My Motivation Is At an All-time Low. How Can I Master My To-Do List?

As a tumultuous 2020 draws to a close, we’d forgive you for wanting to give your brain a well-deserved break. But at this time of year, snowballing Yuletide chores can easily become an avalanche. That’s why our gift to you is a mental hack that’ll help you avoid starting 2021 buried beneath all the jobs you’ve not got round to yet.

"Take 10 seconds to figure out how each task aligns with something meaningful," advises neuroscientist and productivity specialist Gabija Toleikyte. "For instance, if the idea of lengthy queues for your partner's present is a drag, think about how being a good husband is important to you." That might sound like self-help talk, but it’s a strategy based on sound science.

"Reframing a task as something you want to do makes you 24% more likely to succeed"

A 2008 study by researchers from McGill University, the University of Ottawa and the University of Massachusetts found that reframing a task as something you want to do, rather than have to do, makes you 24% more likely to succeed.

"When we do things that align with our values, it supplies our mind’s primal systems with dopamine. This is the foundation of motivation," Toleikyte says. To sustain this productive drive, however, the prefrontal cortex – your mind's concentration centre – requires an occasional short pit stop.

​Article from Men'sHealth - Original article

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