Set clear goals!

Not knowing what steps to take has been my number one motivation killer. There is nothing that can make me hate any task faster than feeling insecure about what to do. And there is nothing that can make me end up doing something non-productive than this either.

I’ve of course read about the importance of goal setting countless times. But how much this affects both my productivity and the joy that I feel while creating has alluded me until recently. I’ve literally gotten maybe five times more efficient by just having the steps that I need to take written down, in as clear and specific language as possible. 

I know that this must have something to do with how our brains function, but I’m not really sure how. I think that it probably has something to do with how we waste enormous cognitive resources on having to decide what to do over and over again. This would also be in line with psychological findings about what is called “decision fatigue”, which basically says that we have a finite amount of energy for making decisions during the day. 

I would like to conclude with a reflection. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that there are numerous ways that we can improve our day to day lives to make everything run smoother. And that many of these things are common knowledge if we just go look for it. But most of us don’t. Most of us just keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. And so we keep getting the same results.