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comment by Dendrophobe
Dendrophobe  ·  3596 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski, how do you stay motivated? What keeps you from procrastinating?

Thank you.





_refugee_  ·  3596 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's not easy to put all these steps into practice.

The most important task, the one that helps make sure you get at least some stuff done, is simple:

Break work into smaller amounts of work. Repeat until the units become small enough that it is possible to approach them without dread. Make them small enough to be ridiculous. Make them small enough that it is impossible to imagine not completing one unit of that work. Then, begin.

I'm no stranger to anxiety and I've failed classes through fear and putting them off. You have to conquer the fear - of the work, of the effort, of the time, of whatever. To do that, make what scares you so small it is no longer scary. Make it manageable, whatever size that feels like or looks like to you. Just do it on a timeline.

So if "manageable" means "write the title" then by all means just write the title and walk away, but then set the time you have between each task much smaller. Instead of "Create an outline in a week" break it down smaller but require that each sub-task be done within a day or half a day.

If you find yourself on a roll. KEEP GOING.