Forcing yourself to work and then meeting resistance.

[no pocky for kitty]

So I had this discussion with my mom about how I work.


I drive myself absolutely INSANE because I have all this motivation.. All I want to do is work on my projects.. Yet for some reason there is all this resistance coming out from inside when I try to force myself.

My mom says I am putting up a wall because one half of my brain is coming on to strong to the other half of my brain, which is inherently lazier than I would like for it to be.


A way to overycome resistance would be to meditate and empty my head for a few minutes.... come back again and try to work.

My problem is that I think too much.

I just want to make this thread because I want to know if anyone has the same problem of overthinking.... Being lazy... feeling resistant to working even though you really want to (If that sounds outrageous and too ironic to take seriously sorry, its just what I am putting up with right now)


I think i make excuses to not work by thinking. But my brain is this thought-machine that goes hundreds of MPH. I overthink myself into procrastinating and I want to arrange a date with a revolver.

Sorry if this comes off ridiculous. I just feel like I always go in circles when I try to force myself to work. Forcing myself to work gets me nowhere, ironically.

I literally feel like I am going insane. I question my sanity a lot.

If you can relate.. What are methods that work for you? I wonder if anyone else feels like this sometimes. I know everyone here is probably really motivated too. Do you ever feel insane?

[CoolBee]

I know EXACTLY what you mean :

I have so much I WANT to do but somehow.... hm .... here I am not doing it!

Tricks that work for me - make it fun, play games with yourself!

Set yourself nano-targets. Get a bag of gold and silver star stickers and award yourself stars for getting things done.

Timer Games

List 5 things (projects, rooms to be cleaned, whatever) and write down 1 thing on each that you could do for just 1 minute that would make a tiny step of progress or a visual difference. Write them on a list, then do them and tick them off. Very satisfying. Do it again, but with 3 minutes. Then 5 minutes. Then you will have made some progress on 5 areas! Probably a surprising amount! You have done 45 minutes work - you now get to take a 15 minute break - get some water, put your feet up and plan the next 5 areas to tackle the same way (it can be the same 5 areas or different ones!)

Counting Games

Depending what it is you are trying to do, counting games might work. EG suppose you have one of 'those' rooms - infinitely messy and you just don't know where to start. Draw 10 boxes on a sheet of paper.

Take just 5 items and deal with them. Don't judge the worthiness of the item - an old sweety wrapper or a bus ticket is an item! Tick a box.

Now, set your trusty timer for 1 hour hence, do it again. Repeat through the day.

By the end of the day, you will have dealt with 50 items with little pain and have a nice little set of ticked boxes

Race Yourself

Play with stuff - have a race with yourself. EG - If I had to write a blog post in the next 1 hour as if my life depended on it - what could I do? Will I be voted off the island or whatever if I don't manage it?

I once did the most fabulous coaching session on Instant messenger with a woman who was totally stuck with her housework. Over the course of her session, she actually cleaned her 3 worst 'CHAOS' (cant have anyone over syndrome) rooms in just 20 minutes of work but with plenty of returning to base to plan the next step while doing it - but she had anticipated cleaning those 3 rooms to be 'unexpected company ready' would take several days!

[joyfulgrowth]

CoolBee, I love your Race Yourself game! Will try it out this weekend.

Sorry if this comes off ridiculous. I just feel like I always go in circles when I try to force myself to work. Forcing myself to work gets me nowhere, ironically.

I don't find that particularly surprising, unless you actually love the feeling of being forced.

[Rehemaworks]

Originally Posted by no pocky for kitty

I think i make excuses to not work by thinking. But my brain is this thought-machine that goes hundreds of MPH. I overthink myself into procrastinating and I want to arrange a date with a revolver.

Hey,
No need making a date with your revolver! Just try not letting your imagination run wild by pacing yourself with small baby steps. Don't over think the whole process but break your tasks into small obtainable goals.
Good luck.

[CoolBee]

Try a few of these
(Create your own design from quite a wide selection)





.

[Gasokai]

Well as for me, doing creative work is a lot harder than getting myself to do something physical work. As for creative work, I try to inspire myself first, gather ideas; browse forums, images, videos, books... I always carry notebook with me and write down the good ideas, so its easier to work WHEN I feel like it.

What I am suggesting is not to force yourself to work when you don't want. Instead do something else productive. Also surround yourself with those things or related things you want to work with, for the very least it will feed your sub conscious with potential new ideas.

Sam Erwing said it best:
It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours.

Surely combining fun & work is great method, I'll sketch and watch anime, often I get alot of good ideas either by accident or by noticing and drawing 'em down!

Resistance may be combination of many things, like desire of other things. Try to find the truth, love and power, this has worked me wonders.

[Trezker]

My suggestion is that instead of forcing yourself to work, you should allow yourself to work.

The way to do this is to restrict how much you're allowed to work, and when.
If you say to yourself you're only allowed to work on this project 8-10 AM, you will be much more likely to work on your project than if you think you can work on it any time you like.

Anytime you feel like working on it and it's not 8-10 AM, you stop yourself from working and feel a little frustrated about it. It builds up something in your brain so that when you then enter the timezone where you're allowing yourself to work you have the whole brain with you.

[JVMallory]

Oooh boy, do I know where you're coming from. I can sit there looking at my work - which I want to accomplish! - and this cry "but I don't wanna do it!" will be going through my head.

One thing that's been helping me lately is Autofocus System. The author, Mark Forster, explains it like this:

The system consists of one long list of everything that you have to do, written in a ruled notebook (25-35 lines to a page ideal). As you think of new items, add them to the end of the list. You work through the list one page at a time in the following manner:

1. Read quickly through all the items on the page without taking action on any of them.
2. Go through the page more slowly looking at the items in order until one stands out for you.
3. Work on that item for as long as you feel like doing so
4. Cross the item off the list, and re-enter it at the end of the list if you haven’t finished it
5. Continue going round the same page in the same way. Don’t move onto the next page until you complete a pass of the page without any item standing out
6. Move onto the next page and repeat the process
7. If you go to a page and no item stands out for you on your first pass through it, then all the outstanding items on that page are dismissed without re-entering them. (N.B. This does not apply to the final page, on which you are still writing items). Use a highlighter to mark dismissed items.
8. Once you’ve finished with the final page, re-start at the first page that is still active.

I've been testing it out for the last couple of weeks, and I've noticed that the resistance has lessened, because at any one time I work only on a task that I feel like working on, and I do it only for as long as it feels right. After that, it's to whatever I feel like doing next.

I've accomplished a lot more like this than with any other trick I've tried over the last humph years.

Good luck! Tell us how it goes!

JV

[etalian]

Originally Posted by JVMallory

Oooh boy, do I know where you're coming from. I can sit there looking at my work - which I want to accomplish! - and this cry "but I don't wanna do it!" will be going through my head.

One thing that's been helping me lately is Autofocus System. The author, Mark Forster, explains it like this:

The system consists of one long list of everything that you have to do, written in a ruled notebook (25-35 lines to a page ideal). As you think of new items, add them to the end of the list. You work through the list one page at a time in the following manner:

1. Read quickly through all the items on the page without taking action on any of them.
2. Go through the page more slowly looking at the items in order until one stands out for you.
3. Work on that item for as long as you feel like doing so
4. Cross the item off the list, and re-enter it at the end of the list if you haven’t finished it
5. Continue going round the same page in the same way. Don’t move onto the next page until you complete a pass of the page without any item standing out
6. Move onto the next page and repeat the process
7. If you go to a page and no item stands out for you on your first pass through it, then all the outstanding items on that page are dismissed without re-entering them. (N.B. This does not apply to the final page, on which you are still writing items). Use a highlighter to mark dismissed items.
8. Once you’ve finished with the final page, re-start at the first page that is still active.

I've been testing it out for the last couple of weeks, and I've noticed that the resistance has lessened, because at any one time I work only on a task that I feel like working on, and I do it only for as long as it feels right. After that, it's to whatever I feel like doing next.

I've accomplished a lot more like this than with any other trick I've tried over the last humph years.

Good luck! Tell us how it goes!

JV

This is neat, going to give it a try.