Want to be more productive? Focus on happiness.
No need to grit your teeth. Just smile.
Don't feel like doing what you have to do?
Stop trying to push through it. Don't grit your teeth. You may want to cheer up.
I have long resisted this sort of attitude but the evidence mounts: Productivity may be more about mood than you ever thought.
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Why do you procrastinate?
You procrastinate the most when you're in a bad mood and think you can improve it with something fun.
When you're in a good mood or when you don't think you can improve how you feel, you screw around a lot less.
Via Temptation: Finding Self-Control in an Age of Excess:
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If you can just get past that mood, you can do great things.
Writers who were literally forced to write were more productive and creative.
Via Temptation: Finding Self-Control in an Age of Excess:
They didn't need inspiration or a muse, they just needed to do the work. But it was their mood that held them back.
Happiness increases productivity
If we're really going to be motivated, we need to feel something. Having a rational goal in mind or thinking you want something isn't enough.
Chip and Dan Heath say that the emotional mind is key in their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard:
Research shows happiness increases productivity and makes you more successful.
As Shawn Achor describes in his book The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work:
So think a little less about managing the work and a little more about managing your moods.
What moves you? What inspires you? Try that. Don't know what makes you feel better? Go here.
Because glib as it may sound, changing your mood might just change your mind.
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