How to make yourself work? At the moment, about 7 billion people live on our planet. We are all individuals, and everyone has their own cockroaches in their head. Accordingly, everyone has their own methods of motivation, encouragement and punishment. For someone, the method of "carrot and stick" is ideal, for someone the fire is lit only if there is a competitive moment, and for someone only a good kick helps.
The method given below, in my opinion, is suitable for those who find it very difficult to get to work, and for whom procrastination is their main and favorite activity.
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When I read the article for the first time, I was quite in agreement with its author that this GTD method looks, to say the least, strange. But after rereading it and saying all the points out loud, I realized that this also makes sense.
This technique is taken from Elizabeth Wilson's book Stress-proof your life: 52 Brilliant Ideas for Taking Control. Its essence is that you build your work in such a way that you simply will not have time for various distractions in the form of social networks, watching videos or chatting in chat rooms. In addition, there is a moment of competition with yourself and time, which is very suitable for gambling personalities.
This is an obvious step, but this list should not consist of twenty items. Of course, it is very commendable to strive for the highest results, but let's be realistic. The list should consist of such a number of cases that you are able not just to perform, but to perform efficiently during your working day. I think you know your bar.
If you don't have a stopwatch on your computer, then you can download a Stopwatch timer for yourself.
What does it look like? Everything is very simple and ... a little strange at first glance. You set yourself a timer and proceed to task #1 in the list. At the signal of the timer, proceed to the next task and so on until the very end of the list. At the same time, you simply have to move on to the next task, even if you need only a few minutes to complete the current one, or you have caught a wave and are at the peak of your productivity.
You only have 5 minutes and that's it!
«weirder and weirder», but this is the main highlight of this method. Although at first glance it seems a little strange.
For example, because the time frame, though limited, but forced to gather. Although I think that this option is unlikely to be suitable for creative work, because freedom is needed for this. But if your list consists mainly of «official» cases, this is a very good option!
If you are a gambling person by nature, then, in theory, you should have a strong desire to overtake yourself next time! Tried to work on this system once — it became interesting, and for the next time you decided to do more work in the first 5 minutes than it turned out the first time. Etc.
Well, how can procrastination be avoided here, when some tasks are constantly postponed for later and they do not have the slightest chance to get from the bottom to the top in the next five years. Because just the thought that you will need to do something not very pleasant during the whole day causes instant apathy, headache and complete unwillingness to work. And then immediately there is a lot of other, « more important » cases! But the idea that you will work with it for only 5 minutes is not so scary anymore. And it is likely that after the first five minutes, the next five will not be so scary and tedious. This can be compared to doing unpleasant work in parts (for example, I do cleaning and everything related to household life). And it works... at least in my case.
Whether this technique suits you or not, you will be able to understand only if you try (at least for the sake of interest). Since at first reading it seems rather strange and sometimes absurd, but if you think about it, it can be very useful for performing routine tasks.
