Struggling with motivation to get “your-thing” up and running or to the next level?
Maybe you’re circumventing yourself and your own motivation by not having systems/processes for your productivity.
This quick “in-between-isode” post will cover a few tactics to help you step up your motivation and some productivity hacks to ensure you don’t self-sabotage yourself when you do find that spark to knuckle down and do the work.
If you have a creative task ahead of you (writing a blog about maths is still “creative” in these terms), the number 1 tool we recommend to put into your kit is the amazing book by Steven Pressfield – The War Of Art, we gift it to our friends and clients all the time.
If you think of the work as art (as it is in almost any case), this is a snippet of this man’s genius:
“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” Steven Pressfield
A solution to your motivation and productivity dips could be a simple productivity hack:
Before starting your day, get a piece of paper and write down three to five things that are causing you the most stress. More often than not, these things have been slipping from one day’s to-do list to the next, to the next… Try using a cue card (A6 cards people use for speech notes etc) or even a post it, so you keep it short and to the point.
Then go through each point and ask these two questions: “If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?” and “Will moving this forward make everything else I have to do unimportant or easier to knock off later?”
Now look over only the items for which you answered “Yes” to at least one of the questions.
Pick one of them, and set aside two to three hours at some point in the day to complete this task. It’s important to just choose one task to ensure it gets done. That’s it.
“The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.” – Steven Pressfield
What does this accomplish?
This method of prioritising the biggest challenges in your life could help eliminate self-sabotaging habits like procrastination or over-scheduling your day. We have seen tremendous reductions in anxiety from this simple hack. If you have 10 important things to do in a day, it’s 100% certain nothing important will get done. But tackling just one item, with the time blocked out to get it done, will help stop these bad behaviours.
If you want to read more into productivity hacks, one of the finest in the business is Timothy Ferriss.
Our favourite article on motivation comes from the awesome guys over on the Fizzle Podcast. If you like that, you should seriously check out their courses here too. Starting with that post, we have put together our own list of 3 excellent tips for motivation:
- List the top 3 Positive Outcomes of Achieving Your Task – this is fantastic. Building on the productivity hack above, stop worrying about all the things holding you back from accomplishing your task. Instead, focus on the positive things that will happen once you get it done!
- Bulletproof Coffee – Coffee fuels many success stories. This “biohacking” upgrade to your traditional cup of Joe is uber popular in the CEO, Silicon Valley, World Poker, Extreme Athlete – circles and for good reason. Adding Butter and MCT (coconut oil extract) oil to your coffee removes the crash and will keep you dialled-in for up to 8hrs. Can everyone say productivity hack!?
- Accountability Partner – Getting a kick up the butt (which is actually what the Fizzle article linked above attempts to do) is usually an extremely powerful motivator. If you are in a position to pay someone for this – our single biggest contributor to our business growth last year – you can check out our actual Business Mentor here. Tell him Nathan from Australia sent you, he’ll love to chat to more Aussies ready to rocket to success!
Have you tried these tricks? We’d love to hear if they worked or what tips you have found to get you “out of a funk” and down to business! Leave a comment below