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Will definitely give this a try, I have struggled with this problem a LOT myself
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Awesome, thanks to you both, gl to you trying knatterking!
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I think you're talking out your butt with the whole theory about being evolved to be lazy in order to save energy for the next important thing. Your own observation that we feel like crap when we aren't getting anything done suggests the opposite, that our body is evolved to tell us not to be lazy. I think a social explanation is much more convincing, since even in school teachers who want to relate to students say 'yay no school on Friday' or something, like you definitely don't want to be there because learning and working sucks lol (when actually we get all of our fulfillment in life from those two things).
Your advice on how to get motivated and stay motivated is pretty consistent with the opinions of motivational psychologists though. Your schedule technique really utilizes the important concept of imagining yourself doing the work you're going to do, rather than the result of that work. Other proven ideas, like the importance of specific goals are good, but unfortunately there's a very real conflict between creative goals and rigid schedules, where having a goal like "I'm going to write for x amount of time" or "I'm going to write x number of words" can quickly backfire as you realise your creative pursuit makes sacrifices in quality in order to meet those goals.
As someone who works from home, does a lot of solitary creative hobbies, and doesn't have a lot of extrinsic motivation to do any of the things I do, I deal with the question of motivation and ask 'why do this thing' pretty much all the time. Unfortunately there isn't really anything that consistently works, because when one reason to be doing something disappears, you can really struggle to find a replacement. The technique for figuring out those new reasons would be a really interesting discussion.
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On September 11 2015 07:53 Chef wrote:
I think you're talking out your butt with the whole theory about being evolved to be lazy in order to save energy for the next important thing. Your own observation that we feel like crap when we aren't getting anything done suggests the opposite, that our body is evolved to tell us not to be lazy. I think a social explanation is much more convincing, since even in school teachers who want to relate to students say 'yay no school on Friday' or something, like you definitely don't want to be there because learning and working sucks lol (when actually we get all of our fulfillment in life from those two things).
Your advice on how to get motivated and stay motivated is pretty consistent with the opinions of motivational psychologists though. Your schedule technique really utilizes the important concept of imagining yourself doing the work you're going to do, rather than the result of that work. Other proven ideas, like the importance of specific goals are good, but unfortunately there's a very real conflict between creative goals and rigid schedules, where having a goal like "I'm going to write for x amount of time" or "I'm going to write x number of words" can quickly backfire as you realise your creative pursuit makes sacrifices in quality in order to meet those goals.
As someone who works from home, does a lot of solitary creative hobbies, and doesn't have a lot of extrinsic motivation to do any of the things I do, I deal with the question of motivation and ask 'why do this thing' pretty much all the time. Unfortunately there isn't really anything that consistently works, because when one reason to be doing something disappears, you can really struggle to find a replacement. The technique for figuring out those new reasons would be a really interesting discussion.
Thanks for your response.
"whole theory about being evolved to be lazy in order to save energy for the next important thing. Your own observation that we feel like crap when we aren't getting anything done suggests the opposite"
I dont quite agree with this point. First of all, of course there is mechanisms in our brain that are supposed to make us stop spending energy. Physically, you can more often than not push yourself way further than mentally
(for example, after 8 hours of work, physically I'm still able to get a ton more done - but my brain kicks in. Sort of as if willpower was setting boundaries here so we don't exhaust too much, which from an evolutionary standpoint would be absolutely endangering our survival).
That's why I think if we did not create very strong habits to actually put in energy (for example work hours) and other factors are not overweighting our lazyness (such as fear / social-conditioning) our brain goes autopilot and will try to save up energy. If you are 'doing by motivation' it just means your will to do is stronger than your bodys/minds resistence.
Interestingly enough you are pointing out that im contradicting this theory by saying that 'we feel like crap when we aren't getting anything done'.
I would explain this as a side-product of our culture (social-conditioning). If you don't actually do stuff, youre not going forward in the world that we live in. Once you adopted these values however ("Working hard is good", "I need to work to make money", "I need to get a family") etc. you will be under the influence of those beliefs / social conditioning.
Your suffering begins with you adopting a culture. Your self-image will not be fulfilling these values/traits, not living up to these beliefs. You become "a failure", depressed. [I really do think that depression is a product of the society we live in today]
I think if we went back to our natural state, we would not suffer from 'not doing anything' or getting things done.
ShoCk
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I don't think you're right. Because the body doesn't accumulate energy endlessly, and the mind becomes dull when it doesn't practice. If you work for 8 hours and don't want to work anymore, that's not laziness. Your body needs to rest, your mind needs to do something different. It prevents us from over-specializing. If a task is so tedious and repetitive that we can hardly do it for more than a half hour, I'm not sure that's laziness either.
I was thinking of laziness in the context of your video, where you talk about spending several days doing nothing. Then at the end of the day you feel frustrated and unhappy, because you got nothing done that day.
Sometimes we get into cycles where we think 'I don't want to do anything at all now, because this is my only chance to relax,' and that's a logical folly. Because actually we don't feel relaxed when we do nothing. As we grow more experienced, we learn that what relaxing really means is doing things we enjoy without pressure or stress. It doesn't mean vegetating and trying to build up energy. One night of sleep and a good meal in the morning is the maximum amount of energy you can have. You can't save anymore by doing nothing in the morning and nothing in the afternoon and sleeping all night. You become restless because you didn't spend the energy. You have low self-worth because you know you aren't progressing.
I think if we went back to our natural state, we would not suffer from 'not doing anything' or getting things done.
It's speculation. I think the exact opposite. Society evolves and human beings progress because our natural state pushes to invent things that allow us to do more and live better and endear ourselves to others. In the natural state you have no opportunity to be lazy, because survival demands these things.
I think motivation to do anything at all, and motivation to go beyond 5, 6, 8 hours of various tasks is another thing entirely. I think when it comes to doing the same thing for 8 hours in a row, it's not fatigue or loss of energy that gets us down, but like you say 'mental exhaustion.' You can work 8 hours and have plenty of energy for friends, or games, or doing something completely different, but you have no more patience for the thing you spent 8 hours on, often because the intrinsic motivation is low, because that thing you did for 8 hours is called your job which you do for extrinsic reasons.
So I wonder if you're trying to say how to go beyond 8 hours. There are days when I do my job for 10 or even 12 hours because of a deadline, or because I don't want to leave until I finish what I'm doing, but after that much time, I am making lots of mistakes and progress is much slower than the first 6 hours. It's not a problem of pushing through it, you simply reach your limit to be productive until you switch gears to do something that uses a different part of the brain. For most people I think there isn't much value to continuing past that point. It's as mandatory as sleep. Just relax and have a beer, like you say.
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Ain't nobody got time for that. 15 minutes?
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EPT
