
5 Tips To Help You Get Motivated To Work (Including My Work Hype Playlist)
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Working from home can be extremely difficult sometimes. Even when I worked in an office, getting motivated on a daily basis was difficult AF. Today, on the blog, I am here to give some advice on how to get motivated for the workday. Let's get ready to kick our work into high gear, shall we?
1. Create A To-Do List The Night Before
One thing I have to do if I want to dive right into work the next day is create a to-do list the night before. I think about the tasks I need to get done that week, and I try to break down those tasks in an easy to accomplish way.
I try to keep this to-do list down to 4-6 tasks, so it's not too hard on the eyes. Don't shock yourself first thing in the morning, keep it simple and write down the most critical tasks. If you finish those tasks, congratulations! You can move on to other things later in the day.
2. Get “Dressed” Up
Getting dressed up means different things to different people. For some, it's putting on a full face of makeup and a fancy dress. For others, it's rolling out of bed and putting on sweats. Whatever getting dressed up looks like for you and your job, do that. Your clothes can have a significant impact on your mood, so don't neglect them.
For me, I am usually in leggings and a shirt. Sometimes I dress up and put on a cute top and jeans. I am pretty low maintenance every day except for blog photo shoot day, though. On a day-to-day basis, I love to wear one of my favorite Metal Marvels bangles, though, because they remind me to get to werk (bitch), to be a goal digger, or any number of motivational phrases.
3. Stop Procrastinating
The more you procrastinate, the harder it will be to start.
Over the next month, I am writing 20,000 words for a client. If I waited until the last minute, I could possibly get the work done, but I wouldn't be presenting my best self to the client, the work would be crap, and I would be stressed AF leading up to the deadline. I don't perform well under stress; I want to curl up into a ball and binge watch episodes of The Mindy Project under stress. So, I created an easy to follow plan for creating the content in a way that keeps me motivated daily.
Put your procrastinating days in the past, so you can stop feeling pressure, and start feeling ease when it comes to your workday.
4. Start Small, And Create Some Quick Wins
Some people live by “swallow the frog,” but I am not about starting my day with a task I don't want to do. Instead, I try to get done with the easy tasks first so I can gain some momentum. I know that swallowing your frog can work for some people, but I don't want to do that. I don't save my worst task for last, I usually try to stuff it somewhere in the middle of the day if possible.
Instead, I like starting my day with simple tasks first so I can get those simple tasks out of the way and start crossing things off my to-do list early. Your worst tasks are usually your longest tasks, and if it's almost 10 or 11 AM and you haven't checked anything off your to-do list yet, it can feel disheartening.
5. Listen To Some Music
Last, but not least, to get motivated to start the day I like to pump up some tunes that get me excited. Anything that makes me dance and gets me excited to tackle the day sounds good to me. I like to create playlists for myself on Spotify as well as listen to other people's pump-up playlists.
I get pumped up by many different types of tunes. Most of the music I listen to daily is either alternative rock, hip-hop, pop, or R&B.
Getting motivated for work can be a hassle! Check out these five tips from The Happy Arkansan along with a playlist to get you excited for the workday. Click To Tweet
My Work Hype Playlist
I made a special playlist for this blog post. I love a good playlist to get motivated working from home, even though I rarely listen to music with lyrics during my time working. While working, I usually listen to music for a while, get hyped, then switch over to Brain.fm because it has a bunch of lyrics-free music. I'm not the best at multitasking, but we've talked about that before.
Here is the playlist for when I need to get hyped up:
- APESHIT – The Carters
- Work – Rihanna (featuring Drake)
- Work B**ch – Britney Spears
- Bodak Yellow – Cardi B.
- IV. Sweatpants – Childish Gambino
- My Shot – The Hamilton Cast
- DNA. – Kendrick Lamar
- No Type – Rae Sremmurd
- Woman – Kesha (featuring The Dap-King Horns)
- HUMBLE. – Kendrick Lamar
- ***Flawless – Beyonce (featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
- Run The World (Girls) – Beyonce
- Started From The Bottom – Drake
- Lemon (Edit) – N.E.R.D. (featuring Rihanna)
- Feel It Still – Portugal. The Man
- Thunder – Imagine Dragons
- Motiv8 – J. Cole
- The Moneymaker – Rilo Kiley
- Cash Machine –DRAM
- Bad Girls – M.I.A.
- In My Name – Jamila Woods
- Starboy – The Weekend (featuring Daft Punk)
- Move On Up – Curtis Mayfield
- Shake It Out – Manchester Orchestra
- Don't Stop Me Now – Queen
Conclusion: Get To Work
I had so much fun sharing some advice with y'all about how to get motivated as well as sharing my Work Hype playlist with y'all. I hope y'all get some good use out of the tips and playlist in the coming weeks.
Share your work hype songs with me in the comments down below! I may add your song to the playlist!