Hacker News Books

Yes, I think these are related concepts. I read a whole host of books that are related and have been influential. Off the top of my head (on top of HSP):

The Big Leap
The Sedona Method
The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership
Hold Me Tight
The Four Tendencies

As many others here have recommended, read Atomic Habits for a good idea of how to go from goal-oriented action to process-oriented action.

> I have strongly come to perceive myself as being driven by external accountabilities which makes me good at work at office but bad at executing personal projects.

I'd also recommend reading The Four Tendencies by Gretchin Rubin, which is an interesting framework for how different people respond to both internal and external expectations. Based on your own personal observation, you'd fall into the most populous category: obliger, i.e., good with external expectations but not internal ones.

So I’ve been working remotely for the past 3 years and whenever I search for things like “tips for managing virtual teams” or “flexible workforce tips”, I get back super vague listicles with advice like “hire well”, or “engage often”. While true, I’ve always found the results incredibly unhelpful.

This made me want to create a “deeper” article about some of the psychology that I think influences remote teams, along with some thoughts around what leaders can do to combat some of the pitfalls.

I decided to combine my viewpoints with three of my favourite books: Give and Take, Algorithms to Live By, and the Four Tendencies.

I’m interested to hear what other remote workers think. Does remote work influence the give/take balance? Do we need to be more intentional about how we’re designing remote systems? Do you think we can learn anything from the four tendencies data?

PS: If anyone has links to articles that dig deep into the psychology of remote work, I’d love to read them.

I can relate. I've probably tried the vast majority of the motivation 'hacks' recommended by the other posters in this thread with varying amounts of success and failure.

The #1 thing I think that anyone in this situation, or any self-improvement challenging situation, should do is to understand themselves fully - what makes you tick, what do you like, dislike, etc.? Beware: this is not a 5-minute task; we could be talking years here. Once you feel like you have a handle on it, or along the way, try out different approaches. (As much as I love the word 'hack', I really shouldn't call them that because you could very well be using it indefinitely.)

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For me personally, one thing that I've never truly tried is a commitment contract. I've long known about services like Beeminder and StickK, but I never actually fully tried one (where you commit with real money). That changed recently when I discovered a framework for classifying people called The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin.

Folks like us mostly fall into the category of "Obligers", people who meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves. And one way to beat that is to create parameters (like a commitment contract) that force you into action.

I recently (~6 weeks ago) created a goal on Beeminder and after falling off the wagon tout-de-suite and having to pay up ($5 initially), I haven't derailed since (my current penalty is $10). I know, not an earth-shattering amount of money, for some reason it's keeping me honest.

It's probably too early to tell if this is going to work long-term, but even this feels longer than I've stuck with other methods. I encourage you to check out Rubin's blog posts, interviews [1, 2] and/or podcasts. There's even a book and a quiz, but I learned enough from a single interview to get started.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/gretchen-rubin-the-four-tende...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2017/09/12/gretchen...

You predicament reminds me of The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. The tendencies are based around whether you respond or don't respond to expectations, and whether the expectations are internal or external. From how you've described yourself, you sound like the common "obliger" type: responds well to external expectations, not so much to internal expectations. If that sounds like you, try finding ways to introduce external expectations for the things you'd like to do but don't. E.g., if you wanted to start working out, you'd be better off getting a trainer who expects you to show up than just telling yourself that you'll go to the gym.

It's not a scientific framework, but I think it's a helpful mental model all the same.