Some days, it’s pretty difficult to stay motivated and productive. It’s a funny and plain fact that the way people approach work is not consistent all the time. We have our uber-productive days where it’s unbelievable how much we get out the door and other days where we wonder what happened with our time. I had a couple of those days this week, and it has me thinking about what to do in those situations.
Honestly, the best advice I can throw out there is to try and focus yourself for 5 minutes on a task at hand. If it’s meant to be, this nugget of time will suck you into a project where you forget about your lack of motivation.
If this doesn’t work, doing something is better than nothing. When I can’t get serious projects out of the way, I look for other tasks I’ve been putting off like organizing my folders or checking out webinars or articles I’ve flagged. Have you been chained to your cube lately? Take 15 minutes to consider who you haven’t lunched with at work lately and try to get something scheduled. Sign up for the yoga or exercise classes you’ve been putting off. One of my greatest takeaways from David Allen’s GTD classes is that all work is work. You have so many random things to do in your life and being able to tackle some of those – no matter how trivial or personal they may be – is still helping you accomplish work.
Don’t just take it from me, here are a few more great posts on this topic:
- Wise Bread shares great productivity rules
- Check out Work Awesome’s list for getting through the dog days
- Lifehacker’s tip to handle that dropped e-mail/phone call (that you put off since you’ve been unmotivated)