No.18577
>>18520I visualised the consequences of not doing it, spiralling into a life threatening outcome. Then I thought about how great I would feel once it's done.
No.18842
>>18578I can strongly relate.
I know change is possible, but sometimes it requires first a change of environment in order to enact the change.
I can't initiate the change of environment and feel stuck in the same unchanging, unending delay.
No.18883
I continue to be curious about the same questions too, so I should say I started by exploring what behavioral scientists observe and can comment about our tasks and motivation. The best grains of advice I adapt so far are taken from a book called “How to Change” by Katy Milkman, which by accumulating high marks from the NPR editors gave me a thrust to buy it.
Here are some examples of my strategies:
(1) Chores promoting a clean living space
>>Using “temptation bundling” with inspiring music and streaming shows, etc. I am only allowed to use temptations to ease the pain that, without using a temptation, would hurt to do a task otherwise. Listening to punk when doing dishes is awesome.
(2) Weaker personal and weaker school projects
>>I tell people my plans and mention a personal deadline. This is a “soft commitment device” designed to leverage cognitive dissonance.
(3) Stronger projects
>>I have subtracted some personal savings to donate as punishment if I did not complete, for example, stages of late calculus homework. This is a hard “cash commitment device.” It works very well because money is precious. The higher stakes help most.
(4) Medium length goals like an entire class load
>>Documenting time and maintaining streaks.
>>Studying streaks and accumulating completed tasks on columnar paper with stickers helped me appreciate progress so to retain motivation longer.
(5) Shit I really did not want to do because of the difficulty, like making a paper in APA format
>>Begin to make an unordered list of everything else you want to do. Do those things. Now you can only do that one thing because procrastination forces you to.
Whatever it is, and whatever strategies you use, you must convince yourself are part of a game that you must play. Buy in. Begin with a fresh start, like a Monday, even a foreign holiday, and continue until you restart to continue again.
