If I feel generally energetic and motivated, think of the most important, intimidating task I could possibly do and work on that. (...)
Frequently, I’ll work on some kind of longer-term intervention to increase productivity, like learning about and implementing some new productivity system. Of course I’ll eventually abandon the system, but it will provide benefits until then.
This strikes me as… unhelpful. Your chief use for motivation, apparently, is to increase your future motivation. I suggest that this is not the way to get things done.
I find that on average, it seems a new system produces benefits that exceed the costs necessary to institute it. Kind of like how in glycolysis, ATP molecules are required early on in the pathway, but the process eventually ends up getting you more ATP than you started with. (One of the few things I remember from ninth-grade biology...)
That’s good input though; I haven’t really been scrutinizing to check to see whether interventions are paying for themselves.
Although it certainly seems that over time, one could learn how to make interventions more persistent, or what kind of interventions tend to be most cost-effective.
This strikes me as… unhelpful. Your chief use for motivation, apparently, is to increase your future motivation. I suggest that this is not the way to get things done.
I find that on average, it seems a new system produces benefits that exceed the costs necessary to institute it. Kind of like how in glycolysis, ATP molecules are required early on in the pathway, but the process eventually ends up getting you more ATP than you started with. (One of the few things I remember from ninth-grade biology...)
That’s good input though; I haven’t really been scrutinizing to check to see whether interventions are paying for themselves.
Although it certainly seems that over time, one could learn how to make interventions more persistent, or what kind of interventions tend to be most cost-effective.