To get motivated, start before you feel like it. For most tasks you've been putting off, the feeling of motivation turns up a few minutes after you begin, once the task turns out to be smaller and less unpleasant than it looked. So make the first step tiny and specific, such as "put on your trainers" or "open the file and write one sentence", decide when and where you'll do it, and clear away whatever makes starting harder. Small rewards and enough sleep help you keep going. If your motivation has been low for weeks along with low mood or no energy, talk to a doctor.
Why can't I get motivated?
You can't get motivated mostly because the task feels unpleasant, unclear or far from any reward, and something easier is always within reach. Research on procrastination by Piers Steel sums motivation up in four parts. It rises with how confident you are that you can do the task and how rewarding it feels, and it falls as the reward gets further away and as distractions get easier to reach (Steel, 2007). A tax return scores poorly on all four, and a video on your phone scores well on all four.
This says nothing bad about you. It does mean that waiting for the feeling to arrive by itself is a weak plan, because the task is what's blocking it. Putting off a task you meant to do, while knowing it will cost you, is what psychologists call procrastination, and if you've started calling yourself lazy over it, the guide on how to stop being lazy helps you work out what's really going on.
Does motivation come before or after action?
For most tasks you've been avoiding, action comes first and motivation follows. Before you start, you're reacting to an imagined version of the task, which is usually bigger and worse than the real one. A few minutes in, you're reacting to the actual work, and that's usually easier to keep doing.
Therapists use the same idea in behavioural activation, a treatment for depression in which people schedule small, meaningful activities and do them whatever their mood. As the clinical psychologist Peter McEvoy puts it, "behaviour needs to change before emotions and motivation will improve" (McEvoy, 2016). In a large UK trial, behavioural activation delivered by junior mental health workers worked as well for depression as cognitive behavioural therapy (Richards and colleagues, 2016). You don't need to be depressed for the principle to be useful.
How to motivate yourself: six things that help
1. Make the first step tiny and specific
A vague task like "study" or "sort out the flat" gives you nothing to start on. A step that takes about two minutes, starts with a verb and describes something your hands do is much easier to begin: "open the biology notes at chapter 4", "fill one bin bag". The guide to the two-minute rule has more examples, and the free first-step tool will write one for you.
2. Decide when and where
Starting is easier when you aren't also deciding what to do and when. Pick a time and a place for your first step in advance: "At 7:00 tonight, at the kitchen table, I'll open the notes." Plans in this if-then form are called implementation intentions, and across 94 independent tests they had a medium-to-large effect on whether people reached their goals (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).
3. Make starting easier and distractions harder
Set things up so the first step takes as little effort as possible. Leave the file open, the gym bag by the door or the cleaning spray on the counter. Do the opposite with distractions: impulsiveness was one of the strongest predictors of procrastination in Steel's review, and a phone in another room is one you don't have to keep resisting.
4. Attach a small reward
Rewards that come soon pull harder than rewards that come in a year. One way to bring a reward closer is to pair the task with something you enjoy and only allow yourself that thing while you do the task. In a study of gym-goers, people who could only listen to gripping audiobooks at the gym went 51% more often than a control group at first, though the effect shrank over time (Milkman, Minson and Volpp, 2014). A favourite playlist that's only for cleaning works the same way.
5. Use a short timer
Agreeing to work for five minutes is easier than agreeing to work until it's done. Set a timer and let yourself stop when it rings. Often you'll keep going, and if you don't, you've still started. When you want longer sessions, a Pomodoro timer gives you 25-minute rounds with breaks.
6. Look after sleep and energy
Everything feels harder when you're tired, including starting. The NHS lists poor sleep, stress and depression among the common causes of tiredness, and suggests sticking to regular sleep times and aiming for 6 to 9 hours (NHS, Tiredness and fatigue). On a low-energy day, shrink the step further and do it at the time of day you usually feel best.
Two-minute ways into common tasks
The table gives a first step for the tasks people most often struggle to get motivated for. Each one takes about two minutes and has an obvious end.
| Situation | A two-minute way in |
|---|---|
| Cleaning the house | Set a two-minute timer and clear one surface, such as the bedside table. |
| Studying for an exam | Open your notes and write down three questions the exam could ask. |
| A work project | Open the document and write the heading and first sentence of the next section. |
| Exercise | Put on your trainers and walk to the end of the road. |
| A hard email | Write the subject line and the first sentence, without sending it. |
| A creative project | Open the project and change one small thing, such as one line, one colour or one bar of music. |
| Paperwork or taxes | Log in to the website and download last year's form. |
| Cooking instead of ordering in | Take out one pan and put it on the hob. |
How to get motivated to clean
Start with the smallest visible area instead of the whole flat. Clearing one surface or filling one bag gives you a finished patch you can see, which makes the next patch easier. If the mess feels overwhelming, aim for "a bit better than before" and let yourself stop when the timer ends.
How to get motivated to study
Start with a task that has a clear end, such as writing three exam questions and trying to answer one from memory. Re-reading has no natural stopping point, which makes it easy to drift. The guide to procrastinating on studying has first steps for common subjects.
How to get motivated to work
Before you finish for the day, write tomorrow's first step on a note and leave the file open, so the morning starts with a decision already made. If you work from home, start in the same place at the same time each day so the place itself becomes the cue.
How to stay motivated
You stay motivated by keeping starts small and regular, and by counting starts instead of results. Motivation comes and goes, so the plan has to work on the days it's gone.
- Keep the first step small after a good week. Let the sessions grow longer while the start stays easy.
- Track when you start. The minutes between your planned start and your actual start are a fair measure of progress, and a bad day only adds one number.
- Forgive missed days. Students who forgave themselves for procrastinating before one round of exams procrastinated less before the next (Wohl, Pychyl and Bennett, 2010).
- Check the goal now and then. People put more sustained effort into goals that fit their own interests and values, and are more likely to reach them (Sheldon and Elliot, 1999). If a goal has stopped being yours, it's fine to change it.
How to get your motivation back
To get your motivation back after a break, go back to the smallest version of the task, even if it feels too easy. After a holiday, an illness or a hard month, the gap between where you were and where you are can feel like a reason not to start. A two-minute step is small enough that the gap doesn't matter. Do that for a few days before you add more.
It also helps to ask what took the motivation away. If the goal no longer matters to you, change it. If something in your life changed, such as a new job or a new baby, adjust the plan to fit the life you have now.
When low motivation lasts for weeks
If your motivation has been low for weeks, especially with low mood, no energy or losing interest in things you used to enjoy, it may be a sign of depression or burnout. The NHS lists "having no motivation or interest in things" and "lack of energy" among the symptoms of depression (NHS, Depression in adults). The World Health Organization describes burn-out as the result of chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed, with exhaustion, feeling distant or cynical about your job, and getting less done (WHO, 2019).
Small steps can still help on hard days, but they aren't a substitute for care. If you've felt this way most of the day, every day, for more than two weeks, talk to a doctor. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, get help straight away from a doctor or emergency services.
Questions people ask
Why do I have no motivation to do anything?
Common reasons are tiredness, stress, tasks that feel too big or unclear, and goals you no longer care about. If it has lasted for weeks and comes with low mood, it may be depression, and a doctor can help you work out what's going on.
How do I get motivated when I'm tired?
Shrink the task to something you can do in two minutes, do it, and then decide whether to continue. If you've felt tired for a few weeks and can't work out why, see a GP, because tiredness has many treatable causes.
Is discipline more important than motivation?
What people call discipline is mostly good set-up: decisions made in advance, a set time and place, and starts small enough to manage on a bad day. That set-up does the work on the days motivation doesn't show up.
How do I motivate myself to do something I hate?
Make the unpleasant part as short as possible, pair it with something you like, and decide exactly when you'll do it. Starting is usually the worst part, and a two-minute step gets it over with quickly.
Startr is a procrastination app built on the ideas in this guide. You type the thing you keep putting off, it writes a first step that takes two minutes, you pick a time and a place, and at that time it counts you down and starts a 5-minute timer. There's no sign-up, and the web app works on any phone or computer.
Get my first stepSources
- Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
- McEvoy, P. (2016, 1 August). Explainer: What is behavioural activation for depression? The Conversation. theconversation.com
- Richards, D. A., Ekers, D., McMillan, D., et al. (2016). Cost and Outcome of Behavioural Activation versus Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Depression (COBRA): A randomised, controlled, non-inferiority trial. The Lancet, 388(10047), 871–880. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31140-0
- Gollwitzer, P. M. & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
- Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A. & Volpp, K. G. M. (2014). Holding the Hunger Games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling. Management Science, 60(2), 283–299. doi:10.1287/mnsc.2013.1784
- NHS. Tiredness and fatigue. nhs.uk
- Wohl, M. J. A., Pychyl, T. A. & Bennett, S. H. (2010). I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(7), 803–808. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029
- Sheldon, K. M. & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Goal striving, need satisfaction, and longitudinal well-being: The self-concordance model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 482–497. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.3.482
- NHS. Symptoms: Depression in adults. nhs.uk
- World Health Organization (2019, 28 May). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases. who.int