“Whenever you do a thing, act as if the whole world is watching.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Most people are motivated by external factors. They need other people to motivate them, which is wrong. You are not supposed to wait for other people to push you to keep going. What if you are alone and your family and friends are away, who is going to motivate you? You must learn how to motivate yourself. One way to motivate yourself is to set yourself against the clock.
When you notice yourself procrastinating, use your procrastination as a trigger to turn around the procrastination and challenge yourself against it. For a thrill of competition, push yourself a little to your limits. If you are supposed to finish a task by 30 minutes, try to hit it in 20 minutes. See what happens. If you can challenge yourself there is a possibility that you belong to the 2% of people who can self-motivate themselves. These people who can work on their own are classified as leaders. Pushing yourself to achieve something will improve your self-esteem.
When a task that is boring and frustrating, try to make a little game out of it to make it interesting. Try to play a game of, “How many of these could I get done in 20 minutes?” And you’ll find something to do to hit it. “I’ve got twenty minutes. I better make the best use of it.” All of a sudden you make it interesting, and much less boring and frustrating in the process.
Limiting how much time you spend on a task makes it more fun and more structured because you’ll always be able to see an end in sight. A little challenge won’t hurt. You just have force yourself to exert more energy over less time to get it done, which will make you a lot more productive. If you hit it, doesn’t it feel good?