That was a great read. Here's my summary: Note: For convenience it's also available with slightly more detail (and formatting!) in my notes repo on GitHub at

That was a great read. Here's my summary: Note: For convenience it's also available with slightly more detail (and formatting!) in my notes repo on GitHub at [1]. --- - Sometimes people don't feel motivated if they focus too much on the rewards involved rather than the task itself - Instead of focusing on the reward, how can we motivate ourselves to care about the task at hand? 3 ways: Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose. - The progress principle: the most powerful motivator is making progress in meaningful work (even just the perception of doing so) - From The Progress Principle: "People’s inner work lives seemed to lift or drag depending on whether or not their projects moved forward, even by small increments. Small wins often had a surprisingly strong positive effect, and small losses a surprisingly strong negative one." - If it's hard to see progress, focus on small accomplishments instead of big goals. What is intrinsically motivating to you? - In a study by Barry Schwartz on West Point grads, intrinsically motivated students performed better and were more satisfied than extrinsically motivated and those with hybrid intrinsic/extrinsic motivation - From Drive by Dan Pink: "So there is this kind of interesting zen-like thing. The route to these rewards is not to be cognitive of the rewards." - Extra motivation from Neil deGrasse Tyson: "The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation." --- [1]: https://github.com/tedmiston/notes/blob/master/articles/How%20to%20Be%20Motivated.md https://github.com/tedmiston/notes/blob/master/articles/How%...