Compassion meditation. It doesn’t seem as cool as attention-focusing meditation, but it associates pleasant feelings with meditating. Such associations can be useful when you later need to calm yourself down while doing the attention-focusing meditation.
My problem with work is often that I try to avoid even thinking about the work. When I should be doing the work, it is difficult to focus, but when I don’t have to work, I completely avoid it in my mind. The problem is, with the things I am successful at, this doesn’t happen. It’s the other way round: even when I’m not doing them, I keep thinking about them. And I suspect that this thinking is a critical component. So now I sometimes try to think about the work when not working. It’s emotionally easier, because it is without the pressure of having to do it right now. And sometimes I have a good idea, which I can use later. Maybe a good strategy would be to go away from the work physically, for a few minutes, but stay with the work mentally. Not typing on the keyboard isn’t the problem; not thinking about the project is.
Also, organizing my thoughts is easier when I keep notes on paper. It is easier to split a big problem to smaller parts, when I write them down. Especially when my mind tries to not think about the topic. I mean, if in my mind I realize this problem has a subproblem, and the subproblem has a subsubproblem… that feels like the right moment to run away from everything. However, if I write the subproblem and the subsubproblem on the paper, then I can decide to just focus on the subsubproblem, and temporarily ignore the rest. The algorithm is: “Either it’s easy, and I solve it immediately, or it is difficult, and then I write down why specifically it is difficult, what needs to be solved first… and then I resursively focus on the subproblems. At some moment the subproblem is so easy there is just no excuse not to do it. (And if you have an excuse not to do the task, you don’t have an excuse not to write down why specifically the task is so difficult.)”
The usual disclaimer: what works for me doesn’t have to work for other people.
Some things I tried:
Compassion meditation. It doesn’t seem as cool as attention-focusing meditation, but it associates pleasant feelings with meditating. Such associations can be useful when you later need to calm yourself down while doing the attention-focusing meditation.
My problem with work is often that I try to avoid even thinking about the work. When I should be doing the work, it is difficult to focus, but when I don’t have to work, I completely avoid it in my mind. The problem is, with the things I am successful at, this doesn’t happen. It’s the other way round: even when I’m not doing them, I keep thinking about them. And I suspect that this thinking is a critical component. So now I sometimes try to think about the work when not working. It’s emotionally easier, because it is without the pressure of having to do it right now. And sometimes I have a good idea, which I can use later. Maybe a good strategy would be to go away from the work physically, for a few minutes, but stay with the work mentally. Not typing on the keyboard isn’t the problem; not thinking about the project is.
Also, organizing my thoughts is easier when I keep notes on paper. It is easier to split a big problem to smaller parts, when I write them down. Especially when my mind tries to not think about the topic. I mean, if in my mind I realize this problem has a subproblem, and the subproblem has a subsubproblem… that feels like the right moment to run away from everything. However, if I write the subproblem and the subsubproblem on the paper, then I can decide to just focus on the subsubproblem, and temporarily ignore the rest. The algorithm is: “Either it’s easy, and I solve it immediately, or it is difficult, and then I write down why specifically it is difficult, what needs to be solved first… and then I resursively focus on the subproblems. At some moment the subproblem is so easy there is just no excuse not to do it. (And if you have an excuse not to do the task, you don’t have an excuse not to write down why specifically the task is so difficult.)”
The usual disclaimer: what works for me doesn’t have to work for other people.