Effort creates energy.
What to do when we don't want to do anything.
You’re sitting there, staring at the screen, with the weight of the work on your shoulders, and a mile long to-do list in front of you.
And yet…
You scroll. And distract. And scroll. And distract. And scroll. And distract.
Not to mention the accompanying guilt that adds insult to injury.
I don’t need to describe this scene further to you. You struggle with it. I struggle with it. We all struggle with it. We’re human, and our willpower is a gas tank that only has so many miles in it.
But there is a way through it without burning out our engine in the process.
We move. We mop. Or we minimize.
The reality is that we have to do something. The responsibility of changing our state solely relies on us. No one is coming to save us from ourselves in these moments.
And the most reliable things that work in my own life are the smallest actions possible.
Move.
As in literally move. Walk around the block. Not a mile. Not a workout. A block. Movement changes our state, and it changes it quickly. By doing something as simple as walking around the block, we’ve ripped the bandaid off and getting back to work becomes markedly easier.
Mop.
Or put the dishes away. Or vacuum. Or make the bed. Or straighten up the living room. Mindless tasks around the house create a version of flow that we all experience when we get on a roll cleaning. It doesn’t require our brain, and because of that, our mind gets rejuvenated in the process. It feels like progress even if it’s just mopping.
Minimize.
Do the easiest thing possible on your to-do list. I call these 5 minute tasks. They’re things you can do in 5 minutes or less, and they tend to be the things that pile up on our list and sit there for a while. Send the email. Schedule the thing. Make the call. Fill out the sheet. Our brain doesn’t distinguish between big tasks and little tasks. It just likes seeing the box checked.
When we’re stuck in the distraction spiral, we’re subconsciously avoiding the volume of work we have ahead of us. What’s required is the smallest amount of effort we can give.
Effort creates energy.
And momentum does the heavy lifting from there.
✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin
There's that joke about how a gym keeps it's lights on in January because of all the people who show up to use the treadmills.
Maybe we could find a way to charge our phones from the friction of our thumb on the screen and the infinite scroll...