The GTD Guide for the Incorrigible Pessimist

I don’t know if you noticed, but most of the GTD (Getting Things Down) methods and various motivations do not always work. Or they do not work long enough. Or they work, but not for everyone. You can do whatever your heart desires. For example, writing another list with your goals for a week, for a month, for a year, but at least for the rest of your life is not a matter of principle. You can cover the entire monitor (apartment or office) with posters or motivational inscriptions - this is not enough to get out of the quagmire into which it has been sucked for a decent number of years. And you can also spend a tidy sum of money to attend another seminar with a self-motivation guru, who will reveal to you one more "most important secret": "You must remove the words" impossible "," I can not "," I will not do "from your vocabulary forever." Sounds fresh, right? And that doesn't work either. Only money is a pity in the end, but it's a shame to admit to others.

Therefore, we suggest that you go from the opposite and try another, perhaps equally useless or with a short shelf life, method - but it can help those who are already sick of the rays of joy and happiness sent from the stage by coaches and other gurus. Tested and approved by modern psychologists and ancient philosophical traditions.

The special charm of this method is that we, lazy pessimists, do not need to go through a complete transformation of our personality and break ourselves through “I can’t” (“I don’t want to”).

1. Don't wait for a burst of inspiration

The main problem with most GTD systems is that they don't tell you exactly how to get things done, but give advice on how to motivate yourself and create a sense of accomplishment. It is a philosophy of positive thinking that focuses on positive feelings rather than a specific act of action. And as a result, instead of doing something that you don't really want to do, you double the feeling of unwillingness, because in addition to completing the task, you must also feel yourself in a certain way.

James Hill, a practitioner of Morita Therapy (a Japanese tradition influenced by Zen Buddhism), says that most Western practices are primarily aimed at changing the sense of self and controlling the senses. This approach suggests that we must overcome our fear of jumping from a tower into a pool or have the courage to ask someone out on a date. And most of us would not do anything, continuing to wait for inspiration (or until a roast rooster pecks in the crown in a hot reporting season).

2. Try to start with the simplest things

David Burns, author of the bestselling cognitive psychology book Feeling Good, recommends this option to those who are paralyzed by their perfectionism. He advises to devote at least 60% of the working time to standard (mediocre) tasks and warns that it will be very difficult to restrain himself.

Positive thinking gurus are advised to set daring goals for yourself (we crossed out the word “impossible” from our vocabulary, remember?). "If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough!" And this statement further encourages perfectionism, which already prevents you from completing things on time and in a normal psychological state. It is already so difficult to restrain yourself so as not to get to the bottom of the little things, and yet the goals are great, which means that small steps turn into almost seven-mile ones. Well, how can we not find fault here ?!

Burns' technique helps to get out of the vicious circle. If you commit to doing standard tasks, even perfectionism won't hurt to complete them on time. If you try and still can't afford low quality standards, keep moving forward and don't get hung up on one thing.

3. Focus on the process, not the result

The famous novelist Anthony Trollope forced himself to sit down at the table and write for three hours every morning, regardless of whether his muse came to him this morning or decided to take a day off. Like many other writers and artists, he set himself the main goal: "write every morning for three hours", not "write a great book." True, if he finished the book in 1, 5 hours, then he immediately proceeded to write the next one, which is an extreme. But that's not the point. The most important thing is to understand that the result does not always directly depend on our efforts. Sometimes we do better than expected, sometimes worse. And the performer is not always to blame for this. And since the result is an unstable and unpredictable consequence, why not focus on what we can control - on the process.

Sports psychologist John Eliot, author of Overachievement, emphasizes that no one is stopping us from doing a good job and that all we are responsible for is the process itself. Worrying about the result will not help you to do a good job.

4. Imagine things could go wrong

What do positive smiling people usually advise us from the stage (or from the screens, in their motivational videos)? They do not even allow you to think that everything may not go as beautifully as we drew in our head. But the ancient Roman and Greek Stoics (representatives of the philosophical school) offered a completely opposite approach: to imagine how terrible everything can be. Just go and think about the likely bad. Modern psychology calls this approach “defensive pessimism,” and it can be a very useful tactic for weakening the power of scenarios that cause anxiety. Research also shows that overly rosy perceptions of outcome are more likely to have negative effects and reduce motivation.

And this does not mean that we should inflate our fears to sizes that are difficult to control: it will lead to panic. The trick is to adjust the visualized horror to the right size. While incorrigible optimists shout to us from the stage that we must believe in the successful outcome of the case and in our dreams, the stoic approach suggests that we realize all possible outcomes and believe that you can cope with the task, even if everything goes well. not as rosy as you planned.

I am aware that all of the above sounds at least strange and does not suit loud motivational slogans. But practicing psychologists say it works for incorrigible pessimists. You can test these approaches in practice;)