motivation

[Homburg]

At least it won't eat your bandwidth anymore. I heard that app is murder on the baud rate.

Baud?!? It's flat awful!

 

[ultramarineblue]

Here's the deal shortpants, the stuff isn't going to do itself!

We ALL want to do 'other things' than just day to day maintenance, but the day to day maintenance, when done day to day, doesn't take all day. Does that make sense? I hope so. I haven't slept all night, forgive me.

If I keep up on my house, doing a little bit every day, it doesn't take me longer than twenty minutes to do EVERYTHING, including laundry, dishes, cats, and trash.

If you can't take twenty minutes out to pick up, then your life is WAY too freaking busy and it's time to cut back on less important stuff. Believe you me, I want to run that 10-man Upper BlackRock Spire raid as much as the next holy-specced Priest, but sometimes my video game time has to get interrupted by scooping the cat box or making sure I'm running the dishwasher.

I'd love to sit and chill out in front of Food Network At Night and watch Alton Brown and his yeast sock puppets, but sometimes I have to turn the TV off and make sure I fold the socks and hang up his work slacks before he gets up in the morning.

I hope this doesn't strike you as harsh or insensitive because I truly don't mean it in that way at all, I merely want to speak the absolute bases of truths in this kind of situation...when you procrastinate or don't do something, you are CHOOSING to. There's almost no excuse for that, barring things like stuff we have no control over. You have free will, so exercise it, and just stop letting your jobs slide. Make a choice and don't let yourself fall back into the rut of procrastination, and when you do, make sure you tell yourself that you're ALLOWING your duties to go by the wayside. Remind yourself that you are procrastinating for no reason. You can get up and do that thing, but you are choosing not to. See how bad that sounds? That's what my ex taught me. When you are making yourself aware of your own choices, suddenly...your choices change.

Becoming self aware of your actions and what consequences they have will vastly improve your life in all kinds of unexpected ways. For example, I am eating WAY less processed foods, I've given up soda -entirely-, I've started taking better care of my teeth (no more lemons, flossing thrice daily!).

Anyway, that's basically the deal. Choose to take care of your business and don't allow yourself the luxury of procrastination. You can say "it's easier said than done" and you'd be right, because suddenly you are doing stuff you didn't before. *laughs* Don't worry sweetheart, I think pretty much everyone goes through periods like this where they don't want to motivate themselves. But in the end, you kinda have to.

Being a grown up sucks, huh?

Yeah, it does suck. I can do it most of the time. I just have moments where it's harder to continue than others.

Everything in life boils down to choices. I can choose one path over another. Even inaction is a choice. It ends up becoming self destructive in the end.

I have made some tremendous changes in my life that are very positive lately. I just have more work to do.

 

[ultramarineblue]

Here's what helps me, not that I've got this nailed by any stretch.

Flylady style without the insane systemics - do anything for ten minutes, five minutes, an hour, one minute.

Say "I will do this hateful deadline thing for three minutes only." The three minutes tend to expand.

And you can stop without the huge task being all the way done. No one dies. It's smaller when you jump in tomorrow.

I definitely will trick myself into working on something by promising myself I will only work on it a little.

Stopping without being finished is hard for me. I tend to have trouble getting back to it sometimes.

I think a lot of this is going to start changing though. I've already noticed differences in the way I handle some things lately. I think I'm clinging to old patterns of behaviour because they are comfortable. That comfort is starting to wane though. It isn't as satisfying as it once was.

 

[ultramarineblue]

I have a bunch of little tricks, mostly involving lists, but recently I've noticed that keeping busy helps me accomplish more. So if I just need to do one load of laundry, it probably won't get done, but if I have about 18 things to do then I can get in the zone and tackle it all.

I seem to do a lot better when I have a million things going on as well. I want to learn to be able to do it when I don't have so much going on though.

 

[FurryFury]

I have little to no motivation this week because I'm just exhausted, feeling rough and I want to opt out of my wonderful life about now.

Sadly, I have shit to do. So I put off what I can and buckle down where I have to. People often say to me how do you do all that at a time like this? Well, if I don't, the kids are stuck at home, no one shows up to entertain at my gigs and no one gets fed or taken care of. I'm the one who makes shit happen.

I really hate that I've taken on those roles sometimes. Honestly, right now, I'd like to fly away somewhere, disappear, stop existing, take a break of some kind, some how but that's not going to happen. Life is going to continue. I have to do my part. I feel pretty good that I've simply kept moving this week. Hopefully soon things will get better.

*crosses fingers*

Lists, lots and lots of lists help. I love marking things off those damned lists. However, if I REALLY don't want to do something and it's not essential, it can damned well stay on there for years.

 

[ultramarineblue]

I have little to no motivation this week because I'm just exhausted, feeling rough and I want to opt out of my wonderful life about now.

Sadly, I have shit to do. So I put off what I can and buckle down where I have to. People often say to me how do you do all that at a time like this? Well, if I don't, the kids are stuck at home, no one shows up to entertain at my gigs and no one gets fed or taken care of. I'm the one who makes shit happen.

I really hate that I've taken on those roles sometimes. Honestly, right now, I'd like to fly away somewhere, disappear, stop existing, take a break of some kind, some how but that's not going to happen. Life is going to continue. I have to do my part. I feel pretty good that I've simply kept moving this week. Hopefully soon things will get better.

*crosses fingers*

Lists, lots and lots of lists help. I love marking things off those damned lists. However, if I REALLY don't want to do something and it's not essential, it can damned well stay on there for years.

I take on a good bit myself at times. I can definitely identify both with wanting to disappear for a while and something staying on a list for years.

Good luck with everything you have this week.

For myself, I think too much and need to just start doing instead of thinking about how to get myself to do it.

 

[slavemarissa]

Me and my motivation sucks!

I shouldn't be here now - i should be be working!

Sorry, i have no techniques as to how i motivate myself - i don't. Every now and then i go through phases of forcing myself to things which is really helpful, but the majority of the time i leave it until the last minute and panic.

It's been really helpful to hear everyone else's ways to motivate themselves...

I'm going to go and work now - honest!

 

[Keroin]

Lists, lots and lots of lists help. I love marking things off those damned lists.

What she said. In my old house, I had a huge white board in my office that I used just for to-do lists. I divided it into short, medium and long-term actions. They didn't always all get done but that's not important, what matters is that I had a constant, glaring reminder of what needed to be done. I always have a pen and a stack of sticky notes at the ready and any time I think of something I need or want to do I jot it down. And the crossing off is equally important. So satisfying!

I always allow myself some slack-off time but I find it harder every year to slack as my self discipline gets more and more honed.

I like Satin's philosophy. She's dead on.

And speaking of dead - yes, morbid segway - I've known too many people that have died at a young age. I live my life knowing I have an expiry date and that date could be tomorrow. A strange motivation, perhaps, but it works for me. One of my good friends who checked out far too early had a saying he lived by: "Some day is this day". Now it's my saying.

(I miss you Big Wave Dave)

 

[ultramarineblue]

I live my life knowing I have an expiry date and that date could be tomorrow.

That works for me with the bigger things I want to accomplish. I've been forgetting that in some things lately though.

 

[FurryFury]

Honestly I love the idea of living your life as if you could die tomorrow, any second and all that. I really do. The problem I have with that is it takes motivation away to do long term projects.

OTOH, I'm there for spur of the moment fun times.

 

[ultramarineblue]

Honestly I love the idea of living your life as if you could die tomorrow, any second and all that. I really do. The problem I have with that is it takes motivation away to do long term projects.

OTOH, I'm there for spur of the moment fun times.

I love the spur of the moment things. I've always had trouble planning things longterm. I'm working on that though. I don't want to completely give up the spontenaiety and flexibility of my life though.

 

[Keroin]

I love the spur of the moment things. I've always had trouble planning things longterm. I'm working on that though. I don't want to completely give up the spontenaiety and flexibility of my life though.

You can have both, it is possible. I doubt anyone I know would accuse me of not being spontaneous or adventurous or flexible but I always keep my long term goals top of mind. I repeat them like a mantra and those long term goals subtly shape my short term goals.

For example, one of my long term goals is to complete an Ironman before I'm fifty. Training for this will require at least a full year - which means I'll have to stay in one place, a place with facilities to train, for one year. Right now, I'm bopping around the globe so that is not possible. BUT I keep running, I keep swimming and whenever possible I ride a bike because I know I need to keep a basic level of proficiency in these sports for when I finally am in place where I can train seriously. Therefore, my short term goal of running at least 10k every second day has been shaped by my long term goal.

Blah, blah, blah.

Sorry, insomnia makes me this way. LOL