What do you do when you don’t feel like working, but there is a lot that needs to be done? Is there something you can do about it?

Remember

Expanded perspective

We all have been in this situation, and it is very common to not feel like working. There might be a tight deadline staring at you and you just don’t feel like working and getting it done.

Working even if you don’t feel like working is easier than you think once you figure out why you’re not able to make progress or get started.

Figure out the reasons

Not liking your work

One of the most common reasons is simply, that you just don’t like doing what you are doing for a living. But that is the thing, you need to do it to pay the bills and get things going in life.

Figure out what you want to do and work on it as a side project. Once your side project can give you enough to earn a living, move on from this work. Till then, read the following tips to reduce friction at work. 😬

Not feeling connected to the place you are working at

If you feel that you are not feeling connected with the workplace, maybe because you feel that you are not valued in the organization. It is time to move on to the next opportunity. If you feel there is a scope to talk about it with someone in the organization, do that.

Personal challenges

We go through different phases in life and at times things can be challenging. It is common to carry personal emotions to different areas of your life. At the end of the day, you are human and you can’t just keep switching emotions for different areas of your life.

If you feel this is the case and you understand that you need to get things done, continue reading.

If you feel you need more time, you can just close and move on.

Just gotten into this habit of being lazy with distractions

This is the most toxic one. Without even noticing you can get into a habit of procrastinating on things until you have no other option but just to get it done.

You need to be mindful of this pattern. You need to ask yourself if you are keeping everything that you have to do aside for later, in exchange for something that you like doing.

If the answer to this question is “YES”, you need to change. 😠

It is very difficult to train your actions to listen to your mind. You might have to force yourself a bit at the start but you will feel better as you get the backlog of things cleared. It is a very liberating feeling when you finish something you have been holding off on for a long time.

There can be so many reasons why you don’t want to work, but for everything, there’s just one simple answer, get started.

Start 🏃‍♂️

This is one of the most simple and straightforward solutions. There is no magic tip that is going to work, you will have to start working. You can’t take any shortcuts, if it has to be done, it has to be done.

If you have to go from one point to the other, you will have to move.

Don’t overthink it, just focus on starting. Don’t think about the finish line or how big the task is, or even worse, are you even good enough to get it done? Don’t let any thoughts block you, just start.

Try starting with writing down a list of things that you need to do. Having a list gives you clarity on what needs to be done. You can see things that you need to do, and they are no more just in your head.

There’s something beautiful about writing things down; it just makes big tasks feel smaller and manageable. If it still feels difficult to manage, break the task down even further into smaller tasks.

It is important to break the tasks down as small as you can. It makes taking action easier. Without worrying about the timeline and how and what you just need to focus on one small task at a time and that is a lot easier to do.

If you want, you can write a description of the items mentioning what you need to get done. This will reduce the friction even further, as you will have clarity over what needs to be done when you start the task.

When we are planning things out, we are in the flow, and we can think and piece things together easily. And when you are looking at a task in isolation, having that information just helps in understanding what needs to be done.

Once you have these small pieces ready to be done, pick something small that you can finish in the next 10-15 mins.

And once you’ve picked something up, it’s as easy as just getting started.

Take away

I know there’s no new information in this post, and there is no magic tip🪄. There is no extra tip that can help you get things done. It is as simple as getting started. But I hope this post would have inspired you to plan better and help you reduce friction while getting started.