When motivation is lacking...

In the course of our work, we sometimes come across such tasks that we simply don't want to do. We postpone their completion to an eternal tomorrow, living in the secret hope that somehow they will disappear from our task list. Such action causes stress and remorse, after all, we have to do something, but we lack motivation... sound familiar?

The word motivation is derived from the Latin "motus" meaning movement. By definition, it is a complex concept, a state of readiness to act supported by a set of mental and physiological processes. We also see this complexity in practice, especially when we lack this motivation.

Several faces of motivation

Extrinsic motivation, straight from motivational speeches - such meetings, often led by a charismatic speaker, themselves give a huge motivational kick, leave participants with the conviction that they can do anything and that it is worth starting today.

Army motivation, which involves putting pressure on a subordinate - in this case, the employee is motivated to act and perform his duties, because he simply does not want a confrontation with his superior.

The third face of motivation is the intrinsic one. By this we mean the effort to awaken the internal desire to act, to no avail in this case are superiors or motivational coaches.

There are even more ways to motivate. Today we will focus on a method that can help when motivation is lacking, and the tasks we really don't want to do are piling up.

What's worth doing?

• Make your list of tasks, with a special focus on those difficult topics that we try to procrastinate.
• Next to each task, write out in sequence: 10, 20, 30.
• Now we'll need a timer.
  Set an alarm for 10 minutes, and during this time perform task #1 on the list. After ten minutes, you can move on to task #2, #3, etc. After going through the whole list, set the alarm clock for 20 minutes and repeat the above steps. If necessary, repeat the steps with thirty minutes.

At first, this method may seem like nonsense. After all, there is so much talk about not taking on several tasks at one time that it is inefficient. However, it works very well for those tasks that we so shy away from doing. The problem with such "shuffles" is not finishing them, but starting them. This is because in our minds they grow into a big problem. As we follow the above method, we find that we are able to complete most of these problematic tasks within the first ten minutes. What's more, knowing that we will only spend ten minutes on a hated task somehow gives us a sense of peace - this rigor of time will prevent us from getting stuck in one place for longer!

If you encounter a task on your way that is not necessarily one of your favorites, face it!
Procrastination (more about it in this post) is not the best way to solve problems. Fortunately, there are plenty of such solutions in the general literature. The 10/20/30 method is one of them. We encourage you to test it, as well as look for other interesting ways to improve your work.