On ditching motivation

This is not a post to motivate you. I’m not even going to try.

So, this January I changed the way I think about getting stuff done. For so long, I have let myself wait to be “motivated” or “feel like” doing whatever it is that I should be doing — writing a proposal, reviewing a research paper, watching an online course video, doing push-ups. You get the idea.

I reached a turning point when I realized that motivation is quite overrated. Rather than wait to get in the groove or mood for doing stuff, I started to think instead in terms of routines and habits. Getting things done is really about deciding ahead for it and then when it’s time, just start. This is where the power of habits and routine really shine. Habits are essentially decisions you have made ahead of time — flossing once a day, drinking a glass of water when you wake up, reading for 30 minutes before shuteye.

With this realization, I set out to deciding ahead of time how each day will go (roughly). Something like, wake up at about the same time each day, fix breakfast and go to my desk at the university. Put in 3 hours of work before lunch and 3 more hours after lunch. The evenings are then spent working on side projects, bonding with family and my girlfriend. (What’s life without balance?) This is the easy part. The hard part is sticking to it. The choice of 3-hour periods is simply because that’s the longest amount of time I can work uninterruptedly. But beyond the length of time is the quality of time spent. For me, the only other thing flowing into my cognitive space is music from Spotify. No texts, emails or facebook. Just focused, quality work.

Some mornings, I wake up and think to stay in my room to work, but that doesn’t happen because I’ve decided ahead of time to go to the university every day, Monday to Friday. What I’ve observed in the time since I’ve adopted this modus operandi is: I don’t need motivation anymore. As long as I’m able to wake up healthy each day (God willing), I get into the routine and let it create the flow I require for getting tasks done.

I hope you also get to create a routine or at least decide ahead what things you must do and simply press play when it’s time. It’ll be much help and you can ditch motivation.

P.S: For some context — by day I’m a Master Thesis student, hence my reference to research papers and ‘desk at the university’.