Do you have a whole to do list and zero motivation to get things done? I’ve go four strategies to get you up and going on that to do list without being mean to yourself.
1. Adjust Your Expectations
Life is full of expectations. Expectations we put on ourselves, from others, and even ones we imagine others have of us. What if we just dropped all expectations.
Make a list of all the things you feel like you should be doing. Now review the list and decide what to keep because you want to do those things and which can be discarded. Sometimes we keep things because we want the result. For example, we might want to pay our mortage because we like having a home to live in. That’s okay. We don’t have to enjoy the process of everything.
Now do we have expectations to do our to do list perfectly? What if we accomplished it with 80% in mind. Eighty percent in school was a B-. Done is better than not started. Let go of those perfectionistic tendencies. Just get it done. You can come back and improve on it later if you want to.
2. Change Your Story to Get Things Done
What do you tell yourself about yourself. Are you saying I’m too tired to get anything done. Or I’m just being so lazy. Is this self talk negative and encouraging not doing your to do list?
What if instead we changed our inner story. What about I get done what needs done. Or I’m a person who does what I say I’m going to do. One of my favorites when I’m feeling unmotivated or overwhelmed is “slow and steady wins the race.” What ones can you come up with. I’d love to hear from you in an email!
3. Decision Fatigue
Trying to decide what to do and when to do it all the time can leave us emotionally and physically tired! So let’s cut out as much of that as possible. Decide how often, like weekly or every evening, and write down all the things.
Decide what things you want to do and when you want to do them. Pencil them in on your calendar. It doesn’t matter the type of task. Self-care, mommy tasks, housekeeping, or work. Calendar it all.
Then the only decision you have to make is if you are keeping your commitment or not. I personally decide that ahead of time too. I just decided that I don’t have to want to do it when the time comes. It’s totally okay that task sounds boring or something else sounds better. In fact, I plan on it not sounding like a good idea. I just do it anyways because I already choose to do it.
4. Get Things Done with a 10 Minute Timer
When I’ve done all the steps above and still don’t want to do the list, I set a timer for 10 minutes. I will work on the task for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off I get to decide if I want to continue or not. Most days once I get going, I just keep on working. But on the rare day, I don’t want to keep going than I don’t. It will go back on my to do list and get rescheduled at the next planning meeting.
A Bonus Strategy:
Body doubling means working on a project with someone else in the room. It can be literally or virtually. I will often Marco Polo my sister or best friend and ask if they want to work together. We will say what project we are working on and then work for a set amount of time. At the end, we report back and see how we did.
With body doubling you don’t even have to work on the same type of project. You just need to know that someone else is aware of what you are doing.
Give these strategies a try. If you are still struggling to get that to do list done, book a free discovery call. We can brainstorm together to see what is holding you back.
Until Next Time
-Keira
