How to stay motivated: 7 hacks to boost your spirit when working (remotely)
A very important topic nowadays is motivation. Not only because motivation is needed in our everyday life and a hard subject to crack, but also because the “how-to” of motivation is not a deeply understood topic in business, but rather stuck at the level of concept and statement.
Most of us transformed our lives and homes into offices that have to work and keep us engaged; others work remotely for a long time, by choice. The world is changing with technology. As so is the way people get motivated.
The Internet Era is still in its infancy. However, it already massively impacted our daily lives including the job market needs, wants, and ways of working. And it will keep impacting it at scale. Regardless of how you work, if you ever feel stuck or in need of a motivation booster, the information below will help you get unstuck.
First, some scientific background.
The term “motivation” has its roots in the Latin word ‘movere’ which means ‘to move forward’. Motivation represents a psychological force for individuals to become energized and activated in order to complete a task, achieve certain goals or to fulfil their needs. (1)
There are 2 general types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. I am going to categorize the 7 hacks into these 2 categories, but KEEP IN MIND that these 2 are strongly dependable and a mix is required to reach an optimal level of motivation.
- Intrinsic motivation: The internal motivator
- Is triggered by peoples’ behavior whenever they feel satisfaction in doing activities for their own sake (like learning something new). This satisfaction usually concerns positive feelings of being effective and represents the results of engagements in challenging, meaningful or interesting activities. No external rewards are necessary here. (2)
There are 4 types of intrinsic motivators: Meaningfulness, Choice, Competence, and Progress. (3)
2. Extrinsic Motivation: The external motivator
- Is an incentive that arises from external factors; it represents a reward-driven behaviour. “The promise of a bonus if one meets agreed performance targets is an obvious example of such motivation.” (4) Therefore, these are the activities that are performed as a means to an end.
There are also 4 types of extrinsic motivators: external regulation (incentives, consequences), introjected regulation (avoid guilt, boost self-esteem), identified (sense of importance) and introjected regulation (value-dependent). (5)
And now, my 7 hacks to boost your motivation when working remotely:
- Create a “home office” (Intrinsic motivation):
Since motivation and mood go together, make yourself an environment of productivity.
- Think about the colours you use: “Red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks, such as memory retrieval and proofreading, by as much as 31 per cent compared to blue. Conversely, for creative tasks such as brainstorming, blue environmental cues prompted participants to produce twice as many creative outputs as when under the red colour condition”;
- Buy or improvise a desk that is positioned next to a window or facing the room (if you have it towards a wall, make sure there is an open space in one of your sides);
- Find the most comfortable chair for your posture (back pain is a clear demotivator);
- Surround yourself with plants to help reduce stress, clean your air and boost productivity;
- Have all the equipment you need at hand (laptop, maybe an extra monitor, mouse, keyboard, pens, papers etc).
2. Create a routine (Intrinsic motivation):
- Wakeup (with a smile);
- Exercise at least 15 min/day (I use the Nike Training App);
- Meditate (or try a breathing exercise). Some apps like Calm or Headspace could help;
- Eat properly (go for greens!);
- Dress the part (no jammies please!)
- Work smart (keep an agenda and plan it in advance, try some productivity tools, work in chunks of time);
- Take breaks (try the Pomodoro technique).
3. Find your tunes (Extrinsic motivation). I could not live or work without music, and research backs up why it is so. Music helps to:
- Radically improve speed and accuracy;
- Reduce mistakes, stress and anxiety;
- Increase productivity;
- Increase motivation;
- Release Dopamine (Which helps with almost everything).
4. Define the meaning and purpose (Intrinsic motivation):
- Think about the WHY! behind your tasks;
- Make the WHY visible.
5. Gamify your tasks (Extrinsic Motivation). You can make your work fun and rewarding:
- Give yourself a reward for every achievement/ task completion;
- Ask for feedback;
- Involve others.
6. Learn something new (Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation): try to innovate your work.
- Come up with new ways of doing repetitive tasks (by learning to use new tools);
- Get better at what you do by keeping up with the latest trends;
- Enrol in online courses and expand your knowledge.
7. Find an “accountabilibuddy” (Extrinsic motivation) :
- Share your goals and routine with someone from work or someone close to you. Even though your manager (if you have one) is keeping track of your progress, this is a more enjoyable way of achieving your goals and completing your tasks.
Take what you need from the above. Give yourself time to accomplish each of these 7 points. Working from home is not a productivity competition but a chance to explore yourself while further advancing in your work.
(1) Ambrose, M.L. and Kulek, C.T. (1999). ‘Old friends new faces: motivation research in the 1990s, Journal of Management Summer pp.231–7.
(2) Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R.M (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology 25, pp. 54–67
(3) Kenneth, W.T. (2009). Intrinsic Motivation at Work. What Really Drive Employee Engagement
(4) Oxford Dictionary of Business and Management (2016), pp. 237
(5) Reeve, J. (2015). Understanding motivation and emotion (6th ed.)
