Overcoming Resistance

Resistance takes many forms: Electrical resistance is the degree to which a passing electric current is dissipated into heat; Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of antibiotics. But the one we're interested in is that force that tends to oppose or retard motion. You know, like the tasks that keep rolling over on your to-do list, or that pile of papers on your desk, or even that "scary room" in your home.

Here a three tips applied from studies of successful dieting* :

1. Reduce portions. "Researchers call this 'compulsive completion'. Or, as Penn State research nutritionist Liane Roe puts it: 'If your mind sees a food as entire whole, somehow you have this drive to finish it.' " Application: Work on a small portion of a project at a time. Hide the rest to fight your compulsive completion urge.
2. Motivate yourself with music. "Overweight women who played their favorite tunes while exercising were more likely to stick with their exercise regimen for 24 weeks than women who skipped the music, according to findings ... presented at the Annual meeting of the North American Assn. for the Study of Obesity. Application: Play music that revs you up when starting work you have been resisting.
3. Fill your cookie jar with strips of paper with an activity written on them. It could be food, it could be Free Cell; either is a common distracter when resisting work. Application: write out a list of tasks that aren't getting done. Review to delete those tasks that really should be on a "not-to-do" list (payout isn't worth your time investment). Then either keep the purged list on your computer or print and cut into strips and place in a container. Pull one out every time you start for the food or computer games. Remember to keep each task small, perhaps by including a time limit with it. In my case that would be 'Enter speech evaluations into database for 15 minutes.".

See if incorporating one or more of these ideas helps improve your productivity

*quotes are from a December 12, 2005 LA Times article by Sally Squires "Calories Divided Are Easier to Control".