I read Josh Bernoff’s post this morning (Simple Motivational Hack), and found it very practical. Step 1 (figure out a worthwhile career goal) can be generalized to be “decide on a goal” (it doesn’t have to be a career goal), which is the start of anything productive. His next steps (create some intermediate steps, set up reminders, think about your goal often, do a reset if needed) are also excellent, but Step 1 has to happen before you can move on the other steps.
I am also finishing reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, and have used two of the concepts from the book this week on starting a new habit. The first concept I used is “make it easy as possible to start”. I chose to write 100 words per day, and decided to do it in the form of blog posts. The second concept is to set up a reward after achieving the goal. Usually, there is a website or two that I read at lunchtime. I decided to make sure to accomplish my goal before I look at the websites. So far, I have been successful (today is day 3)!