Motivation

[juliet]

Recently it feels a bit like I've lost my motivation to do things that I am usually intrinsically motivated to do (ie which I do for the fun of doing them). This is particularly true of "hard" things, but yesterday I sat in my room staring out of the window and occasionally checking Twitter for much of the day because I couldn't even see any likely enjoyment from even low-stress things like reading or watching something.

One possible reason for this is straightforward exhaustion, coupled with overwhelm (too much to do, too little time).

But I also found myself wondering if the process of getting better at extrinsic motivation and goal-setting has torpedoed my intrinsic motivation.

There's plenty of general evidence that extrinsic rewards can damage intrinsic motivation. But my own personal extrinsic rewards are of the "tick off an item on my to do list" variety (I get absurdly motivated by a tickybox, especially if it is a real box tickybox not just crossing an item off. I am ridiculous.). Is it reasonable that they might do the same thing as a tenner handed over by another person?

Tickybox motivation is of course just fine for things like doing chores or going to the post office or remembering to send invoices. But with things like writing or making something, the general productivity advice I read is always about setting long-term goals, then dividing them into short-term goals: write x hundred/thousand words a day, get this part of this project done by this deadline, that sort of thing. Sure, without some kind of goal or destination, you don't know where you're going at all. But I've done a lot of this sort of major/middle/micro goal-setting this year for important projects and I find myself feeling steadily less inspired. Which was not the aim.

I am not sure I have a solution. I'm not sure I'm even tackling the right problem. (See above re tiredness.)

My current thought is to come at it from another angle, by heavily limiting the number of genuinely ticky-box things I have on my list each week, according to my estimate of how long they'll take. So I only have x hrs of those things. Then all the rest of the time is for the important stuff, for which I have an overall goal but (in this new approach) no daily/weekly tickyboxes.

However, this is for next month. For this month I am ditching all the important projects (inc Nano, which I only started last week; oh well) in favour of a more important project of "not doing anything in an attempt to recuperate my brain a bit". See above re tiredness and lack of interest in things that previously engaged me. (Obviously this excludes child-care; and I have no paid-work deadlines this month due to doing them all last month.) Radical self-care. I find this a terrifying notion. I will report back.

Comments

[sfred]

Good luck and also sympathy! I like the sound of your project for this month. I would like to do that.

[juliet]

It is a bit alarming though! Also it only adds up to about 8.5 days total in the next 3 weeks, due to other existing commitments, childcare, etc. In & of itself this does suggest that I am tending to over-commit my time a bit. One of the problems with our arrangement of childcare / work time is that it means Saturday is a work day for me, and lots of other things also happen on Saturdays. I am possibly too fast to jettison a Saturday of work, but I also hate the feeling of the week being squeezed into two separate tubes of commitment with no gaps in between them. As it were.

(I must also remind myself that 3 nights of broken-to-no sleep is not made up for by 1 night of a whole 6 hrs in a block; and that this has an impact on mood.)

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Good luck! That sounds tough, but a plan well worth trying.

[juliet]

The motivational explorations, or the month-off? I feel deeply ambivalent about taking time off: so many people I know just aren't in a position to do that that it feels excessively self-indulgent. Having said that, it is actually going to add up to around 8.5 days over 3 weeks (due to child care days and other existing commitments) which is not really all *that* self-indulgent.

(One of these days, viz, today, has already been spent largely on the sofa with a sad ?sore-throat-y? Leon, because he explicitly wanted me over doop :/ . Which on the one hand, wasn't all that relaxing, and on the other hand, at least I wasn't trying to work at the same time or fretting about Making Up Time Later.)

The motivational explorations are more interesting; evidence to date is that I can easily fill 5 hrs of ticky-box stuff, all of which is *useful* but not necessarily *important*, and I am probably going to find myself cheating. (Where, I ask myself, does replying to LJ comments come...? ;) )

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

All of it! It's really hard stuff, and getting your intrinsic motivation back seems well worth experimenting to see what works. The rational goal-setting thing is great if it works for you (I am told) but beating yourself up about it just leads to a downward spiral IME.

Something I've found useful is to think of it in terms of habits I am trying to develop, or in terms of trying to be the sort of person who does those things.

There's also the time management principle of considering which tasks are important, and which are urgent, and prioritising spending time on the ones that are important but not urgent wherever you can. A Vulcan might be able to do the important-and-urgent stuff first, then the not-important-but-urgent, and then the important-but-not-urgent, but most humans end up spending way too little time on the latter, a bit too much on the important-and-urgent, and way too much on the not-important-but-urgent. The important-but-not-urgent stuff is often the very best things to do with your time.

Sad Leon sounds sad. In those circs I'm usually able to think of it as being a Good Parent, and prioritising looking after the kids, which I'm very much invested in - though of course there's gender stuff there that works for me that might not for you.

On a lighter side of that self-identity as self-defence thing, I am in Zurich airport at the moment, and I carefully arranged things so I was sat right at the front of the shiny exciting cable-propelled shuttle through the concrete tunnel between the terminals, and looked round at the nifty (if cheesy) animated mural on the tunnel wall as we passed it. A few of the other passengers seemed slightly bemused, and some even disapproving, but I didn't care. I am the sort of person who gets excited about those sorts of things and I was having fun. And they weren't. Their loss!

[juliet]

I really struggle with prioritising the important-but-not-urgent, yes, despite being very aware of the distinction. Habits is a good thought, thank you; like growth mindset stuff.

The trouble with the Good Parent thing is when it's not one of 'my' days. Because I work from home, I'm always still around; which has been great for many reasons, but also means that I get interrupted a lot at the best of times (because Leon knows I'm there, and specifically because he's still breastfeeding and will ask for milk). On ill days he *just* wants me, and where if I were out of the house he'd be fine with doop, if I'm there, I don't want to say no. But the work doesn't take account of that, and I don't have leave or sick days to take. (Complicated by the fact that a fair amount of my 'work' is currently unpaid, which is a whole 'nother kettle of beeswax.) So on the one hand, yes, I do want to be a Good Parent and it's important to me to prioritise looking after Leon; on the other hand, he *does* have a perfectly good other parent to look after him!

SHUTTLE with MURAL! I am on your side in this, obvs :) Fun stuff is fun! Must take L to drive the DLR again soon ;)

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

Good luck with everything. Sometimes self-care can be really, really difficult - I think it actually is a skill (that I am improving myself!)

xx

[juliet]

Yes, I definitely agree, and I've been trying to get better at it. Mostly recently this has involved trying to GO TO SLEEP rather than e.g. sit up reading / playing online (which is also self-care sometimes, but probably doesn't outweigh sleep).

[menthe-reglisse.livejournal.com]

Really interesting, thank you for writing. Good luck and please do report back.

[juliet]

Time Off, Day 1 (of what will be about 8.5 actual days rather than elapsed days): spent on sofa with sad ill toddler. Hm! Still, at least I am not fretting about deadlines.