honestly, the best solution to laziness spirals that I learned form personal experience, is to externalize the choice, so it is not dependent on willpower. Most of such tricks are almost trivial:
can’t get out of bed in the morning? Make the alarm clock louder, but also much further away, so that you HAVE TO get up to turn it off.
procrastinate on the phone/computer instead of working? Block every website and program that could possibly lure away your focus
can’t make yourself walk/jog anywhere, and instead drive everywhere? put your car keys inside your running shoes
can’t get yourself to work-out? Put your favorite time-waster (like say, the controller of your gaming device) under the gym bag or your weights.
create false deadlines on projects by telling someone it will be done much earlier than it needs to, and have them hold you accountable.
If you bring lunch/snacks to work, have a colleague keep them for you, and not give them back until you completed the chosen task, and can prove it (ex: no lunch unless you send 40 emails)
at home, pile dirty laundry on your favorite chair, or the favorite place on the couch. It will prevent you from sitting down, and encourage being more tidy. (IMHO, the couch is one of the worst humanity’s inventions )
A lot of anti-laziness schemes depending on trying to change your willpower, values, or decision-making systems, but often the easiest and most dependable solution is to remove the choice altogether, by pitting our avoidance of inconvenience against our laziness.
honestly, the best solution to laziness spirals that I learned form personal experience, is to externalize the choice, so it is not dependent on willpower. Most of such tricks are almost trivial:
can’t get out of bed in the morning? Make the alarm clock louder, but also much further away, so that you HAVE TO get up to turn it off.
procrastinate on the phone/computer instead of working? Block every website and program that could possibly lure away your focus
can’t make yourself walk/jog anywhere, and instead drive everywhere? put your car keys inside your running shoes
can’t get yourself to work-out? Put your favorite time-waster (like say, the controller of your gaming device) under the gym bag or your weights.
create false deadlines on projects by telling someone it will be done much earlier than it needs to, and have them hold you accountable.
If you bring lunch/snacks to work, have a colleague keep them for you, and not give them back until you completed the chosen task, and can prove it (ex: no lunch unless you send 40 emails)
at home, pile dirty laundry on your favorite chair, or the favorite place on the couch. It will prevent you from sitting down, and encourage being more tidy. (IMHO, the couch is one of the worst humanity’s inventions )
A lot of anti-laziness schemes depending on trying to change your willpower, values, or decision-making systems, but often the easiest and most dependable solution is to remove the choice altogether, by pitting our avoidance of inconvenience against our laziness.