Ask HN: How do you concentrate when the task is demotivating? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you concentrate when the task is demotivating?

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Simply, how do you manage to finish tasks where you are required to, but unwilling to do so?

Usually my methodology is to try and do the tasks I dislike first, using the reward of doing stuff I am more excited about as the goal. That helps me push through it the vast majority of the time. I also just tell myself to stop being an idiot, just do it and be done (personally this is my way of pushing myself sometimes). No matter what, the more time spent in thought and internally complaining about a task means you will make it worse and it gets harder and harder to do, just execute and be done.

When I mentor people that is usually my advice, suck it up, do it and be done. And stop spending mental energy complaining or building it up to be something more then need be.

I am not criticizing you or anyone, we all have these tasks, just sharing my own thoughts/methods on how I deal with it.

I like your approach on pointing complaining/exaggerating as an extra mental energy. I have lived my life believing that time is not money. Time is more expensive than money. I can’t motivate myself when the rate of time/money exchange isn’t good. Some of my friends think that I have a narcissistic tendency. But I really just value time more than money. That is what bothering me to be exact.

Well, mainly two things: perseverance and/or obligation. If it’s work related you need to finish your tasks otherwise you risk loosing your job. If it’s something personal you either have to push your self and do it or it will go to the drawer of unfinished projects. Try breaking big tasks into smaller ones, allocate a fixed time where you’ll work an a specific (small) task, mute distractions (email, social networks...), mix boring tasks with something else interesting so that the traction/inertia of the good one will also push the bad one ;-), have someone else motivate you or check your progress, try doing these tasks while listening to music (if feasible).

Perfectly written. Thanks.

To give a little insight of what is demotivating me, it is not the tasks that are big, instead it is the tasks that are just small and not mentally challenging. Simple but frequent and time consuming. It bothers me in a sense that whenever I work on these I just feel like a car where the gearbox is on a Neutral Mode. Not going further even though the engine is running.

Automate them?

Give yourself a reward for doing them?

Gamify them? (Compete with yourself for how quickly you can complete them, for instance.)

I go by the 15 minute rule: I have to put in 15 minutes of work on it before I can get distracted and do something else. Once I get going, it tends to be pretty easy to keep going afterwards. If not, I give it some time and try it again.

Gonna try it, and update the outcome

I dream about ways I can get out of working, then wait until the very last moment to piece it all together.

Every single time it seems less and less likely the latter happens. I look through hiring threads and maybe dream that, at a different place, I would enjoy building out features.

But that is causing a distraction and dreaming of a better environment/better work is only demotivating more in this situation, given that you are working on a task which you are lacking motivation.

If I can't concentrate on a task that means there is some source of friction that I need to think about that I'm not addressing.

As I stated in the other comment,

Why ? Because it is simple and time consuming. How do I make it attractive ? Only if I can finish them without consuming time. How do I save time ? Automating, orienting to the result, batch manage them to feel like a challenge. What is the problem then ? When automating doesn’t work, when results don’t appear, when managing bulk tasks(multitasking) ends up being mentally tiresome instead of challenging, I get frustrated because they are way too simple tasks and I can’t deliver. To simplify it; Imagine when you can’t remember the name of a person but remember every other details of his characteristics, it gets only more frustrating

I'm not a therapist. So I recommend finding one and discussing the issue with them instead. My original recommendation works for me but obviously it's not gonna work for everyone.

Thanks for your answer, and sorry if I sounded like a psycho lol

You didn't sound like a psycho.

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