How to motivate yourself (when you're not feeling very motivated)

Try these strategies to get moving on something big

About a week ago, I finished a draft of the last chapter of my next book. I then pasted all my chapter drafts into one gigantic word file. I tried to gear myself up to start editing and just…found other things to do.

This is all a little strange to me as I actually love editing longer works. From my experience with past manuscripts I know that this is truly my happy place. I get into a state of flow as I take an OK manuscript and make it better. Time passes without my awareness. I look up only because I’m starving. I try to create completely open days so I can do this work uninterrupted.

So why haven’t I leapt in? I think partly it’s because I’m doing the mental work of figuring out exactly how to sum the book up (particularly as I still need to write the introduction) and life itself generates plenty of other to-dos.

But I also have some tricks up my sleeve for motivating myself to just get started on something that might be helpful to you too.