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whales comments on Habitual Productivity - LessWrong
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That's basically what happened to me: I taught myself to feel guilty whenever I was relaxing and not working, but just the fact that I was feeling guilty about not-working didn't make me any more motivated to actually work. So I would repeatedly get into situations where absolutely nothing felt like worth doing, so I accomplished basically nothing and felt miserable for the whole day. Cue an extended burnout that took me several years to properly recover from.
Oddly, it feels like one key part of my recovery has been to train myself to feel as unguilty as possible about any recreational activity. That way, if I really need a break I can take one, but if I'm on a break I can also honestly ask myself whether my break has gone on long enough and whether I'd want to resume doing something more productive now. Though I'm sure if that's quite right either - it's more like I'm more able to trust that my motivation to do something relaxing will naturally fade after a while, to be replaced with a motivation to be productive again, without me necessarily even needing to watch myself. And of course, since I don't need to actively watch myself, the relaxation may happen faster since I can focus on it more fully. (Of course, sometimes it does take longer, and the key is to be completely fine with that possibility, too.)
The main mechanism here seems to be that guilt not only blocks the relaxation, it also creates negative associations around the productive things - the productivity becomes that nasty uncomfortable reason why you don't get to do fun things, and you flinch away from even thinking about the productive tasks, since thinking about them makes you feel more guilty about not already doing them. Which in turn blocks you from developing a natural motivation to do them.
So if someone did go by this mindhacking route, they should be very careful to avoid developing guilt. The guest who had developed a dislike for fritos didn't dislike them because eating them made her feel guilty: she disliked them because she had started noticing features in them that she felt were repulsive. Also, I suspect that "actively pay attention to the features in productive tasks that are desirable" is just as important an component as noticing the displeasing things in non-productive tasks. If we assume the opportunity cost model of willpower, then your motivation to do something is proportional to the difference in estimated value between that thing and the second most highly ranked thing, implying that increasing the perceived value of the productive things can be even more efficient than decreasing the value of other things. (Guilt in this model would act as a negative modifier to the values.)
Also closely related posts: Pain and gain motivation, It's okay to be (at least a little) irrational.
Yeah, I just want to chime in as another person who got burned (out) by this early on, and who keeps seeing it happen to other people. I've since practiced better motivation hygiene and it's served me well.
Cool, any specific tips on good motivation hygiene you'd recommend?
I agree with the gist of what others have said here. There are lots of ways to contaminate productive tasks with aversiveness that isn't intrinsic to the task. Unpleasant work environment is pretty obvious. I spent one undergrad summer commuting by bike, and I'd always get to work sweaty and tired in a bad way. Because that's what I thought of when I thought about going to work, I spent a lot of days unproductively working from home. For the next job that had a bike commute, I took active measures to avoid the same problems, and now I look forward to biking to work.
I agree especially strongly with what Kaj_Sotala says about using guilt (or other negative emotions). Boredom and frustration can also be problems. When I notice them, it's usually not because my task is itself boring or frustrating; I've just become disengaged or I feel stuck. So I remind myself of this, think of all the reasons my work is actually cool and worthwhile or of the progress I've made, and then take a break, switch tasks, or carry on.
Or sometimes I notice that I strongly don't feel like working and am unlikely to get much done. In these cases I've found it's better to simply set things down for a while and to do some mental work to make sure I don't feel guilty about quitting, rather than try to force myself through it. (Of course, it's even better to make myself feel like working again. But that's quite a trick itself.)
Conversely, I spend leisure time doing things I enjoy and endorse. The taste I've cultivated means that a lot of cheap and addictive entertainment doesn't especially appeal to me, and it gives me a sense that my enjoyment of things is a little more meaningful than it was before. I've spent some serious thought concerning blocked-out leisure time and endorsed activities, so that I can trust my past self's strategic planning and not worry about wastefulness.
I guess I haven't been too specific. These ideas depend on more fundamental skills like mindfulness, or noticing and dealing with negative thoughts. Those are big topics themselves and the specific implementations tend to be idiosyncratic. Still, I hope this is helpful.