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I'm starting to suspect that I may have MASSIVELY underestimated the negative motivational impact of not having a clear sense of one's next action in a project. A general goal like "I should work on my thesis some more" is way too abstract to feel yummy on an emotional, and I now think that on many previous occasions when I thought I didn't have the motivation to work on something, my "lack of motivation" was actually a lack of a clear understanding of what I could do next. Similarly, I also notice that in any activity which has felt motivating, there has also been a clear sense of the next action on every step.

I'm now installing in myself a Trigger-Action Plan, "when I notice myself being reluctant to do something, check if that reluctance isn't me being uncertain of what my next action should be". But while noticing this is a necessary first step, it still doesn't indicate what one should do next. One might think that the logical next action would then be "figure out my what my next action in this project should be"... but "figure out my what my next action in this project should be" is also a vague goal without an obvious way to implement it! If I'm working on something big, sitting down and taking a while to figure out what I should do next also feels like a big, unpleasant and effortful thing to do.

The first thing that comes to mind is "Stop trying to motivate yourself to work on the thing: instead just keep the project in mind and play around thinking about the different aspects of it. Focus on questions like 'what could I do about this next' and 'what parts of this feel interesting', but don't try to force any answers: just approach those questions with genuine curiosity until something interesting pops up." This seems like a somewhat promising approach that might allow one to find the next action without it feeling terribly effortful, but there are probably even better ones.

Ideas?
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