Phrase Your To-Dos As Questions To Motivate Yourself

Phrase Your To-Dos As Questions To Motivate Yourself

If you find it hard to tackle the boring list of to-dos in front of you, Haim Pekel from IQTELL’s productivity blog has one suggestion: phrase them as questions or challenges instead.

Picture: Ethan Lofton/Flickr

He explains:

I found out that we’re more likely to read something if it has a question mark attached to it which led me to change the way I write tasks.

Let’s start with one of the most boring tasks that I know off, doing your laundry.

Instead of writing it like the mundane task it is i.e. as a declaration “– Do the laundry at 8 PM“, write it as a question or even a challenge! This will rub some extra flavour into it “Can you finish the laundry before 8:30 PM?” and will make sure you’ll tackle it.

Asking question stimulates our curiosity; curiosity is an engine that motivates us to explore and discover.

He shows off a few ways you can do this, from simply phrasing it like a question (as described above) to asking yourself why you want to do a certain task (“Why should I ask for a raise tomorrow?”) and asking yourself about the specifics (“What snacks should I buy for the party tomorrow?”).

These are similar to ideas we’ve shared before — that is, adding context and making tasks more specific — but it’s an easy way to make that happen. Hit the link to read more.

Are We Managing Our To-Do Lists All Wrong? [IQ Productivity Blog]


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