Productivity isn't about how many hours you work. It's about what you get done during those limited hours - Tom DeMarco

I was an unmotivated mess of a person. I slacked off left, right, and center. My productivity level was basically zilch, a complete waste of space. That's not because I wasn't intelligent or talented (I definitely am) — but because I didn't have any structure. Motivation — that's all it takes to be productive: a desire to do so. But this is something we all seem to start off with at birth and slowly lose as we get older . And, as you can see from my story above, it's not just a psychological phenomenon. It's a neurological one too.

Motivation is a chemical process in the brain. When we're motivated, our brains release dopamine, which makes us feel good and gives us energy to get things done. But when our motivation runs out, we don't have any of that dopamine left and so we feel tired and lethargic instead.

The Lifecycle of a goal 🎯

In a nutshell, there can be 3 triggers to a goal: Idea 💡, Motivation 🏋🏻‍♂️ and Action 🎯. Should look something like above.

Idea is the trigger that starts the process in your mind and you'll never act on it unless you're motivated to do it. Idea can be triggered by external factors like Inspirations, Reading, Realization or even comparisons. This phase is very notorious and can happen anytime and anywhere, especially when you are not looking for it, right?

Motivation is the trigger that moves you to take action. An idea may turn into your goal, irrespective of the timeframe. For example, I realised a few months ago that I must be active and should hit the gym at least 3 times/week. My Motivation was my poor health and I came to this realization from some external factors.

Action is the trigger that puts your idea into practice. For example, My action was to get some kind of physical activity atleast 3 times/week and consistently.

Consistency requires commitment and dedication that can only come from within yourself, i.e., Motivation. Are you starting to seeing a pattern?

The Paradox 🕸

The idea only happens once and will be outta picture sooner than you realise. The paradox is that your motivation fuels your actions, and in turn, your actions fuel your motivation, as shown in the picture. Its like an infinite loop, right? But the motivation will fade away with the time, which will be impact your actions as well. And before we know it, we will fall behind in our commitments and goals we set out for.

So, if you want to stay productive, as well as motivated, it is important to constantly feed your motivation. Its simpler than it seems and super effective! And this is how we can fuel our motivation day in and day out?!

The Blue Pill 💊

The best way to do this is by setting short - and long-term goals for yourself. This will help you plan ahead and stay on track with what you want to accomplish, and break down to weekly or even daily if you are really willing. The short term goals must be simple, achievable and easily track-able.

For example, a long-term goal could be to grow impressions on one's blog tenfold in two months; the short term goals could be broken down into consistently putting out blogs five times per week, posting summaries of those blogs on other social media, and linking the blog in the comments section.

When you achieve your smaller goals weekly/daily, this will help to fuel your motivation and you can tap that motivation to take actions on your short term goals. This will lead to consistency and dedication without spreading yourself too thin.

This methodology can be applied to any type of goal, whether it be long-term or short-term. As long as the goal is trackable with a system, realistic and can be broken down into daily or weekly goals, this method will work.

By celebrating your small achievements, sharing your achievements with everyone, using hashtags like buildinpublic or writeinpublic to share your learnings and finally looking at how far you've come and embracing the journey you'll be able to fuel your motivations even further.

Takeaway

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. – Paul J. Meyer

Here is a little TLDR;

• Create a system
• Create measurable and realistic short- and long-terms goals
• Hit your daily/weekly goals
• Celebrate small achievements
• Share it with the world if needed
• Look at how far you've come
• Most important of all, embrace the journey

If you are still here and learned something from this article, please do share your thoughts and share it with anyone who'd benefit from this.

A little something about me: I dissect the complex topics every week to its very fundamentals and share my views with everyone especially in the space of web development 🧑🏻‍💻, Web3, NFTs and Blockchain ⛓, UX and UI 🎨. Thank you!