The work is tough and demotivating. Yet, the intermediate progression or task completion can often be exhilarating and motivating. When the work is difficult, I noticed that I tend to procrastinate and produce stuttering progress at the initial stages, mostly because I allow myself to be drawn away by distractions just to relieve the mental strain. After slowly edging forward for an hour or two and an intermediate result is finally produced, there is usually a surprising uptick in my energy and motivation, which pushes me to work faster and get the remaining task done in short order.

Instead of spending my first hours in a low energy state, why not force myself to work harder and faster to get over the initial hump? I think this method alone is enough and I don’t need any other productivity hacks.

Update

Recently read an article that discusses about the same issue. Basically, one should work fast to get a task done quickly so that in one’s mind, the work is less tedious and more rewarding. One will than want to do it more.

“The prescription must be that if there’s something you want to do a lot of and get good at—like write, or fix bugs—you should try to do it faster.

That doesn’t mean be sloppy. But it does mean, push yourself to go faster than you think is healthy. That’s because the task will come to cost less in your mind; it’ll have a lower activation energy. So you’ll do it more. And as you do it more (as long as you’re doing it deliberately), you’ll get better. Eventually you’ll be both fast and good.”