I intend in the coming weeks to spend some time on the topic of motivation and time management. I do not wish to get a good and generic theoretical view (though I wouldn’t mind). Instead I am mostly aiming at the following gains :
Increase the time I spend reading, thinking, and working.
A better control on my choices of pleasant activities (choosing to read fiction I will enjoy rather than more immediately rewarding youtube videos, for example).
A better control of my time schedule.
To do so, I have decided to use a process that first collects “complete views” on the topic. This means books, blogposts series, videos, or other forms of media detailing a paradigm on the topic. Complete with usable advice. These are called “views” bellow.
I intend to collect between 5 and 10 such views. It is my intuition that some of the relevant scientific background can be vulgarized in a few hours and be helpful. If that is correct, one of the first views should also present it. In a second phase, I intend to make my own synthesis of the whole and make changes to my life. The idea is to judge the changes after a few months and think back on the topic periodically.
I welcome remarks on the process I have planned but that is not why I am writing a lesswrong question. Instead, I would like you to give me suggestions of authors to consider. I am mainly interested in views that :
Come from authors who are high achievers themselves.
Come from authors who are specialists in psychology, sophrology, or other relevant fields.
Have had a documented positive impact on people before, ideally on male computer scientists (though with this last bit I am probably starting to be too picky).
Any combination of these is good, the more the better.
I promise that if I go through with the process using at lest one view recommended here I will write an account of my synthesis on lesswrong.
Edit : I am still collecting views and will therefore delay the project, probably by a couple months. I am not cancelling anything, just delaying.
I suggest Edward Deci’s book, Why We Do What We Do. Deci and his colleague, Richard Ryan, are the founders of the current most popular theory of human motivation: Self-determination theory. It’s a very short book and extremely easy to read.
I know you’re looking mainly for practical stuff and this book is primarily theoretical, but I think you should check it out for two reasons:
It’s an easy to understand theory that you can use to assess and update your habits with when they don’t work as you planned.
Past theories of motivation focus on external/extrinsic motivators, like money, grades, etc. It turns out that these things don’t promote intrinsic motivation, and they often undermine it, leading to poor long-term results. It’s important to keep this in mind when you’re looking for advice to act upon. In the short-term, extrinsic motivators are great, but when they undermine intrinsic motivation, they lead to a kind of boom-bust pattern when people implement new habits.
Deci and Ryan also have a short paper that gives an overview of their theory, but I think the book is much more informative and worth the read.
The Center for Self-Determination Theory has some good (and mostly short) resources too, like this overview of all the mini-theories that make up self-determination theory.
My friend Rémi Theriault wrote a great blog post for the CPPA Students Medium titled “Time Management: The Importance of Self-Monitoring”. Rémi is a psychology PhD student at the Université du Québec à Montréal studying topics related to motivation, self-determination theory, and positive psychology. He’s one of the head ambassadors in the student branch of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association. I like Rémi–he’s practically-minded, and his practical insights are informed by theoretical and empirical evidence.
I’ve written an essay for the CPPA Students Medium on strategic reading. It includes tips on being a more effective reader, so if you’re looking to increase your reading and writing time, it may help you read more efficiently. I’m also working on an essay for them on self-determination theory, but it won’t be released until the Spring (probably mid-March).
Hope this helps!
I suggest Atomic Habits by James Clear. Building a habit effectively is a main topic but I believe that it’s closely related to motivation (and there’s some content about motivation as well).
I liked the book due to its simplicity, pragmatism and well articulated model of a habits and “levers” that you can use to influence it. I still haven’t implemented all of the strategies/ideas from the book but a couple of them continue to have a positive impact. For example adapting/creating your identity so that it reinforces the habit (e.g. thinking about myself as a runner increases the chance that I’ll go for a run), and being more focused on my environment and how it supports/weakens new habit (e.g. hiding my tablet in a drawer in a separate room increases the chance that I’ll read a book).
I’m not sure how well these meet your criteria, but since you’ve asked a good question and had no responses I figured that potentially-not-precisely-matching responses might be better than none.
Willpower literature, e.g. the book by Baumeister and Tierney. (Not sure how much of this has replicated.)
Getting Things Done, David Allen
Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Digital Minimalism or Deep Work by Cal Newport
These are not endorsements of these books, per se, but things that I have come across that I think might speak to your initial 3 questions, although perhaps not that well meeting your 3 criteria listed near the bottom.
Hope they help, and either way, good luck with the project!
Thank you. Having one answer definitely feels better than none. I think I will delay the project a bit and gather views until I have amassed enough. Hopefully recommendations can pile up with time, i think I receive some periodically. I will write down your recommendation and they will be part of my effort, though probably not right now.