Using momentum to gain motivation
This past Friday afternoon, I had three tasks remaining that I didn’t feel like doing. It was the end of the week, I was tired, and they weren’t projects that I had a lot of enthusiasm for.
I was tempted to put them off because they didn’t have strict deadlines. But I knew if I made that choice, I would continue to think about them over the weekend and wouldn’t fully relax.
I decided that I would open one of the work files and read through the existing material just to feel like I accomplished something. I do that a lot as a first step on projects. I’ve found that I often have better ideas and am more productive if I skim the work first and then come back to it a day – or even a week – later.
Once I opened the first file, I realized that the task was much easier than I anticipated, and I quickly finished it. I moved on to skimming the second project, which I had been dreading because it was long, and I wasn’t particularly interested in the subject matter. I was surprised that once I had a grasp of the content, I got inspired to do the work. Even though I wasn’t excited by the topic, I had little bursts of ideas about how to approach the task. Those sparks of creativity turned a chore into something fun to work on.
When I finished that project, I had built up momentum and didn’t want to waste it. I read through the final project and then…I lost some enthusiasm. That one was going to take a lot more time and brain power. I gave it another read-through and decided to put it aside.
I returned to all three projects after the weekend. The first two only needed light changes to finalize them. The third one was more difficult, but my initial effort had generated ideas in the back of my mind that helped me get into the work without wasting time.
My tiny amount of effort on Friday started the momentum to do any work at all, which in turn created motivation to keep at it. It was worth it, and I enjoyed my weekend without thinking about work.
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