Management can be an overhead, especially if there is too much of it or it’s not doing its job right. The same applies in your learning activities. Sometimes you can tie yourself up in too much tracking. This distracts you from doing the work that moves you towards your goal. Part of the management task is to also provide you with work space, however sometimes distractions or other responsibilities can clutter that space. Lastly, you need to manage issues that arise during your learning.
Let’s look at these points in more detail:
· Too much tracking? If you find yourself spending too much time tracking your progress, rather than making progress, this can sometimes be a sign of low motivation. In addition, measuring your progress too often can also lead to low motivation, especially if you keep “looking up” to see how far you still have to go. Keep your tracking activities to a minimum. Allow yourself the flexibility to get “a few degrees off course,” rather than feeling the need to track your progress every minute.
· Manage distractions or other responsibilities. Low motivation can also be the result of too many distractions from your other responsibilities. One of the management tasks you have is to make sure you have enough mental space for your efforts. If you find that space continually crowded, you may need to find ways to rearrange your responsibilities. This may mean you need to suspend your activities if other responsibilities become more important than your goal. Be wary of chasing a goal while ignoring your responsibilities.
· Manage issues. I consider distractions as circumstances that arise outside your learning activities. Issues are problems that arise within your learning activities. As you progress, it’s likely that you will come across various issues that you need to deal with. One may be that you are having difficulty mastering a topic. Another may be that it’s taking you more time or money than you thought, or you are not getting along well with your instructor or a classmate.
I suggest you use a common project management technique called “issue management.” Write down your issues. Work out what impact they have on you. Consider how important it is to deal with them now or at some point in the future. This technique helps you understand your issues and just how large they are. Low motivation may come from an exaggerated sense there are too many issues in front of you. Writing them down can take the emotion out of them and give you a plan for addressing them. Often they don’t appear so bad after you’ve written them down.