Motivation. It’s as sought after as ‘how to lose weight’. Yet in many ways it’s harder to achieve. When losing weight there’s always going to be some sort of diet to follow, but with ‘achieving’ motivation it’s much more difficult.
Too often I found myself working until 3 in the morning on the due day of an essay set over a week ago. This habit then started to stretch towards coursework as well, a very dangerous path to take as with coursework there are no second chances.
That’s why for my English Coursework, I made it my goal to explore how to get motivated or, at the very least, how to get it done earlier than the night before or early hours of the morning!
I discovered that you can’t sit in a mess, well I can’t any way – if you have piles of work surrounding you for many different subjects then it will distract you and cause unnecessary stress for other work. However with an empty desk or table the distractions are greatly decreased.
Mess isn’t the only distraction though – mobile phones!! Helpful though a phone is for quickly looking up facts it is also the biggest distraction technique, whether it be ‘twitter’, ‘facebook’, ‘tumblr’, ‘instagram’, and hours of precious work is wasted. Even with turning off wifi or 3G there’s still plenty of games to waste hours on. So solution is, hide it/put it in another room.
Hopefully now you should be sitting in a virtually empty room, phone hidden and on ‘do not disturb’ and other work filed away. Next step for me is to find something to listen to, but putting my iTunes on shuffle never seems to work.
That’s why I found out that film soundtracks work the best, preferably those without lyrics so you don’t find yourself singing along! Some of my favorites, are ‘Arthur Christmas’ (especially in winter) or ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ to help achieve motivation and also speed up the process of that long essay or tedious coursework.
Another idea is to buy a relatively large bar of chocolate (ideally one you won’t eat all of in pure desperation!) and hide it just behind your computer or laptop screen. Then you know it’s there but not noticeable enough to distract you. Think of it as a treat, when you’ve written a really good paragraph break off a piece and savor it.
Hopefully by this time you’re set to write that essay, or work on your coursework. It’s also important to remember that once it’s done you don’t have to do it again. The pain of work is only temporary! Also enjoy it, sounds stupid but, you’ve chosen to do these subjects so you must have enjoyed them at one point – find your passion for them and let that ultimately be your motivation!
Good Luck :)
Links:
Arthur Christmas Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuUKrT_4KEI&list=PLE56C85C77867252B
Pirates of the Caribbean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npWSI9iu2i0
