Part of getting your things done is keeping yourself motivated – what’s the fun in doing your chores if it seems utterly pointless? Sometimes, that motivation is self-evident. You really don’t want your dirty laundry sitting around forever, and not dealing with the bills is creating only more paperwork, not less.
But it’s easy to lose sight of that big motivator when you’re working on small tasks for a project, or things less self-evident. One way to keep the motivation up is rewarding yourself. Now, it’s easy to reward yourself for big things. Shipped that game? Go on a cruise! Completed a major sale? That new iMac sure looks enticing!
It’s getting harder the smaller the tasks are. As much as I’d like to, I can’t go on a cruise just because I worked through that backlog of e-mail messages. And even for big tasks, I can’t just spend money all the time. There’s more in this world than blind consumption. The solution – for me – is to find fun things to do.
Sounds easy, right? Well, go try it. Make a list of fun things that take a week. Half a day to a day. One or two hours. Less than 30 minutes. Less than five minutes.
You have completed that list? Good! If it was anything like my experience, you’ll find it hard to find items for certain time ranges. I found less than 5 minutes to be the hardest. The most important thing I learned from is was to keep a list of fun things as they occurred to me – it’s hard to “just have an idea for fun” when you’re looking for one.
To get your list kick-started, I’ll give you some of the items I came up with – maybe I can get you to share your ideas?
Less than 5 minutes
- Give yourself time to listen to a tune you like. Just the tune and you, no interruptions.
- Look through your favorite coffee-table book. Be inspired by the beauty of the pictures.
- Read your favorite comic strip.
- Close your eyes and meditate, or just breathe deeply to relax.
- Treat yourself to a mini-spa. Wash your face, put on some moisturizer.
- Find a few more answers for your crossword puzzle.
- Just take a quick walk around the office.
Less than 30 minutes
- Learn a few words in a foreign language. (Or more!)
- Do a walk through the neighborhood.
- Make plans for a nice evening out. Don’t forget to invite somebody you love spending time with!
- Brown-bag your lunch and eat outside.
- Read that article you have wanted to read the last five days.
- Have breakfast with a friend.
- Listen to an audio book. Inspirational, learning, career development, or just plain fiction – whatever makes you happy.
Less than two hours
- Play an instrument – for fun. If you practice regularly, just forget about that and play around instead. Pick up your old favorites and see if you can still play them.
- Write an entry in your journal. Unless you truly love sitting in front of a computer, keep it in paper format.
- Play a board game with your partner.
- Make a list of all the places you always wanted to go to. Then pick your favorite one and research it a bit.
- Call someone you haven’t talked to in quite some time.
- Go to a nice cafe and people-watch.
- Get a massage – by somebody who has learned to do it.
Have fun!