Figuring out what you need to do, planning your time, setting a target…
These are the typical ingredients of any time management system. But you know it doesn’t always work.
And sometimes it can have the opposite effect on your motivation when you miss a target.
Targets themselves don’t seem to be an intrinsic motivator. They can be useful to sharpen your focus, but only if you’re already mentally there.
Maybe targets are a distraction. Maybe the answer is to fully engage yourself mentally with the work, for its own sake.
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This is a great question. I would say that for me, small, attainable targets motivate me to do what I have to to achieve those targets. This is because they are small, and the finish line is always in sight. However, these are only small targets and it takes time and effort to make sure that all the small targets add up to something bigger.
Though targets are good motivators in some respects, they can also be incredibly demotivating. I know from painful experience that “it doesn’t always work” as you put it. I tend to be an all or nothing person, if I fall behind on a particular target, the wheels are likely to come off and I will ditch it completely. This is far more likely to happen with large, poorly thought out targets. The killer is that once I have “failed” it takes a long time to get the courage to start again with a similar target. I feel like the time it takes to recover from a failure is proportional to how big and outrageous the initial target was. This is very, very discouraging.
That is why I keep targets small and specific. I can fail them and it doesn’t affect me too much, but the more I achieve, the better I feel and the closer I get to my big goals.
I din’t know untill now that targets don’t work for me. Figuring out what to do is helpful (essential), but not planning my time. For some reason, targets make me procrastinate.
Thank you for making me aware of it.
Sir,
I believe that targets/goals should constitute an extrinsic motivator within the subset of intrinsic motivator.
Targets goad one to put one’s best feet forward.
They are a sine qua non for anyone doing research (or anything else, for that matter).
Regards, Stuti.
Yes I totally agree. I have problems setting realistic target both in long term and short term. I only know that I have to do my best everyday, but ‘doing my best’ is something difficult to measure if I do not have a realistic target.
I agree. I set time targets and know that if I am working to my capacity for that time I am achieving. This way, I feel that I am achieving everyday. I also set work targets on a progress chart particular stages in my work month by month. I think this is also important to work in sizeable pieces. I suppose it is our attitude and purpose of the targets. Knowing what we strive for, estimating how long it may take, but not knowing until we start working on sections.
I find if I rush to finish towards my target, I end up sending less quality through to my supervisors. I see this as a real negative.