Greetings, Steemers and Steemettes!

In my first post after my introduction, I talked about the importance of doing things, being active. If you haven't seen it, you can read it up here. What I haven't told you about yet is that I am probably one of the laziest and most inactive man on this planet. I used to have an incredibly hard time making me do things, which has actually caused a lot of problems for me in the past.

Jup, that's me alright.

Needless to say that I had to find ways to work myself around that. Today, I can say that I am still a lazy bum, far away from being as productive as I would like to be, but I am on a good way to being better in this regard. There are a couple of tricks and mind hacks that I learned over the years that actually help me bypass my laziness block, actually making me do the things that need to be done.

These tricks are super simple and work great, especially in conjunction with one another. They work greatly for me, so I want to share them with you. Thus, I proudly present to you, my 5 tricks for bypassing my remarkable laziness!

1. This is an announcement!

Imagine me lying in my bed, its 4 am, my alarm is making noise and the temptation to just hit that snooze button is oh, so tempting. Imagine sitting in front of your computer watching youtube videos even though you could be blogging on steemit. Imagine sitting on your couch doing nothing even though you could be....I don't know, do something productive instead.

Whenever I catch myself doing something else instead of doing what is necessary or productive, I raise my voice and proclaim what I will be doing right after having counted down from 3. I am usually alone when I do this, but when I am not, it creates some fun situations and interactions with people surrounding me, so there is that as some bonus value as well.

It still surprises me to this day, but by the time I have counted down, I usually stand and am ready to do what I just proclaimed.

2. Well, now that I have gotten this far....

Usually, people are being told two things: Either to have the highest aspirations and dreams possible or to just forgo dreaming and wanting to achieve things all together. I think that there is a golden spot somewhere right between these two viewpoints and the one I am going for here is actually quite close to the bottom.

People love the idea of having done big tasks, great success and all the percs in the world and are super easy to motivate short term but once they see how hard and painful the way to such destinations can be, they falter, they fall or, worse, they won't even attempt it.

The trick lies in setting very small targets. What you want to set for yourself is actually the very smallest kind of goal or activity you can think of. Almost ignorable in the grand scheme of things. Imagine having a book you really want to or have to read, but 1000 pages are so much, sun is shining and now that you think about it, there is still some cake in the fridge. Another book, left untouched, unloved, unread.

What you want to do isn't setting the goal of having to read that book completely asap. The goal you set will be something small like "I will read the first couple pages". Not many, make it 2-7 and you're good. Reading so few pages is a matter of minutes, seconds if you are a fast reader. And chances are that once you started, you will just stick with it anyway.

3. In association with.....

I am sure a couple of people heard about this one already, but creating the proper conditions for certain tasks is very important, especially when it comes to doing things on a regular basis. Putting on work-related clothing puts us in a mode for doing work, putting on clothes for sports will put us in a mode for sport. Entering a kitchen or restaurant will usually make you realize that grabbing a bite to eat wouldn't hurt. Associations can work for or against us. In this case, you want to create associations that help you ease into the activities you actually want to do.

If you are at home and still have work related stuff to do, chances are that you are more likely to do them when you sit at your home office desk wearing work related clothing over wearing pajamas lying on a couch in front of your TV. Part of the reason why I was never able to get anything done here in my home is because this entire apartment was crowded with useless stuff that just cluttered my mind with things that were unrelated to actually important things at hand, heavily impairing me and my productivity. So create a good environment for you to do things and put things in your life that you personally associate with the tasks you have to or want to do.

4. Never break the chain

Depending on whom you're asking, it takes anywhere between 2 and 12 weeks to form a habit, but once a habit is formed, a lot of pesky tasks that you dreaded before will be doable without even wasting a lot of thought on it. You can see this especially with people doing sports, once they have been at it for a while, they actually feel unrest and dissatisfaction if they weren't able to follow their routine. And that is exactly where you want to be with things you want to do on a regular basis, be it sports, writing or...anything, pretty much.

Even if it's hard, even if the conditions aren't optimal, even if you know that you won't be as good as you would be otherwise, you still want to go through the process of doing what you need to do in order to form this habit. Once you got there, things will be much easier. You won't even notice that it happened because it is actually quite the smooth process as long as you see it through to the end.

5. Take pride in what you do

This one is rather simple. If you do what you like or if you feel that you are good at doing what you do, chances are that doing it will be much easier overall. So do acknowledge the progress that you make and the success that you have. You've earned it.

Time for an example!

In another post, I told you that I wanted to make a habit out of going out for a run not only once but twice a day, every day. And I hate, hate, hate running. It's such a boring and bland waste of time. Yet I pulled through, did it and actually managed to have some satisfaction in doing so. Here is me going through the steps I described earlier.

I sit here, being the lazy bum that I am and note that it is time to do the thing.

What I say to myself is not that I am going out in order to run for X minutes or for Y Distance, no. I sit here, proudly and loudly proclaiming that after having counted down from three, I will stand up and put on my sports clothes. And that is what I do.

Once I have put on my shoes, II go through the next step. Which, again, is not me saying that I will go for a run now, no. I just decide to take a short stroll to the area where I do my running excercises, I am actually at a point where I don't really need to actually proclaim this anymore because once I have put the clothes on, my body already set the gears for going outside.

Being outside, I go to the place, it's just three minutes away from here. And being there, I might as well take a small jog for a minute or two. And once I'm jogging, I might as well try sprinting once or twice. And now that I have sprinted, I might just do it again.

Just like that, I I tricked myself into going out and not being a lazy bum. And since I have done that a couple of times, I also noticed that I have gotten ever so slightly better at running and even my endurance has gotten a bit better, so I feel good about my efforts paying off.

How am I going to continue?

What I am working on is creating similar rituals for reading and blog posting on here. Once I have that figured out, I will be more productive than I have ever been in my entire life. I have a small side room that I am currently preparing to be my reading and working place. It is a fairly long but slim room, but it has a huge window that doesn't face towards the street. I work better while standing up, so I want to have some kind of speakers lectern that I can use for reading. It is basically the same process as described above, I get my lazy ass up and go to the spot that I associate with reading and do exactly that. Maybe I will put my computer in the same room, but in a different corner so that I can actually use my living room for something more restful.

In conclusion:

Give these 5 steps a try tell me at some point whether this has worked out for you. Also, I am always looking for other ways of kicking my lazy butt, so if you have good ways to motivate yourself into doing things, let me know in the comments below!

Also, if there are topics that you feel could be interesting to see me write something about, let me know. Writing about my personal experiences is great, but I am also here to learn and getting new impulses and ideas helps me doing exactly that.