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When You're Unmotivated

The next time you're feeling particularly unmotivated, do the boring stuff first.

Dane Carlson
Dane Carlson
1 min read
When You're Unmotivated
Photo by Sylvester Sabo / Unsplash

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Do you sometimes feel unmotivated? Do you have times when you have brain fog, no energy, and everything feels like, "Why bother?" and "What's the point?"

Me too.

I usually feel it the most in August.  This loooonnnnggggg year (March 2020 - current), I've felt it multiple times.

But I've finally figured out what to do with those times.

I'm sure you have a long list of boring, tedious chores that need to be done but that you've been procrastinating on. I do too, and it seems like they never get done because I'm always doing something more interesting.

During my last unproductive spell, I realized that I didn't want to squander my motivated and inspired hours on meaningless tasks, so now would be the perfect opportunity to complete those menial chores.

So I did.

I made a list of these necessary things. I grumbled and complained, but I relied on plenty of caffeine and worked through them.  I cleaned off my desk, organized the files and did my expenses.

It felt pretty good actually.

Conventional wisdom tells us to do the critical and challenging things first. But doing the boring and tedious work moved me from a state of doing nothing to doing something. And it made me feel like doing something important again.

So the next time you're feeling particularly unmotivated, do the boring stuff first.


So what do you do when you're unmotivated?  Shoot me an email or text and let me know.

Professional Development

Dane Carlson Twitter

Founder/Host of Econ Dev Show. Also: Sitehunt CEO and economic development consultant in Greater Houston, Texas.


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