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If you’re dealing with a lack of motivation, most people will tell you to start small or create a more supportive environment. Derek Sivers doesn’t do that, however…
What do you do when you’re feeling extremely unmotivated? Watch TV? Surf Facebook? Eat a bag of Oreo cookies?
Entrepreneur and professional musician Derek Sivers — who rose to fame creating the ultra-successeful company CD baby — has some counterintuitive advice.
He suggests that we do some of the boring and necessary things that we’ve been putting off for weeks or perhaps even years. Into that category he puts tasks like accounting and updating our wills. Stuff that’s boring and easy to procrastinate about. For writers this might include: writing thank-you emails, planning future stories or even doing some research.
Here’s what Sivers says:
Conventional wisdom tells us to do the important and difficult thing first, but doing this boring work has moved me from a state of doing nothing to doing something. I’m just starting to feel like doing something important again.
While I’ve long argued that it’s important for us to eat our frogs early in the day, I think Sivers is on to something important here. When we’re feeling unmotivated, anything that gets us into action is useful. And once we’ve accomplished that something, we’re more likely to get revved up and accomplish something else that’s more important.
You can read his entire post here.