Coaching practices for How Do I Get Motivated When There is a Lot Needed to Be Done
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How Do I Get Motivated When There is a Lot Needed to Be Done, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve given up waiting to feel motivated because it just never comes for this
- The whole thing feels so big I can’t even start
- There’s this pile of old half-finished tasks I keep stepping over, and each one is its own little tug of guilt
- There’s one hard thing I’m dreading, so I "warm up" on easy busywork to feel productive
- My to-do list has everything I could ever conceivably do crammed onto it, so there’s no honest line between someday-maybe and what I’m actually committing to today
Practices that may help
- Use precommitment devices to compensate for low motivation
Lock in behavior in advance so you are not relying on in-the-moment motivation to start.
The Procrastination Equation, Made Practical - Choose the smallest workable next step
Break committed action down until the next step is small enough to take today, even in a hard moment.
Committed Action, Made Practical - Systematically process the backlog
Work through old, unfinished tasks in order rather than perpetually re-triaging them.
Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical - Do the hardest task first
Tackle your single most important, most-dreaded task before anything else in the day.
Eat That Frog, Made Practical - Separate "will-do" from "to-do" lists
Keep a master to-do list distinct from the closed daily "will-do" list that you actually commit to.
Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical - Use the "little and often" approach for long projects
Chip at big projects every day in small doses rather than saving them for marathon sessions.
Do It Tomorrow, Made Practical - The ABCDE prioritization method
Label every task A (must), B (should), C (nice), D (delegate), or E (eliminate) before starting.
Eat That Frog, Made Practical - Sort by importance before urgency
Ask "does this matter for what I’m actually trying to achieve?" before asking "is this due soon?"
The Eisenhower Matrix and Delegation - Activity scheduling: plan valued activities before you feel like it
Schedule specific activities in your calendar based on your values, not on your motivation level.
Behavioral Activation: Acting Your Way Out of Low Mood - Graded task assignment: break overwhelming tasks into very small steps
Decompose any avoided, overwhelming task into steps small enough that the first one is trivially doable.
Behavioral Activation: Acting Your Way Out of Low Mood
Related concerns
- When Behavioral Activation Graded Task Assignment
Decompose any avoided, overwhelming task into steps small enough that the first one is trivially doable.
Graded task assignment: break overwhelming tasks into very small steps
- Break Down Big Tasks
Estimate each sub-task independently, then add them up — the sum is closer to truth than a top-down estimate.
Decompose tasks and sum the pieces
- Breaking Tasks Into Small Steps Depression
Decompose any avoided, overwhelming task into steps small enough that the first one is trivially doable.
- How Do I Get Motivated I Have So Many Things To Do And No Energy To Do Them
Schedule specific activities in your calendar based on your values, not on your motivation level.
Activity scheduling: plan valued activities before you feel like it
- How To Start An Overwhelming Task
Commit only to the first five seconds of an action — not the full task.
Use a five-second micro-start to breach the initiation threshold
- Stop Procrastinating Big Tasks
Chip at big projects every day in small doses rather than saving them for marathon sessions.
Use the "little and often" approach for long projects
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