Add Some Hooks

You open your laptop in the morning to start the working day. What should you work on? While your body is present, your brain is still somewhere else. So, to orient yourself, you turn to some available information radiators. You check mails. You scroll through social media. Before you know it, you get sucked into either doing something that is not what you actually should be doing (reactively going through your inbox), or doing nothing worthwhile at all (procrastinating under the guise of productivity, also called doom-scrolling).

Sounds familiar? When you don't feel particularly inspired, it's easy to get trapped in some sort of side quest instead of focusing on what you actually wanted to do.

My solution? I create hooks.

Something I can grab and attach my attention to when otherwise not able to direct my energy.

Usually, I have a couple of ToDo's waiting for me when I open my laptop in the morning. They are not there by chance. I plant them deliberately, often the day before.

These are my hooks that will get me going. I don't even have to think about what I should do. I grab one of those hooks, and start working.

I also leave hooks throughout my work. A simple note - "scan this other document, too, and create a cross-reference" or a quick link to something I wanted to read can be enough to direct my energy when I lack the ability to do so on my own devices.

The important thing about hooks is that they must be concrete, and specific. Otherwise, they will not work. The mental load of making the hook actionable must be literally zero. As soon as making sense of the hook requires effort, you won't do it; The hook slides out of your hands, and you'll probably start doing something else.