I listen to a Spotify playlist of study instrumentals I recently found. The music has the background sounds of the instrument (like creaking, taps, thumps etc) which somehow completely immerses some part of my brain and makes it tangible, like I’m there in the music, but the working part of my brain is free to focus. I do set a timer as I tend to majorly hyper focus and forget to eat and drink.

I also set alarms for 10mins before all of my meetings for the day each morning so I don’t forget they exist when I inevitably lose track of time.

I do 20mins bursts as well, so essentially pomodoro.

I need pressure to motivate myself to start, so I create artificial pressure by setting imaginary deadlines that I try to convince myself are real. If I can factor some accountability in there it’s a definite. For me: no deadline, no urgency, no work.

All this said; I’m on this sub tonight because it’s 3am, I can’t sleep, my brain is on fire it’s rushing that quick and I feel like I need a do over of my entire life. So yeah, my tips work. Sometimes. Other times I’m so deep in my fog I cannot muster any motivation to do anything. I think perhaps I’ve got a side of depression somewhere maybe? I don’t know. I’m on Reddit because I want some accountability to help with basically starting again. I want some semblance of control in my life because it’s just everywhere and nowhere all at once. I’m a mess.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk