[MaulingMonkey]

This is still me, in so many things. On an intellectual level, there are things I want to do that I know I would enjoy, and that would make my life better. On an emotional level, I simply lack the motivation to start engaging in them.

What's helping me is the concept of precommitment.

I have a simple system. It started as a simple weekly wager with a coworker: Every Friday, have a plan for your weekend. Complete that plan during your weekend. Failure in either part costs you a coffee, failure in both costs you lunch.

Those plans can be whatever you want. Ranging from taking care of basic life chores, to working on projects, to getting exercise, and to whatever else might seem a priority.

This doesn't fix the lack of intrinsic motivation to get started per se, but does add another, extrinsic, motivation. More wanting to save face than worrying about the hit to our wallets - both of us willing to tease each other and ourselves for being too meek in our planning when we succeed, or for being too ambitious or lazy when we fail. (Edit: Also out of a sense of competition.)

I'm still searching for intrinsic motivation, but at least as a stopgap, extrinsic motivation through precommitment is doing wonders for my life. Given that it took me a decade or so to figure out this much, I'll more than happily take it.

[mattlutze]

I've moved a lot in the last decade, and this is one of those predicaments I end up in the first months before I build a new social circle in the new city. I've found that my social life thrives if I can find a group with a few flaky social butterflies, who my general predictability can balance well against.

When they get some random activity in their head, they have someone to go do it with and I have that impetus to go do something outside my default patterns. It might be helpful to look at the friends and colleagues around you and see if you might need to go hunt for a little extra flavor in that mixing pot.