Well! Hello there! It’s been about a zillion years since I have been here to bestow my boundless wisdom into the ether, but it’s a new year (off to a fucking insane ridiculous dumpster-fire start) so what better time than to write something non-useful?!
Today, I bring you Jessica’s top tips for motivation through boring stuff! These are my best distilled (who am I kidding?) tips that I regularly use to force myself to do* boring things that must be done. I have tried out most of these with the 9-year old as I struggle hard to try to convince him to complete the endless worksheets that are supposed to make him learn from home (but mostly make him hate school, and get mad at me). I tried getting the Ok from his teacher to just burn all of this and go look for bugs under logs instead, but that was not well-received. So, since I am a rule-follower, we are slogging through the backlog of work, sprinkling these tools along the way, keeping the old “get ‘er done” goal in sight.
1. Change of scenery
Yes, we set up a room in the house (formerly the guestroom, but what even is a guest anymore?) as a “classroom” with desks and such, but moving around to work in different areas can break things up and help motivate. Some places we do work: the playroom floor, the couch, the porch, the kitchen counter, the trampoline (not while jumping, that would be a bit dangerous from a pencil-stabbing-eyeballs standpoint), the outdoor couch, the garden, the 3rd floor, etc.
We use these smooth and rigid plastic bin-lids from Ikea as work surfaces for non-iPad work when I am coercing the children to do school work in these different non-desk locations.
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| School on the trampoline - who would have thought? |
2. Colors and things
When doing something boring and repetitive, why not at least spice it up with some fancy colored pens? Or use some cute seahorse stamps to make your 6x7 array example instead of just drawing pencil dots? Stickers? I love this shit.
I feel very pro with my handy change-of-scenery-friendly colored pencil/marker caddy made from some yogurt containers and zip ties.
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| Yogurt containers are handy and cheap! |
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| Cute, and also harder to lose. |
3. Chunks
Break up each giant, intimidating piece of work into manageable chunks: one worksheet page, half an hour of washing glassware, etc. You can even add chunks to a to-do list and cross them off, or make a spreadsheet and color-code the completed/to-do cells to celebrate and track progress.
4. Snacks
I learned this one from someone on Twitter: self-bribery with treats. Allow yourself/your kid to enjoy a gummy bear or similar treat after completing a given little chunk of work.
I also like to use healthy snacks like celery sticks, carrots, snap peas, etc. to keep my mouth and therefore part of my brain busy and distracted while doing something boring. This is weirdly effective.
5. Gum
Chewing gum might be helpful for reducing stress (and therefore maybe improving focus) for those with sensory-processing issues (i.e. see this study), although other work (like this study) suggests it can be distracting and negatively affect attention. Toss up?
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| Remote kindergarten - oh my. |
6. Background music/podcasts and such
I often work much better in loud-ish and/or busy environments (coffee shops, my office with the door open and people walking around talking, etc.). Quiet nothingness makes me feel like I need to be somewhere else – surely there must be something better happening that I am missing? Similarly, I can’t possibly do things like repetitive labwork or house cleaning without listening to podcasts or a book on tape, or talking on the phone.
Maybe put on the soundtrack to The Mandalorian or Star Wars to make it seem like you’re accomplishing something important and slightly dangerous?
7. Trading
Sometimes, the kids trade with one another – the little one does a few too-hard multiplication equations while the older one does a few too-easy lines of handwriting. The older one’s handwriting is pretty messy, and the little one at least grasps the concept of multiplication, even if she’s not quite as adept, so it tends to work out for a few minutes…at least long enough for them to be happy to get back to doing their own work for a while.
I do mental trading with myself – i.e. if I do this one hard thing that I hate (like budgets), then I can do some of this other thing I really enjoy (like writing).
I have yet to figure out how to trade so that the kids do MY boring tasks, but I’m thinking it’s high time they learned how to clean a bathroom at least. Maybe in exchange for coloring? Why do they hate coloring? It’s so relaxing!
Have these tools worked for motivating myself? Why, yes, indeed! For my kids? Not so much! Please send wine/your advice/COVID vaccines.
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| All the things: change of locale, colors, snacks, distracting birds singing in the background, etc. |
(*Caveat: you know I have ADHD, so whether or not I actually complete boring things is another story, but these to tend to help them move in the direction of maybe being done.)
