Life hack request: I want to want to work.

DanielLC

I have a master's project I'm having trouble working on. It's something I've wanted to do, and I even started working on, long before I started my master's degree. If I can't even enjoy that, then I'm doomed to spend eight hours a day doing something I hate for the rest of my life. Even if I manage to improve my willpower, I doubt I'll be very productive doing something I don't want to do.

Does anyone have any idea how I can enjoy working more?

I could work as little as I need to pay for necessities and internet. Since "internet" seems to include everything I could ever possibly want, this would work great for me. However, I'm not the only one I care about. I need to be productive, because if I don't donate as much as I can to the best charity I can find, hundreds of innocents will die.

Also, this project is somewhat of a lower limit. Insomuch as there is anything productive I want to do, I want to do it. If I can't manage to do it, I can't be productive.

It seems like a bad sign that you didn't say "I want to work."

I didn't say that because, for the most part, I don't want to work. I would like to like to work, though. It would help me accomplish my goals in life, and, unlike if I did it with sheer willpower, it wouldn't come at the expense of my own happiness. Making myself like to work isn't trivial. It's not the sort of thing most people consider as something that you could do. However, I've seen guides on here for things like becoming bisexual and learning to enjoy polyamory, which seems much more impressive.

When I have trouble working, it usually takes the form "I have trouble starting to work without using something like Beeminder + Pomodoros, but once I start working I have no problem continuing."

If it's clear what I need to do, and I don't run into unforseen problems, then this is how it is. Often, I have no trouble working for an hour or so until I run into such a roadblock. Sometimes, I'm not sure what to do and I can't even start.

I'm not convinced tricking yourself into enjoying it more is the best solution.

Why not? If I enjoyed it more, I would have less trouble working on it. It's not like it's not something that can be enjoyed. People have fun working on productive things all the time. I've had fun working on productive things. It's just that it never seems to last very long.

However, I've seen guides on here for things like becoming bisexual and learning to enjoy polyamory, which seems much more impressive.

It does? You mean http://lesswrong.com/lw/453/procedural_knowledge_gaps/3i49 and http://lesswrong.com/lw/79x/polyhacking/ ?

Personally, an asexuality hack would impress me the most. But I think that may be beyond possibility, barring drugs. :)

Sometimes, I'm not sure what to do and I can't even start.

The trick is just to start anyway, unless this is prohibitively expensive; things start falling into place after enough ... (read more)

8CronoDAS13y

Ah. We have a motivation! Do you expect that completing this project will get you money to donate immediately? Or is it one step in a long process that will someday result in doing paid work for money, so you can someday donate money and save lives? If it's the latter, it's easy for me to understand why you're frustrated. You're (faced with the prospect of) putting all this effort into something and getting (what feels like) absolutely nothing for it. Of course you're having trouble wanting to do it! [...] Sounds like you're taking on a difficult project, then, or at least one that's difficult for you. Doing an activity that requires creativity, such as writing or programming, tends to be much harder than doing something you can reduce to a series of habits. Solving a cubic equation symbolically is easy if you can look up the cubic formula, but deriving the formula on your own is nearly impossible. When I've had writer's block, standard advice such as "write an outline" is useless, because if I could have written an outline, I wouldn't have been stuck in the first place. The hard part of writing isn't what happens when a writer is typing, it's what happens while a writer is staring at a blank screen "doing nothing". Anyway, the best productivity/motivation hack I can offer is this: Don't work alone. Get yourself a partner and work together with that person. If you get stuck, maybe your partner won't be, and you'll probably get much less frustrated with the work itself. You'll also keep each other on track, too. This can backfire if you start fighting with your partner, but overall I find myself becoming much more capable of doing things when I'm doing them with someone else.

11

Life hack request: I want to want to work.

11

11

11

Life hack request: I want to want to work.

11

11