A motivation tip from Jerry Seinfeld

I was never a big fan of the Jerry Seinfeld show. It just seemed silly and I've never watched a lot of TV (Go! Heroes! GO!) Ahem... But I came across a great motivation tip on Lifehacker.com, click for the article itself. Basically it comes down to this:

Years ago when Seinfeld was a new television show, Jerry Seinfeld was still a touring comic. At the time, I was hanging around clubs doing open mic nights and trying to learn the ropes. One night I was in the club where Seinfeld was working, and before he went on stage, I saw my chance. I had to ask Seinfeld if he had any tips for a young comic. What he told me was something that would benefit me a lifetime...

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don't feel like it. He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here's how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."

"Don't break the chain," he said again for emphasis.

It makes sense. I'm a great one for getting ideas and making plans, following through on them.... not so good. It's just there's so many of them and I have such grand ideas it's hard to get them all done. And after all, I AM the laziest man (www.thelaziestman.com) (shameless plug).

But seeing that chain of red X's grow makes you really want to keep that chain going. I was waiting on the new year to roll around to get one of the calenders. I found a spot of the web where you can do the same thing. It puts the calendar on-screen for you and you can add the X for each day you do it. You can find it here. The only drawback to it is that it's not sitting there on the wall staring you in the face every morning. The good thing is you can have more than one. But I guess you could just use different colors of markers for each day.

I've been putting down the X's for a week now and it's getting easier. Give it a try