There are just some things we utterly hate doing but we still have to. It could be some mundane work or some difficult task. Here's how you can find the motivation to do those tasks.
Make it an Art
Sometimes tasks can be unenjoyable simply because there is no quality in doing them. For me, writing an article is more enjoyable than cleaning dishes. While an article has incredible depth, ranging from complete trash to life affirming, dishwashing is a narrower activity. I either clean the dishes or they stay dirty. That on-off approach usually makes a task incredibly boring.
One solution I’ve found is simply to take that on-off task and give it more depth. See your boring activity as a previously unrecognized art form you can master. When you give an activity more depth, the interest level goes way up. More importantly, it becomes easier to focus on the task completely, making it easy to swallow.
Several years ago I did part-time work as a janitor. Although this wasn’t a glorious position, I found I was able to enjoy it by doing this step. Instead of seeing my job as being an on-off task, I gave it more depth. I saw that there were many ways I could increase the quality of what I did. Taking on those little steps made the work far more enjoyable.
Don’t Do the Work at All
The best solution is to simply not do the work you don’t enjoy. This may sound like a fantasy, but there are ways you can get away with avoiding the stuff that doesn’t interest you:
* Outsource or delegate it to someone else.
* Eliminate it from your project. (Is it really necessary?)
* Find a better way to do it. Technology and tricks can often help you shortcut boring steps into ones that are more interesting.
Ultimately, you should try to minimize the amount of work you need to do, but don’t enjoy. Productivity shouldn’t be about pushing through the muck, but enjoying work you love. However, if you can’t get yourself to stop procrastinating on an ugly task, these are a few ways to move through it.
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