Now here is a challenge: to find pleasure in moving (from Humboldt County to the San Francisco Peninsula).

Ecch. Any ideas for how to make this fun? 6 years ago

Today I did a boring task as a meditation. It was a task that needed to be done with a lot of care, but was not very interesting: copying some text out by hand for a personal letter. So I used it as therapy. I actually went pretty fast, but I didn’t rush. I just let the task calm and focus my mind. I ended up not making a single mistake. (The letter was eight pages long.) 6 years ago

that are really tough to sit down to do.
Many times I have gotten things done by pretending that it is “my job”. You know, like a paying job with a boss and all that.
I will do that with this unpleasant task, act as if it is NOT up to me..I work for General Motors and I’ll be de-moted if I don’t follow through! 7 years ago

I will pretend that I have just come home from a long time at sea! (well, I was visiting the sea but luckily not from a rusty old tub for months). Yeah, I will pretend that I am just getting my sea legs back and that I am really glad to be home (which is actually the truth)..but for the sake of this exercise I’ll be the captains daughter, the girl who was lashed to the mast of the Hesperus during the big storm, you know the Longfellow poem? shoot, I don’t think she even GOT to come home, something about freezing on the mast. dreary. But I’ll use it for my image to get through unpacking! (Because I am kind of cold and still thinking of the ocean) I mean, what do you bet the heroine of that poem would have loved to have had a bag or two to unpack, if only she could? 7 years ago

most unpleasant! I mean..geez louise why did I leave everything to the last minute!

In order to have fun doing this I am going to put on some Beach Boys music. Most of their music is fast, except “In my room” 7 years ago

I cleaned out one complete cupboard. Only about 7 more (including drawers) to go. 7 years ago

I’ve been stalling.

Today I am going to work on the project right after lunch. I am going to pretend that Donald Trump is going to be inspecting my work in one hour! 7 years ago

and I finished..(cleaning up the mess in the bedroom) hooray for me! 7 years ago

now I just have to straighten up my home office. How can I make this rather unpleasant task more interesting? I might take a page from good old Flylady’s book and just set the timer. Yes..I will work on this until 8 pm (20 minutes from now). I will stop working promptly at 8 pm. It will be revealed to me just how much I can get done in 20 minutes!

Honestly, it IS better than nothing. 7 years ago

Yesterday as I worked on my kitchen project. I imagined that I was a woman I used to work for. She was a one woman army as she did things. She was just unstoppable in the getting things done department! Her name is Gene.
I imagined I was Gene. 7 years ago

I am adopting this shift in thinking! I have been slogging through my chores..today I am going to try apteryx’s method which is to think of the task in a new light!

I have this kitchen project that has just been a bear. Today I get to take some time off from it (to help a friend) but when I come back I will think of the project in a whole different way!

I know in the past I have been able to do things like paint and clean rental property, and I managed it because I viewed it as my “full time job” (until I got through it).

Just saying the right words to myself..that is what it takes to get through something I am not all that keen on doing. 7 years ago

Here’s an idea for how to overcome procrastination: find ways to make unpleasant jobs fun. It might just be a change of attitude, or it might involve modifying the task a little. (This is sort of the opposite of giving yourself a carrot for completing the job. Here, the idea is to make the job itself into a carrot.)

For example, washing the dishes might become fun if I time it. Or put a time-limit on it: no washing the dishes after a certain time. This triggers the “think up clever strategies for doing it efficiently” part of my brain, making it fun.

I used to work at a software company where a Russian mathematician was very lazy all the time, would only do work sluggishly, was always taking breaks, and generally did not seem to be enjoying himself. I was having a wonderful time. One day, he said, “Of course you are having wonderful time. Everything for you is game!” I encouraged him to take the same attitude: just treat everything as a game instead of a burden or something terribly serious. He didn’t try it. He seemed to think that being 47 years old meant that you couldn’t do that anymore.

Hopefully, if a job is fun, then it won’t require gigantic amounts of willpower to get myself to do it. Staying focused on it and not getting derailed onto something else might be easier, too. 7 years ago