So end of another 4-week block, and this challenge was a bit of a disaster
First to the things that went well.
Savings are growing steadily, I stuck to the 10 ideas a day thing, and I'll continue doing this for the next 4 weeks, I also more or less kept reading Seneca every day (sometimes I didn't get to it and then did 2 chapters the next day).
The writing on the other hand went pretty much nowhere. It feels like when I set myself the goal to write I just won't do it. I journaled a bit and wrote a giant rant, but I didn't really write anything I could post anywhere, and even if I count the stuff I wrote, it wouldn't be 4 pieces of text.
This kinda made me go down another rabbit hole this week, I had a deep dive into motivational stuff, habits, etc.
After watching the probably 20th video about motivation, I had an odd realization. If the techniques of those motivational speakers work so well, how is it that their conferences, talks, ... are always so full. I mean, if it would work like they say it does (and I think it does for some people) nobody would need them anymore. So I kept searching for some alternatives and found a more eastern approach that resonated with me a lot more than all the western ideas.
This Harvard psychiatrist talked about different styles of people and how they have different styles of motivation. In short, there are people who get motivated quickly but lose interest as rapidly as it shows up, there are others who have a more steady motivation that holds for a medium length, and there are some who take a while to get going, but then continue for ages once they hit their threshold. I'm definitely in group one. I want to do something, start doing it for a couple of days and then drop it again. I always beat myself up for that, because everyone just says things along the line of "Just work on it consistently and you will get good". Now the simple solution to my problem is just a rotation. If I have 4-5 ongoing projects, I will most likely be motivated for one of them, once I lose interest I rotate to another of those projects. But instead of doing something new, I just simply switch between the same projects all the time until one of them is done. That way I should be able to keep my motivation up and get stuff done. In the long run, I'm probably a bit slower as if I would focus on one project after the other, but as I don't get anything done with the old system this might actually get me to get some things done.
I used this concept, my notes from Atomic Habits, some notes on Gamification, and a bunch of notes and journal entries to create a rough motivational system focused on myself, what might work for me and what worked in the past.
The main focus of this system consisting of a wall full of papers right now:
-Multiple varied projects that I started but never finished, right now this includes:
*Editing some short stories I wrote.
*Finishing a mobile app I stopped working on once I had a prototype
*Learning some songs on the guitar (I played regularly in middle school, but haven't played much the last years)
*Some odd random small "projects" that I need to get done, like resetting an old PC and selling it etc.
-My long term goals, like ERE and some other more personal goals, short/mid-term goals are connected to the long term goals to show me why I want to do them.
-A couple of quotes I like that usually get me going.
-A habit tracker for something things I want to do daily, like reading at least 30min every day, the 10 idea challenge, etc.
-A list of regular chores and markers which one I have to do, this just makes it easier to keep track of than a to-do list.
-A "book" of ideas, here I collect ideas for future projects, once I finished one of my ongoing projects I can take an idea from there and replace the finished one.
-A "book" of done project, what I did, what I learned etc.
-A "Quest log", just a list of done tasks, helped me a lot in the past to see that I actually make progress.
Things I want to add:
-A bunch of mood board like images of how I want my life to look in the future.
-Some pictures of the people I'm doing things for (I realized that I am way more motivated to get things done if it is "for others" and not for myself)
-A tracker for some of the long term goals, maybe with milestones and things like that.
-A reward system and some other gamification ideas.
I just finished putting everything up yesterday, but already today I see a change. Just the visibility of the tasks, projects and so on makes me want to get going. Seeing how the wall changes if I finished a task and crossing things out, sticking up new papers, and writing down done tasks feels great. So I'll see if this works for the long term, if not I might adjust things, remove and add some stuff and tinker with it until it works.
This also leads to the next 4-week block.
I will continue doing the 10 ideas per day thing and reading Seneca.
I don't want to add something like "Write 4 pieces of text" because this just doesn't work. So I'm changing that to "Work 1h on projects every day, 2h on the weekends." This leaves me room to switch between things, but I also should make some progress in that time.
Other than that I also want to get out a bit, things are opening up again here and I got my second vaccine this week, so I also added "Go outside at least once at the weekend"
That might sound stupid, but for someone who loves to be alone and in front of a PC or book, I really don't get outside enough. I mostly just want to read in parks for a bit or check out some of the libraries and attractions in the area, and meet up with friends a bit more regularly. So putting this on my ToDo makes me actually go through with it.
Anyways, this post is getting pretty long again. I'll keep you guys update on how the whole thing with the motivation system works and probably be posting general updates soon