Why you should vary your motivation tactics with time to get stuff done

Why you should vary your motivation tactics with time to get stuff done Productivity is a good thing. I think we can all agree on that. Achieving productivity is a whole other devil though. Without the right motivation tactics, even people with the best intentions can fall off the wagon. No matter how far you go with getting fitter, working on an essay or doing revision, it always feels like youre miles out from where you want to be, even if youre really inches away.  Youll never get to where you need to go like that. Its lucky then that a new paper in the Journal of Consumer Psychology has shed some light on how you can summon the will to keep up the momentum of a complex project from day-to-day. When and how to change the focus of your motivation tactics Professors Olya Bullard and Rajesh V. Manchanda of the University of Winnipeg experimented with different ways of framing goals for their undergrads. What they found was that when it came to motivation tactics, timing was everything. Promotion-focused goals In their report, they write that early on in their projects, “individuals represent goals as promotion-focused. In other words, you focus on what youre going to achieve or gain. This works because you have nothing of your own work to compare your progress to. So, every time you move towards your goal, you feel good about yourself because its further from where you started. Prevention-focused goals As you start to wear into the task, however, the little novelty starts to wear off. And thats when you need to switch it up. Bullard and Manchandas study says individuals represent goals as prevention-focused”. Basically, when you get to a certain point close to the end, lets say where you can visualise the end of the task. At that time, you respond better to the threat of losing your current progress than you do to being inches away from your goal. Imagine climbing a mountain reaching the top would be cool, but it would be way worse to plummet to a rocky oblivion before you do. A essay deadline works in pretty much the same fashion. TL;DR Theres a tipping point in all your work where what you stand to lose is more of motivator than what you can gain. Remember this when youre trying to motivate yourself over the long term. Once youve grasped that, you can apply it to your usual motivation tactics. Carry on with your biscuit for every 200 words written regime, but dont forget to sanction yourself with an extra hour of reading for every illicitly-watched YouTube video. Sounds weird, but trust us, theres science to back it up. Connect with Debut on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for more careers insights.