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Strugling to stay motivated/disciplined...

MindLibMindLib Registered User regular
edited August 2012 in Help / Advice Forum
Since school finished a few years ago I found myself becoming less and less organized. I feel like I'm accomplishing less, and just caught in the day-to-day doldrums. I still have things I want to do/learn but laze has really crept into my life like a fat ninja. One example; I want to learn a coding language (PHP for web-dev). Learning Spanish is also on the list. I have started to learn these things at least half a dozen times. I'm good at preparation, but I can never stay disciplined enough to stick at it.

Anyone have any tips or crazy guru tricks to stay disciplined to stick to a schedule?

MindLib on

Posts

  • NocrenNocren Lt Futz, Back in Action North CarolinaRegistered User regular
    What distracts you? Apathy? Procrastination?

    I have similar problems, so have you tried doing it in a group environment instead of going solo? Maybe having someone coach you or someone to compete with will help?

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  • milehighmilehigh Registered User regular
    Same issue, and I tend to get a lot more motivated when I have a reason to learn something. Not that learning for learning's sake isn't great, but it doesn't always spawn necessary motivation for me. I don't code much, but is there some grandiose project you want to try that can focus on, or even work on as you learn? Or in regards to Spanish, plan a trip some amount of time in the future where the language would be useful. Then you've got this awesome reward at the end to think about when you're going through the tedious and tough parts. That usually helps me a lot. For example, when I got back into playing the piano after 10 years, I knew I had a lot of tedious work to do to catch myself up to proficiency, but I kept thinking of my favorite piece that I'd be able to play once I got through it all and how much I wanted to be able to do that.

    Another somewhat odd idea that worked for me was to work out every day. For whatever reason working out got my juices flowing such that I was motivated to accomplish something and not sit around. Plus you get on a routine doing that, which makes jumping into another project easier (I work out, then I come home and do x for an hour, then I'm free to (insert favorite useless activity here).

    Like breeds like and whatnot. YMMV of course, but those two techniques have worked well for me.

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