How do you stay motivated?

Posted by louisa on Thursday 8 September 2011 in meta | 10 comments

Apologies for the lack of posts this week and I guess the nature of many of the posts over the last few weeks/couple of months: I’m in a bit of a slump.

It’s a very precise slump though – I’m as generally happy as I’ve been in a long time/ever but feeling a bit meh about most of my work stuff and most practical things. I think it started in the garden in the early summer but has spread to just about everything else in the simple living milieu now and I’m finding it hard to get enthused about doing, or rather getting started doing just about anything. (It’s definitely not helped in areas like the garden, where the job to be tackled gets more difficult with each day I procrastinate, so makes me procrastinate about starting it even more.) Siiigh.

I’ve still been doing some stuff: looking after the chickens, cooking (which is why there have been a few new recipes recently) and bits of crafting, albeit pointless-just-pretty sewing projects (don’t get me wrong, they’re very enjoyable and I enjoy the outcome a lot but they’re not clothes or anything practical) but just about everything else … meh. I’m usually more about the journey than the destination but I can’t get motivated enough to even start the journey at the moment, and the reward of the destination doesn’t seem to be enough either.

I could go into a long, self-indulgent list of reasons what might be causing it but I think I’d prefer to focus on positive ways out of it instead…

So if you hit a motivation slump, what do you do to kick yourself out of it? Do you do things daily to keep motivated? Do you use lists to stop being overwhelmed by things? Do you focus on one area at a time, to hell with the rest – or do you do a bit of everything? Do you have any tricks for, well, tricking yourself into getting started?

Video games can keep my attention for a ridiculous amount of time: any other gamers thought of ways to “game-ify” simple living tasks to keep themselves at it?

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received!

12 in 11 clothing challenge: savings jar motivator

Posted by louisa on Monday 7 February 2011 in anti-consumerism, less than 12 clothes challenge | 1 comment

Taphophile has come up with a great idea for staying motivated during the “12 in 11” clothes challenge.

An artificial limiting-yourself challenge like this can feel like self-denial for the sake of it, which isn’t exactly a good motivator — but Taph has decided to flip that on its head.

How do I keep motivated and show results? While the seven things challenge is partially about reduction, there is a cumulative total that helps measure progress. It is the external indicator of inward progress.

Enter the “savings” jar. Each time I overcome the temptation to buy clothing which pre-challenge would have come home, the value of the item goes into a jar. This creates a visual reminder of progress and ensures there will be cash on hand when the perfect garment appears or to pay for repairs I can’t make myself or buy materials to transform already owned garments (there are some tops and shoes which need dying).
Unravelled: This challenge is, well, challenging

As I say in her comments, I’ve been avoiding looking at things to avoid temptation but if I do struggle over something in the future and decide against it, I’m going to start a savings jar like that — I might use the proceeds to fund an expensive, good quality item that’ll last, something I’d find it difficult to spend so much money on in normal circumstances.

It’s a similar to what I’ve done for funding our automatic chicken pophole door at Alice‘s suggestion – amongst its other advantages, the automatic door lets me sleep in late, which I like, and I’m paying for it in retrospect by consciously denying myself other little treats which I like (eg random chocolate bars/cans of pop) when I get a random, passing craving. Admittedly I’ve only got about £10 in my fund for that because I’ve got out of the habit of even wanting that stuff most of the time but it’s a start :)

Anyone got any other motivation tips?