Giving Yourself Motivation // PROPAGANDA 012
This is an email sent out to the internal team at Death to Stock, but it’s been made public for those who are curious to follow our ideas and culture.
Hey Team,
Do you ever have those days where you really gave it your all? You’re mentally drained, but you feel great? I love days like that. You feel like you put in your time and can clock out.
But then there’s days where your work isn’t cohesive. You meander along, poking a few things here and there. You know there’s a million things to be done, but for some reason you’re not cruising through them like you should.
It’s almost like there’s a dance, where, if you hop from the right project to the right project, you can build a web of really successful wins for the day. Or, if you hop wrong, you hit dead ends and you don’t know where to go next.
I STILL have so many days that go by that aren’t the all-out-productive days. One thing they don’t tell you when you’re getting started is how much work is simply learning “how to work.” I’m still experimenting with so much to optimize my workflow.
So how do you get motivated to get productive?
It’s funny because even in writing this post, I had to cross the chasm from fumbling around, to focusing in and executing. I woke up in a hostel this morning, had a cold shower, ate a protein bar and am listening to the lounge music in the lobby. Not exactly an ultra-inspiring setting we picture like a manhattan office penthouse with a view of the city to write this post.
I did it not by finding motivation, I did it by finding action.
I wake up thinking that “If only I had the motivation, then I would get things done.” But the truth is, motivation comes after you get started on something, not before.
It’s not that you get motivation, and then start something. You start something and the motivation finds you.
The more actions your taking, the more momentum you build.
Your actions compound. Each progressive focused execution helps add fuel to the fire for your next action. That’s why days that are full feel like you’re on a rocket ship and you’re just steering it.
So get started, get moving. Even if they’re small. You’ll find the motivation once you’ve given your work some energy to work with.
// David @deathtostock
You can sign up by email here (the email is way cooler fyi) →http://eepurl.com/b07TwT
P.S. Another thing that’s worked well for me, is to find the tasks that make me feel good, or make me feel like I have had a win and put them earlier on in the day. For example, I usually feel pretty great after certain types of calls. So, I can schedule those intentionally to give my day that boost of productivity afterwords.
