I said this in another comment, but what works for me is publicly pledging to work for x number of hours on y project or else I give z dollars to some charity.
Where x is normally between 2-10
y is anything
z is normally 10
If you are procrastinating right now, give it a go. Go on twitter or facebook and say if I don't work for 2 hours on Akasha(a project), I will donate $10 to watsi(the charity).
I think when setting goals we hope for some reward in the future, but the brain doesn't value rewards as much as it hate losses(loss aversion). YMMV
I'm not sold on the idea of aligning one's failures with charitable contributions. You'd inevitably learn to feel good at the prospect of not having to yield cash to a good cause. Also, dangling a piece of charity (say, to a watsi patient) and then ripping it away once you 'succeed' seems a bit... unethical.
>You'd inevitably learn to feel good at the prospect of not having to yield cash to a good cause.
Are you really saying this is like Pavlov's dog experiment? Since, the money goes for good cause, I think it might not act as a good motivation in the first place to finish the task. But yeah, publicly announcing this stuff can lead to many people comprehending this as unethical.
Hmm, was the goal set in a way that you can accomplish it? Like if you say I want to lose 100lbs in a day that wouldn't work. Even 1lb in a week wouldn't work because it is not the amount of weight you lose is not upto you but up to your body. The same way with working. You can't specify how much you want to get done just only how much time you plan on spending on it. The amount of work done will vary again with how you are feeling and some variables not under the control of your willpower.
But who knows this may only work for a certain type of people.
Tried that with working hours, with amouny of daily reports sent (I kept forgetting or avoiding them sometimes) and with sleep hours. In all three cases, it only ended up in me getting into unseen levels of anxiety because of failing AND loosing money (which I don't have much), which obviously led to more failure (positive feedback loop of anxiety and/or panic).
Ultimately I semi-solved some of my problems by writing a time for coming into office in my work contract and thus fixing the top (early) part of my schedule.
In a way, this experience taught me that I'm increasingly anxiety-driven and unable to be deterred by potential punishment. I'll ponder something hurtful to me in my conscious mind, stress like hell because of the unconscious, and then go ahead and do it anyway. Anyone knows a cure for that?
Where x is normally between 2-10
y is anything
z is normally 10
If you are procrastinating right now, give it a go. Go on twitter or facebook and say if I don't work for 2 hours on Akasha(a project), I will donate $10 to watsi(the charity).
I think when setting goals we hope for some reward in the future, but the brain doesn't value rewards as much as it hate losses(loss aversion). YMMV