I don’t know the source of the quote, and a quick google doesn’t say.
I find that most tasks are easy to continue doing, but difficult to begin: such tasks have relatively high activation costs. For me, many such tasks (programming, research, cooking) are enjoyable while I’m doing them, but I haven’t learned to actively desire them when I’m not doing them. Even relatively dull tasks (cleaning the kitchen, buying groceries, shopping) aren’t particularly unpleasant, and are easy to continue once I’ve started. My greatest difficulty in getting work done, then, is to convince myself to start.
On the other hand, when you’re trying to summon motivation, you don’t have to psyche yourself up to do an entire hours-long task; you just have to convince yourself to do that task for a minute or two. Once you’re actually engaged in the task, continuing is easy.
Thus, action precedes motivation. You cannot expect to feel motivated to start doing what you want to do or ought to do. You’ll just have to start your session with your own grit, applying your own agency. Once you’ve done that, motivation will follow.
Action precedes motivation is thus my litany for the moments when I know I should be doing something—that action is more fun and more profitable than inaction—but action seems hard. It helps!
Heh: following links around LW leads me to this, which essentially makes the same point. (Though without the quote, or trying to figure out how to make it stop). Also, I should note that I’ve been following links around LW instead of doing my own work for the past, oh, eighty minutes, which should, maybe, say something about the need to install a mental trigger on procrastinating.
… and I’m still not reading the research paper I ought to be reading. :P
Also, I should note that I’ve been following links around LW instead of doing my own work for the past, oh, eighty minutes, which should, maybe, say something about the need to install a mental trigger on procrastinating.
… and I’m still not reading the research paper I ought to be reading. :P
Leechblock. You can even set it to forward you to your research paper when you try to access LW, if it’s on the ’net.
“Action precedes motivation.”
I don’t know the source of the quote, and a quick google doesn’t say.
I find that most tasks are easy to continue doing, but difficult to begin: such tasks have relatively high activation costs. For me, many such tasks (programming, research, cooking) are enjoyable while I’m doing them, but I haven’t learned to actively desire them when I’m not doing them. Even relatively dull tasks (cleaning the kitchen, buying groceries, shopping) aren’t particularly unpleasant, and are easy to continue once I’ve started. My greatest difficulty in getting work done, then, is to convince myself to start.
On the other hand, when you’re trying to summon motivation, you don’t have to psyche yourself up to do an entire hours-long task; you just have to convince yourself to do that task for a minute or two. Once you’re actually engaged in the task, continuing is easy.
Thus, action precedes motivation. You cannot expect to feel motivated to start doing what you want to do or ought to do. You’ll just have to start your session with your own grit, applying your own agency. Once you’ve done that, motivation will follow.
Action precedes motivation is thus my litany for the moments when I know I should be doing something—that action is more fun and more profitable than inaction—but action seems hard. It helps!
Heh: following links around LW leads me to this, which essentially makes the same point. (Though without the quote, or trying to figure out how to make it stop). Also, I should note that I’ve been following links around LW instead of doing my own work for the past, oh, eighty minutes, which should, maybe, say something about the need to install a mental trigger on procrastinating.
… and I’m still not reading the research paper I ought to be reading. :P
Leechblock. You can even set it to forward you to your research paper when you try to access LW, if it’s on the ’net.