Comment by Viliam1234

Yeah. Sometimes the reason you can't focus on something is that some part of your brain is trying to tell you that you shouldn't.

Unfortunately, that part of the brain usually sucks at coming up with an alternative plan, and "do something else, anything" is not very actionable. And you still need to pay your bills somehow.

The natural reward for work is work done. I don't need a motivational system to do the dishes. The motivation is seeing the dirty dishes gradually disappear, and the kitchen become cleaner. I don't need to create pieces of papers to represent that, because it is already happening right there, in real life.

If I work on a project, it helps to specify all things that need to be done (as opposed to working on something open-ended), so that I can see how I am getting closer to the moment of "done". A nice thing about test-driven development is that you produce a set of checkboxes first, and then you gradually check them off. Even if the work is open-ended, if I keep thinking about new features that would be nice add, it helps to specify a "version 1.0", and after achieving it, a "version 2.0", etc. The idea is that after each version I can take a break and feel that my work is done.

The least motivating thing is probably the job, as an employee. You work for 8 hours a day (generously assuming no overtime). There is no way to complete those 8 hours in e.g. 4 hours of working harder and then take a walk. In theory, if you do Scrum, you should have a certain reasonable amount of work assigned per sprint, and if you do it faster, then I guess you can take a short break and do something enjoyable (such as refactoring). In practice, almost no one does Scrum by the book; you will probably be randomly interrupted by extra tasks, and given unrealistic deadlines to avoid the possibility of completing the work earlier.

Another demotivating thing about the job is that there is no personal consequence of completing a project; you immediately start working on a new one. The natural response to completing a work is to congratulate yourself and take a break. But at work, the vacations are mostly unrelated to projects. Also, you are paid per time spent working, not by the number of projects finished. So it is all disconnected.

So I guess it all needs to be a part of some greater project, which can possibly be completed one day. Such as, putting your money in index funds, and planning to retire as soon as you reach a specified amount. Then each day you can congratulate yourself for getting 0.01% closer to the goal. (Or you can save money for other specific things, if that is what you desire.)