Motivation for school doesn’t come easily, especially in January, which is why I have given up entirely on trying to motivate myself. In short, I have lost all motivation to ever be motivated. That being said, I still need to get things done, so I have to find some way of doing them. Usually, with things like writing essays or washing dishes at the end of a long day, motivation will come in brief spurts just as things reach a breaking point. The problem, though, is that I end up having to do more things in a shorter amount of time, and also I really hate losing sleep over essays I don’t care about.
In the past, I’ve tried to find motivation by withholding things from myself, but I always end up finding some other, much more boring, form of entertainment. In the end, I’m still unproductive for several hours. Other times, I’ll sit somewhere that’s really cold, and tell myself that I can’t leave until I’ve finished my work. But, that doesn’t work either. I just end up being too cold to do anything properly.
What does work, I’ve found, is not doing work at home. When I try to work at home, it gives me a false sense of security that everything will be okay. In my room, I’m relatively alone, and therefore no one is around to judge me for playing crappy games on my computer or for marathoning TV shows. Sitting in a public place where there are a lot of people around somehow makes it a lot easier to get work done, simply because I feel like I’m being watched (even if I’m not). Sure, this tactic sounds slightly paranoid and kind of weird, but it works, darn it.
That being said, sometimes words don’t come very easily, and it’s still difficult to actually get any work done. That’s when you make stuff up, to be honest. Kind of like what I’m doing right now. Even if your idea is terrible, it’s still worth it to write it down and flesh it out, because while the idea may be worn out and tired, at least you’ll have done something, and it’ll be out of your way. If you have time, you can always go back and fix it. What’s important is getting through that initial push to start something, and after that, it becomes a lot easier for words to flow onto the page.
