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A reward at the end of a three week project is not attached to anything you do on a Tuesday. Hang small ones off the steps instead, and choose things you genuinely like rather than things you feel you ought to want. It can feel like bribing yourself. It is closer to paying yourself on time.
To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life and reward them according to the best of their actions (Quran 16:97). Reward is tied to what is done, not withheld until everything is complete.
النحل
مَنۡ عَمِلَ صَٰلِحࣰ ا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوۡ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤۡمِنࣱ فَلَنُحۡيِيَنَّهُۥ حَيَوٰةࣰ طَيِّبَةࣰۖ وَلَنَجۡزِيَنَّهُمۡ أَجۡرَهُم بِأَحۡسَنِ مَا كَانُواْ يَعۡمَلُونَ
To whoever, male or female, does good deeds and has faith, We shall give a good life and reward them according to the best of their actions
Qur’an 16:97read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A meta-analysis of sixteen studies of behavioural activation found that monitoring mood and deliberately increasing pleasant and rewarding activity produced substantial improvement in depression. It supports placing rewarding moments on purpose rather than waiting for them to happen. It was tested as a treatment for depression, so using it to get a room painted goes past what was studied.
Cuijpers P, van Straten A, Warmerdam L. (2007). Behavioral activation treatments of depression: a meta-analysis.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A reward loses most of its pull the further it sits from the thing you did.
One question to keep in your pocket: if I skip this now, how will I feel about it on Thursday? Ask it at the door of the task, then move.
If not knowing makes you itch, the work is learning to sit with the itch rather than making it go away. The plan can stay unfinished while you get on with today.
The hardest kind of delaying to catch is the useful kind. You clear the inbox, sort the cupboard, answer three messages, and all of it is real work, and none of it is the thing.