Start with the smallest possible thingie.

Last time I had to do The Thing^TM^, I didn't go "let's do The Thing^TM^," I went "let's get ahead of people yelling at me and do The Thing^TM^."

That's the neat thing, I don't.

I have noticed that a lot of my drive to do better comes from spite. To spite my family, showing them that i am better than them and did it without them on my own!

Lower my expectations

Inspiration.

... alas, much falls to neglect relying solely on this method.

All the things here.

The method I've been having most success with lately is a severe restriction of myself.

Part of that is because if I don't wanna do the Thing, it's so incredibly easy to forget the Thing, my mind doesn't wanna hold it.

Currently, the routine I follow when I fail to self-motivate is

1. Drop my kid off
2. Maybe remember pills
3. Maybe remember caffeine (coffee is my goto)
4. Sit on the couch, think about my day
5. The remote is close, do a YouTube on my TV.
6. 4 YouTubes in, now understand the Chinese role in ww2 and the life cycle of 2 different moths, realize I have things to do.
7. Get up, forget the things, make too much food.
8. Watch things on my phone/scroll Lemmy/play mobile games
9. Oh crap I have to get my kid

I have found that removing individual parts, like telling myself "no YouTube today", only works temporarily, until I get distracted by something else, then I forget the new rule. So all it really does is reorder the schedule above.

BUT, I have found that removing all of the distractions, even the important ones like food, until I have begun the important task, helps.

So based on what I typed above, my rule for the day looks like No YouTube, no social media, no mobile games, no breakfast, no sitting on the couch I have to spell out each thing, I can't just say "no distractions", because the me in the moment thinks it's a break or I'm warming up to doing the thing, some nonsense.

After an hour of doing the Thing, I get a break for breakfast, it is important. But once ive put that time into doing the Thing, it's a lot easier to get back to it.

So the new schedule is

1. Drop my kid off
2. Know I need to do something, but the Thing has slipped my mind.
3. Mentally run through a list of things I could do. Because so much is banned, and the Thing is forgotten, this turns up nothing.
4. Realize I haven't taken my pills or made coffee, do those
5. After those, I remember why those are all I'm allowed to do, and therefore remember the Thing.
6. Delay a bit because the Thing is boring or hard, but still can't do anything else
7. Do. The. THING. (For an hour)
8. Breakfast, which feels so good, and dopamines the brain, hopefully making the Thing easier in the future.
9. Do more Thing.

I hope this helps. This is only possible because of my prescribed Meth, caffeine, and because I'm actually a lot better at telling myself what not to do than to just do something. Good luck, we all need it.

lolno

(The answer is find a way in which the thing is good and necessary for someone else. Works occasionally.)

I need accountability, the threat of failing someone looming over my head. Oh... You mean good for me. Nevermind ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ I hadn' t read the complete question

Drink!

Amphetamines

Edit: Seriously, nothing, and I mean nothing helps motivate you the way stimulants can. You can't do this on your own. Your brain doesn't produce the dopamine you need to be a functioning adult on its own; you need drugs to make up for it. Fact of life; nothing to be ashamed of.

I personally like to imagine me doing things for my future self. You know those moments when you feel really grateful towards yourself for having done something good in the past? I try my best to chase that feeling.

Just say "Oh yeah future me, you're gonna absolutely love present me for this", and wash those dishes like a boss.

Sometimes “micro yesses” work for me. That’s where you turn “getting started” into something absurdly simple. Like, way simpler than you think. If your goal is to do the laundry, your “micro yes” is not grabbing the laundry basket, or going into the bedroom, or even standing up. It’s to wiggle your toes.

I listen to an audiobook or podcast when doing mundane stuff like dishes, vacuuming or laundry. Didn’t start out as a hack or plan, just noticed how much more I got done listening to something I’m interested in.

Heavily distract myself by listening to a podcast or audiobook and charging my phone.

I'm actually using this as a positive. There are some I relisten to because I enjoy them so much, its enough to keep a good amount of my brain on it, and let's me do other things since my hands are free.

When I miss parts because I start down some other train of thought, since ive already listened to it so many times I know exactly where I am and what happened.

Thats about the best I've got.

Edit: Apparently audiobook now autocorrects to audiobookshelf, which is very funny to me

Edit 2: This doesnt always work, as I should be folding laundry right now. Going back to folding laundry.

Therapy and prescription drugs.

Gamification

I’ve developed a complex pomodoro system that encourages me to complete a number of pomodoro clocks per day, per week, etc. I’ve completed it with music auto triggers, completion of Streak tasks and calendar events so I can see what I did when.

Also helps with becoming more time aware of how long common tasks take.

It’s constantly evolving too, last addition is that on sick days or mental health down days I’m allowed to complete 4 pomodoro tasks for being sick.

Phases.

For example, Saturday might be meal prep.

Instead of bearing down and doing it all at once, I'll bring out the pans.

Then when I'm refilling my coffee, I might put out the cutting board and a couple ingredients.

Then later on I'm like well I'm have to start it so...

It's just easier that way. Same thing with laundry... First I'll put the basket out by the door... Lol

Probably not great but I usually can get stuff done when I’m stoned

Make things simple. I hate doing dishes but if the sink is emptyish and the dry rack is empty I can do the dishes no problem, the hard part is doing the dishes consistently to keep the sink and dry rack that way.

Or cleaning the bathroom; have everything needed right there under the sink, and have the process down because I get easily agitated so if I have to dig for a brush in another room and then look for soap etc I just rather not. If everything is right there under the sink and I look at the toilet and think it needs a cleaning I don't even have to leave the room to start it makes it a lot easier to suddenly talk myself into it

It helps to have someone to talk to. If I keep telling my friend “Man, I gotta go to the eye dr and get new glasses.” eventually I get embarrassed about saying it so much that I actually do it instead of telling them.

Drugs

I don't 🤷

I don't and then i hate myself for not doing things until it gets unbearable, then hate myself even more when its inevitably less difficult than i hyped myself up for. Its not sustainable at all.

A reminder app

I used to imagine myself getting I. Trouble until I learnt that I have ADHD and I was giving myself massive anxiety problems. Nowadays I just sort of try to push out of my head the possibility of doing anything else, like sitting on my arse isn’t even something I am able to do.

Simply do things before you can think about it. It takes a lot of time to train your brain for it but I swear it works. I think about my goals the day before and keep them in mind. When I feel that little thought of "I should" I do. It's not 100% effective all the time but honestly just make everything as simple to complete as you can and keep tasks you want to do your back of your mind and then pull that trigger whenever possible without question.

Todo lists too

But yeah if I let myself have that time to think about my task I can usually always convince myself to do it later and that's my problem I think