Do you know this feeling – you are neither tired, nor stressed out, nor overwhelmed. Just a little bit bored, a little bit apathetic, a little bit unmotivated, and a little bit of everything that makes you not want to work… or think hard…or feel obligated to do what you know you should be doing.

There is just some kind of mental resistance that does not allow you to be productive or creative. As if someone has turned off the inner switch of your excitement and desire to make things happen.
I wonder where this feeling comes from and what it is all about?

I know that when I felt like that as a girl, my parents usually called this delicate emotional state of mine – being lazy. Well, if I had to come up with a definition of commonplace laziness – the symptoms would match, but it is still hard to accept that years later– conscious and hard-working individuals can fall prey to something as banal as laziness.

But the fact remains – there are days when we leave some of the tasks on our to-do list unchecked, and there are days when we resist doing anything.

So how do we overcome this laziness state? How do we turn our excitement and productivity back on? How do we re-motivate ourselves to get going?

Some of the tricks I use to get myself back on track

1. Have a plan. Often laziness strikes us when we are not sure what to do next. We lack clarity of what has to be done and why. If this is the case a detailed daily plan or a to-do list can quickly eliminate confusion and funnel your efforts in the right direction.

2. Act on impulse. Do not over-think work. Even the slightest spark of desire to get something done is enough to start your inner productivity engine going.

(more…)

Many people are great at starting things and bad at following them through. I bet if we went through our closets, drawers and garage shelves we would find signs of incompletion: a pile of magazines that we ordered a while ago, but never had time to read; a work out machine, collecting dust in our garage; a guitar that we never learned how to play. And what about all the emails that we did not have time to answer? What about New Year’s resolutions that we are unmotivated to finish?

If it sounds familiar here are a few things you might want to consider, before leaving something unfinished:

1. You spend more energy thinking about uncompleted tasks, than actually doing them.

All the mental energy that we spend thinking about all the unfinished tasks, could have been directed at doing something way more productive and satisfying. So next time you will feel like leaving something incomplete, think twice. Because you are actually making yourself work harder.

2. The hardest part is starting, not finishing.

Starting something is already a big achievement in itself. There are a lot of people, who get stuck in the thinking phase, so they actually never get to taking action on their ideas. Even if you took one little step towards your goals, you have already made progress. You are on the right track. All you have to do is take another step and another step… and little by little you will get there.

3. Perfectionism is the worst enemy of completion.

(more…)

Have you noticed how sometimes time passes laboriously slowly and you continue to look at your watch every two minutes hoping to make it go faster? And there are also times when you have so much to do that you think “How am I possibly going to get it all done in a day?”

Why is it that sometimes we waste time and other times we find ourselves caught up in a frenzy of activity? How do we find the right balance and boost our productivity without having to sacrifice our family time?

After analyzing my own work patterns, reading tons of scientific research on time management, motivation and efficiency, I found that there are 10 primary productivity mistakes that cause 80% of our work stress and make us fall behind even on seemingly simple tasks. And I am not just talking about chronic procrastinators here.

Many productive people I run into, waste on average 2-4 hours a day, doing things that actually decrease their productivity, concentration and cognitive performance!

If lately you have been feeling tired, overwhelmed and underproductive here are 10 Things you should Not be doing:

1. Don’t start without a plan.

While most of us realize the importance of having a to-do list, when we are busy, it is easy to forget about planning and to just deal with things as they come in. Whatever is most urgent gets dealt with first. The least urgent tasks get postponed and often forgotten. But the problem is that getting urgent tasks out of the way rarely means being productive. If you want to ensure that you are focusing on the right things and using your time most effectively, get into the habit of planning regularly! Start each day by highlighting the three most important things you have to do and complete them first. This step alone will save you hours of wasted time and energy.

2. Don’t wish you were somewhere else.

We can spend hours wishing we were somewhere else, doing something better. But the problem is that while we are daydreaming – we are neither getting the work done, nor are we spending this time enjoying ourselves. In fact, the only thing we are doing is actively demotivating ourselves from taking any kind of action, prolonging what we already perceive as drudgery even more. (more…)