Hacker News Reader

Comment by ksd482 | Hacker News Reader

as I was reading the article I was thinking "Oh, you mean labeling your goals differently will cause you to think about them differently and hence, will cause you to plan differently". That is, there would be something tangible that would be different.

So I tuned in to learn more about the technique but I was disappointed to learn that there's nothing more to it at least in the article.

It just suggests to re-label your goals differently and think of them as "quests", but it doesn't mention anything more.

I really want to learn how to make my chores and boring goals fun so that I can go about them doing them. Can anyone please shed some light on this?

I have tried to gamify my work but it hasn't worked for me.

View on HN

I’m not sure the article fully gets there (he’s clearly driving business for his own course), but the general idea is that you don’t set a “goal” of a thing you hope to accomplish - you should be fully envisioning who that future you will be - and what they do every day…then start doing that. So the quest is about who you want to become, while the goal is just an aspiration without a real vision.

Sometimes it can be as simple as asking yourself, "what if this were fun?" What would have to happen?

Well, I'd have to have a different attitude and find something I enjoy about it, for starters. Listening to an extremely engaging podcast or audiobook while I do chores, for example, helps a lot. Or challenging myself to find the humor in a situation.

But those are coping mechanisms for dealing with necessary but annoying tasks. Work related quests require a different approach -- I guess my first question of something feels like a miserable grind is, "is this really the thing I want to be doing with my life?" Sometimes no amount of reframing a job will make it tolerable if it's just not your thing.

At uni I lived with a friend who was doing his doctor of biology. When he got home he went like 200% on all his chores and within a short amount of time he was sitting in front of the TV having a beer. Being very efficient with the boring stuff can help to get it over with. I think about him a lot when it takes me 2 hours in the morning for lunch boxes, dog and getting ready myself.

It has to be authentic in my experience. The naming doesn’t matter. It’s the emotional response it creates.

Procrastination = lazy Or Procrastination = in preparation

Reply on news.ycombinator.com