I have had it.

[ninevirtues]

I am learning things that I do not care about, even a tiny bit, except that I must know them to pass the boards.

Here's a partial, by no means exhaustive list of the things I do not care at all about but must learn:

- How to position someone in bed after they've had a stroke
- How to prevent decubitus ulcers (bedsores) in someone who can't move
- How to fit people for wheelchairs
- How to perform chest PT (whack people strategically on the chest until they cough stuff up, then measure how much stuff there is and assess its color and consistency)

Worse yet, my professors have a way of making the things that I am interested in painful to learn. Arrrrgh. Like physiology, say.

Fine. When all else fails, resort to outright bribery. I hereby decree that if I am good with my schoolwork, I may buy a bike part. (I'm gradually upgrading a road racing bike and building a cyclocross bike. Because I'm not working, and I'm on a small budget, I"m struggling with my own personal covetous consumerist desires for nice bike parts.)

Fine. I may have them. I just have to work for them. They are a reward for good effort. Now to structure the deal.

I ought NOT to say "I may have a new bike part if I score well on my exams." That's an outcome goal. I can study perfectly, and still not score well.

I also ought NOT to say, "If I spend X hours studying, I can have a bike part." Hours spent does not guarantee that learning has occurred.

Hmm... I can say "If I walk in feeling thoroughly prepared for the exam, and I can honestly say I did my best at each one, then I may have a bike part."

I'll let you know what transpires....

Comments

[kf6gpe.livejournal.com]

Aah, yes... the subtle art of motivating oneself to do what under no reasonable circumstances need never be done!

Your approach is good. I like your third statement. I do agree with your concern about the outcome goal (your first) --- although that's often what I've done with those ugly parts of finishing chapters. "I may have x if I finish Chapter y on this date"... and then I get sick or something catestrophic happens, and it's disappointing, but at least I can look forward to having x once Chapter z is done. :)

Do keep us posted!

Hey, tell me more!

[ninevirtues.livejournal.com]

Ray, you sound like you have plenty of experience motivating yourself this way. Please tell me more about what kind of rules, or deals, you make for yourself and how you structure it.

Re: Hey, tell me more!

[kf6gpe.livejournal.com]

Well, that's really the basic trick. I had to come up with stuff to get over things like writer's block and general laziness when I started writing, because other than breach-of-contract and no money at the end of the year to scare you, there's little adult supervision to keep you on-task for the little stuff.

First, set reasonable goals on a daily, or weekly interval. These should be fair to yourself and measurable. When all I was doing was writing, I'd set a minimum goal of two pages a day. (That, by the way, was Jack London's goal: he wrote two pages a day, had it done by noon, handed it off to his wife to type, and went fishing.) I often have two goals for a day --- what's minimum, and what I want to achieve, recognizing that sometimes when I get into it, i just can't bat a thousand, and let myself stop after acheiving the minimum (but never, ever before). These goals aren't rewarded --- they just are, like having to do the laundry.

It's the larger stuff I may pin a reward to, and then only if I realize I'm having motivational problems with. For example, now that I'm pretty well established, I don't need to pin a reward to finishing a chapter every two weeks --- it just gets done. Typically, though, about 2/3rds of the way through a book, I hit a real slump, and I've been known to add a reward for keeping to the schedule. Often, the rewards aren't material, they're things I want to do, such as outlining the next chapter out at a coffeeshop, (meaning until I hit my goal, I can't work anywhere but at home), or taking Jarod hiking at the beach, or going out for an afternoon someplace I want to go, like Half Moon Bay or Nihonmachi.

Used to be that the really big stuff would get set with a reward hinged to an item, like finishing a book. I do less of that now, primarily because I'm more confident about hitting those goals. But the idea is the same.

In figuring out the goal/reward, for me the criteria have always been:

• The goal must be measurable. "I'll write this weekend" doesn't cut it. "I'll write for twelve hours this weekend" is a bit better, but realistically, "I'll produce ten pages this weekend of solid copy" is really where it's at, because at the end of the weekend, you can hit print and count the pages.
  
• The goal must be reasonable. I don't get very far setting goals like writing twenty pages a day, or writing a thousand debugged lines a day. (I've attained that level of output, but not reliably or often!!)
  
• Rewards are for goals that are challenges.
  
• What challenged you yesterday may not challenge you today, and may become a challenge again tomorrow. Go with the flow.
  
• Over the years, I've found for me that better rewards are experiences or things to do than material items. That may not always be the case, and your mileage may vary. And don't think that experiences are cheaper than things --- I remember a reward exxcursion to Half Moon Bay more expensive than many of the computer toys I bought that year, even though we didn't plan on spending any money!
  

Re: Hey, tell me more!

[ninevirtues.livejournal.com]

Hmm... wow, a lot of that I hadn't considered before. Thanks!

I'm experienced at setting measurable experiential goals ("complete this workout") and experienced at setting measurable production goals (clean this room) but how do I set a goal for studying that is not tied to the outcome? (If the professor writes a really tough exam, and everyone scores an 80 on it, "Score 92 on the exam" is not a realistic or fair goal. Likewise "score better than 90% of my classmates" depends equally on their effort and mine.) "feel prepared when I sit for each midterm" seemed like the best I could come up with, but really now, it is not specific and measurable. And if it only takes me ten hours of studying to be prepared, I don't want to set a goal that I should do 12. How would you set a goal that ensured you put in good effort to study, but didn't require you to produce anything specific?

Re: Hey, tell me more!

[kf6gpe.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Hard one --- like you, most of my outcomes are pretty measurable. And of course, I forget that with all of your training, you'd be pretty good already at the athletic ones!

How about: "Pass the test and be honestly satisfied with my score"? There's something discrete and measuable here --- either you pass or you don't. And in general, I'd like to think that between knowing you and knowing how tests are likely to be, if you study, you'll pass; the catch is whether you'll be happy with the score! So, from that perspective, passing is the measurable part, but you can also ask yourself afterward if you're satisfied, given the level of difficulty. Did you genuinely think you did well? Goal met. Disappointed because although you passed, you got a 80% on a test that you and everybody else thought was easy? Maybe not, then.

It's a little fluffy around the edges, but I'd try it and see how it worked.