The Motivation Hacker

by Nick Winter

Precommitment, also known as using a commitment device[37], is a versatile set of tools for increasing motivation in almost any situation. To precommit is to choose now to limit your options later, preventing yourself from making the wrong choice in the face of temptation.

Publicly announcing your goal is a common form of precommitment.

1. Imagine your ideal day. What do you do? Whom do you talk to? Where do you go? Then pick a few goals that will bring your days closer to this ideal. 2. Make a list of every crazy goal you can think of. Then rate each goal on three factors: how much the goal excites you, from one to ten; your probability of success if you tried as hard as you could; and how long it would take in hours[61]. Then sort the goals by excitement times probability of success divided by time required and pick some of the most efficient goals. 3. Imagine that you’re another person, more competent than yourself, who was just dropped into your current life at this moment, without any of your current obligations but with all of your current predicaments. Forget everything that has come before and where you used to be going. What would you do? This is an exercise in overcoming the Sunk Cost Fallacy[62].

Strategies You probably already have a task management system that works well for you so that you know what to do next, you don’t have to worry about what you’re going to do later, you get everything done on time, and you’re not stressed out about it. Good; that’s what you want so you can spend your energies on things that matter. If you don’t have a system, or if your system does not work as described, then you need a new system. There are no shortage of long

short blog posts with equivalently good suggestions, so take your pick. Here are a few, if you need them: • Getting Things Done: http://zenhabits.net/the-getting-things-done-gtd-faq/ • Zen To Done: http://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-system/ • Final Version: http://www.markforster.net/ • Autopilot Schedule: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/04/07/ • Four Quadrant To-Do list: http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/nerdy-productivity-coveys-time-management-matrix-illustrated-with-xkcd-comics If you have a good system and it’s still not working because you don’t follow it, then build a success spiral around it. Take almost every task out of it, and then always do the remaining tasks. As you get more consistent, slowly add more tasks to that system (if they’re worth doing). Tend your success spiral carefully, and eventually you will be able to do arbitrarily many tasks without furrowing your brow in despair or even annoyance. Once tasks afford only accomplishing and never putting off, you don’t have to spend any of your motivation on running your life.

Sources

The major motivation hacking techniques I use—success spirals, precommitment, burnt ships, and being a task samurai—are all recommended in many places, including Piers Steel’s book, The Procrastination Equation, which details the motivation equation and dozens of clever research experiments used to develop it. Look there for more details and supporting science. Steel also suggests many other motivation-hacking techniques, most of which I have tried and found less useful for me personally. Some of them may work for you, though, so I’ll briefly list them here in case you’re looking for extra hacks.

Success Spirals. Set yourself a series of achievable goals and then achieve all of them until you expect only success and failure is no longer familiar. • Vicarious Victory. Surround yourself with motivated people (and avoid unmotivated people) to have their motivation rub off on you. If you can’t change your friends, reading biographies of inspirational people is an easier example of this. • Mental Contrasting. Visualize the success you want to achieve, then contrast it with the not-success you have now. (If you skip the contrasting step, it may be worse than nothing.[111]