do that today. For instance, I want to clean my kitchen so that I can cook dinner and not feel like a slob. Your goals don't have to be epic life goals, they just have to reframe how you're thinking about that task. For instance, if I want to write an article for a client today, I'm more likely to do it if I'm thinking of both the benefits of doing it and the consequences of not doing it: I want to get paid sooner, have more time for other things later, and continue to grow my business, versus having to make excuses to my client or having to shuffle my bills in order to make up for the delay in pay. It works for client work too, and not just personal goals. But if I reframe that to-do list item in terms of my goal - in this case, growing my business, which I want very much - I'm likely to feel more motivated to do it. The author recommended writing everything on your to-do list as a sentence that includes your goal at the end, which seems silly to me, but the message was valid: We are more likely to follow through when the items on our to-do list are meaningful to our larger goals.įor instance, I might have it on my to-do list that I'm going to update my website today, but that alone doesn't mean it's going to get done. One of the big takeaways from the book was that to-do lists work best when you write them in a way that reflects your goals. I'm always trying to find new ways to motivate myself, and I'm a big list-maker, so a year or two ago I read a book on how to write to-do lists that work. (Yes, my Kindle is open next to me right now.) So it takes a certain amount of knowing how to trick myself in order to get anything done. I feel like if I didn't make myself be productive, I'd probably sit here reading my book all day. In my last post, about getting moving by doing something small, I mentioned that it takes finding ways to "trick" myself into being productive. I've been talking a lot about productivity lately and how to maintain it, and in that vein I'd like to discuss another tip for staying productive.
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