When motivation is lost...

Every now and then you're going to have off days. Days when you're not in the mood to maintain your productivity system, days that just seen to be so busy you don't have time to write things down or capture them in your digital capture tool. When this happens do not despair, this is perfectly normal among productivity ninjas. Here's what you can do when you experience an off day.

The first thing you need to realise is that this happens to everybody at some time or another. For me whenever I find I'm not in the mood - quite often on a Friday evening - I just leave my to do list un-checked. By un-checked I mean I do a quick scan to see if there is anything really urgent, if there isn't I just leave it. All the tasks I didn't do will still be there tomorrow morning, and 99% of the time the next morning I'm back in the mood and ready to go.

If you do lose complete interest in your productivity system for a number of days, weeks or even months I would suggest that you turn off all recurring tasks. This will make it much easier to go back to your system later when you have your motivation back.

However, losing complete interest in your system for days, weeks or months means there is a problem in your system somewhere that needs sorting out. What usually causes this is an overcomplicated system. Capturing ideas takes too many steps, finding the things you need to do that day involves hitting too many buttons or the application you've chosen just doesn't inspire you. Remember your productivity system is all about helping you to get things done. Your productivity system should not be taking up most of your working time. You need to be able to capture things quickly and easily, to be able to process those captured things quickly and your system needs to give you a list of things to do that is easy to see, and I think very importantly, shown in a very intuitive and well-designed way.

So if you have found yourself with a lack of motivation and inspiration for a number of days, Then I suggest that you go back into the App Store of your choice, have a look at some alternatives to your current system.  I would also suggest you grab a pen and piece of paper and write down all the things that you want in your system to make it smoother faster And more efficient. There will be an app out there for you. 

It's hard being organised and productive everyday, I'm sure even David Allen has difficulty somedays. But if you have everything in your system and you trust your system, then knowing that when you're back in the mood you just need to look at your system and you're ready to go, should give you all the motivation you need to be comfortable taking a nice well earned rest.