How to Motivate Yourself to Do Productive Work Everyday
It’s a common misconception that if you work for yourself, you can wake up whenever you want and have no deadlines to adhere to. While it is true to a certain extent that you can wake up whenever you want because you are responsible for setting your own schedule, it’s not entirely true that there are no deadlines to adhere to, after all if there were no deadlines, how would one ever get any work done?
The fun part about working for yourself is you do get to decide when to wake up, but at the same time you also decide how much work gets done in a day, what work to prioritize for the day, and how to deal with feeling unmotivated and not wanting to do work on certain days. I am no stranger to feeling unmotivated some days, but this is when the true test of discipline comes into play. How do you deal with such days and still somehow get productive work done?
1. Set small bite-sized goals
Do small tasks on your list that are easy to finish so you can tick them off your list and feel a sense of achievement that one item is completed. I tend to go for all the small, easy to complete tasks on my checklist when I’m feeling unmotivated, or I choose tasks that require minimal brain power like uploading new designs, that way I can watch a show while I upload and before I know it, the work is all done!
2. Set a time to stop work
When you’re feeling unmotivated, it’s harder to get things done. So to motivate yourself, decide on a specified set time to stop working so you can unplug and unwind. It’s unrealistic to feel energized all the time as well so it’s important to set aside time to rest. Recognizing that sometimes when you feel unmotivated, it is your body’s way of telling you it needs to rest. Working hard is important but it is also equally important to rest and recharge. Energy ebbs and flows. Sometimes all you need to feel motivated again is to take a day off to rest and do nothing.
3. Reward yourself with a treat
Set realistic targets to accomplish and reward yourself after you hit the targets you assigned yourself for the day. Be it a nice drink, or some gaming and reading time, these little rewards can go a long way to motivating yourself to be more focused and productive. It’s important to be familiar with how much work is required for each task so that you set realistic targets to hit in a day without overwhelming yourself , and when you have hit your daily target, honour your promise to yourself for that treat.
4. Take a deep breath and just do it
Sometimes the only way to go about it is pure discipline. For me, it really is a very literal mind over matter issue. I sit with myself for a moment, take a deep breath, psyche myself up for the upcoming work and just get on with it. You simply turn on your autopilot mode, keep your mind blank and just do it. It’ll feel tortuous at first but eventually you’ll ease into the work mode and things will get done! Then I’ll reward myself with a little treat (see number 3 above) if I can clear my work for the day. Because done is better than perfect.
5. Harness the power of imagination and visualization
When all else fails, I call upon my power of imagination and visualize in my mind the life I’m trying to build for myself and the reason why I’m doing all these. That always gets me off my butt to focus and really hustle because I have a very clear goal that I want to achieve and I know that cannot happen if I don’t put in the hard work. If you’re struggling to motivate yourself, perhaps what you lack is a goal to work towards to. It might be worthwhile spending some time to sit with your thoughts to figure out your goals because that is really the one thing that will motivate you to keep going when the going gets tough.
While it is important to do productive work, it is also important that you learn to recognize when you need a break. Do not be afraid to take some time off if you need to, because it is impossible to be 100% productive all the time. Productivity levels go up and down just like our energy ebbs and flows, taking time off to care for yourself is just as important. Sometimes the best thing we can do for our productivity level is to take a short break and recharge.
