I agree with setting yourself up so that you don’t recieve a reward when you procrastinate e.g. changing your computer’s settings to block highly-addictive sites (this worked quite well for me).
The next step after this is a bit tricky though. To become interested in something the brain needs a constant supply of effort and reward. With some things though, you have to work very hard for quite some time before you can get any tangible reward. So it’s very easy to lose focus. I don’t know of any solution to this. Thoughts?
I think the standard advice is to make up your own goals, and let the reward be the fact that you’ve achieved those goals. (Or add an additional reward to that, like chocolate or something.) If you want to start running, then print out a running calendar and check off every day that you actually do it. Set a goal to run today, or a goal to run three times this week, or twelve times this month—whatever sort of goal seems both significant and achievable.
This is part of how the “ignore everything except the next bit” method is supposed to help. Checking that next item off your to-do list should feel rewarding enough to justify the small effort of carrying out that task.
I agree with setting yourself up so that you don’t recieve a reward when you procrastinate e.g. changing your computer’s settings to block highly-addictive sites (this worked quite well for me).
The next step after this is a bit tricky though. To become interested in something the brain needs a constant supply of effort and reward. With some things though, you have to work very hard for quite some time before you can get any tangible reward. So it’s very easy to lose focus. I don’t know of any solution to this. Thoughts?
I think the standard advice is to make up your own goals, and let the reward be the fact that you’ve achieved those goals. (Or add an additional reward to that, like chocolate or something.) If you want to start running, then print out a running calendar and check off every day that you actually do it. Set a goal to run today, or a goal to run three times this week, or twelve times this month—whatever sort of goal seems both significant and achievable.
This is part of how the “ignore everything except the next bit” method is supposed to help. Checking that next item off your to-do list should feel rewarding enough to justify the small effort of carrying out that task.