That may seem like a strange title, so I’ll explain what I mean by it. There are many times each day in which I have trouble finding the motivation to do things that I know are beneficial. Something that I’ve discovered over time is that I find the hardest part of a task to be getting started, especially if I’m relaxing and not really doing anything. At that moment, I’m continually “moving” in the direction of relaxation, so it’s easier to keep that “momentum” going than it is to change it. Similarly, I’ve found that if I’m engaged in some activity, my momentum will make it easier to continue working on that activity than to stop or switch to another activity (as long as what I’m doing isn’t excessively painful, confusing, or something else along similar lines).
The trick, therefore, is to find a way to get started on an activity that I don’t want to do but I know will benefit me and then let my momentum carry me through to its completion. So to get started, I take a big task and break it down into one simple task that I can complete. That way I’m not getting overwhelmed at the amount of work ahead of me or racking my brain trying to figure out how to do it all at once. I now have one small, simple step I can take that will get me going in the right direction and will help me gradually get to the end.
I’ll use my writing process as an example. There are some rare occasions in which I can write out a full blog post in one go, but usually I work on it a bit at a time. Maybe I don’t know exactly what I want to say but I have a general idea of what I want to talk about, so I’ll start by just typing out a few ideas. They may be fragments and not make sense to anyone else yet, but I know what they mean and they give me a starting point that I can use to flesh them out later. Once I get some ideas down, I find the rest of the process becomes much easier and the post seems to write itself.
Another example pertains to my job. A few times a week, we get a truck loaded with appliances. Sometimes I’m there to unload it and sometimes I come in after it’s already been unloaded, but in either case, I’m normally there to move the merchandise onto the floor once it’s ready to be sold. What I do as often as I can is pick the appliances that I think will be the easiest to move (sometimes it ends up being refrigerators and other times it’s washing machines or dryers) and start taking those out first. That way, I’m working on something that takes less time to move, is easier to put where it belongs, and, because of those things, helps keep me in a better mood than if I’d started with a more difficult choice. Once I’ve finished that, I’ve got a lot of momentum carrying more toward finishing the job, I can see how much I’ve done by observing how much more room there is in the back warehouse now that I’ve taken out a couple dozen appliances, and I can more easily maneuver in the warehouse now that I’ve freed up a lot of space, which makes it easier to get the more difficult appliances out.
This basic template of starting on something that’s easy and that I enjoy before moving onto the more difficult and less enjoyable tasks works in every area I’ve tried it. It consistently works even when I’m feeling sick, tired, unmotivated, or otherwise weighed down. Starting my day by getting something accomplished also makes it easier to be productive later on that if I have a lazy start. So if you find you’re having trouble finding the motivation to do something, maybe give this a try and see if it works for you.