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Dave_TRS | 3 years ago

I have a whole arsenal of strategies:

- Creating a hard deadline, such as booking a meeting to share the work. Then "If you leave it to the last minute, it only takes a minute" can work and be efficient

- Carving out time for that thing, such as going to a coffee shop and telling myself I won't leave until that 1 thing is done

- "Structured procrastination" which is finding a task that's even less pleasant and putting it beside the other unpleasant, but easy task on a todo list, and when I'm avoiding the really really unpleasant task I can get the other thing done

- Waiting for an altered mind state. Some tasks I know I can't bring myself to do unless I'm at peak mental energy at 10am, so I let them take up that slot to get them done. Other unpleasant tasks such as badgering people to do things they dropped the ball on I might tackle when I'm feeling more in an angry mood brought on by some unrelated frustration, but lingering. When I'm feeling frustrated generally I sometimes pick up the phone to deal with annoying customer service at companies I've been putting off

- If I'm really stuck in a rut I'll listen to the Andrew Huberman podcast and try to lean abut brain chemistry and sometimes find that learning about some underlyling mechanism of why motivation helps me fix thigns

- If I'm really stuck sometimes I'll go for a run. Resets my mind, gives a bit of dopamine and motivation from runenrs high - Avoiding carbs and alcohol is helpful for me. Carbs make me lethargic, and having low motivation makes me want to eat carbs, which is a self reeinforcing negative spiral

- I try to be mindful of how meaningful social connection improve wellbeing and motivation. Saying something nice to my wife, showing heartfelt appreciation for someone at work helps lift mood and give me energy to tackle the least motivating items on my task list

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