Piece of paper with "to do" written on itHere are my four favorite tips that I use to motivate myself to do something I don’t want to do:

  1. Double check to make sure that you really need to do the item on your to-do list. On a good day, I cross of about a quarter of the things that I’ve added to my list. They’re just not that important and they get in the way of getting real work done. It’s easy to be busy doing things that don’t matter.
  2. Do the most important thing first. That way, if you accomplish only one thing, you’ll get that one thing done.
  3. Or, if you just can’t bring yourself to start the most important thing, do several simple things first to build momentum and confidence. Just make sure you don’t let the room dandruff, as I like to call it, get in the way of getting real work accomplished.
  4. My favorite: make a pact with a friend. Last weekend my daughter and I each had something we needed to get done: she needed to prepare a German presentation, and I had two blog posts that needed to be polished and posted. So we agreed to forgo doing anything fun and hunker down. She worked on her presentation; I worked on the blog posts. And our collective energy propelled us both forward.

So what do you have to add? What tricks help you move forward and get your work done? 

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