Lack of motivation at work

Hello,

I always felt frequently unmotivated in my professional life.

I faced serious demotivation in the last phase of my PhD, when working later as a software developer for the microelectronics industry, for the air traffic control industry and now for a bank (derivatives products).

I also had a startup project during which the motivation, if I remember correctly, was better.

I believe I have dysthymia and ASD, which may account for it.

Anyway, I feel that most tasks in a job are just uninteresting or too difficult. Or not interesting enough for me to try harder and overcome the difficulty.

Research was good in terms of motivation due to freedom and creativity but the lack of concretization (we just wrote a paper and that's all) of stuff was demotivating.

Anyone feeling something similar? How do you deal with it?

Thanks.

I'm an older person. So I don't need much in the way of motivation anymore... (which is a good thing because I don't have much.) Here are links to 8 articles, from Psych Central's archives, that may be of interest:

Tips for Finding Motivation When You're Depressed

9 Ways for Adults with ADHD to Get Motivated

5 Steps to Increase Motivation

10 Ways To Find New Motivation and Rise Above Roadblocks

How Do You Stay Motivated When You Want to Give Up?

https://psychcentral.com/blog/12-tip...dium=popular17

https://psychcentral.com/blog/warnin...dium=popular17

https://psychcentral.com/blog/5-step...dium=popular17

Feeling same, hope this will end soon..

I feel very similar and have had similar experiences--long PhD with just one paper coming out, academia, start-ups, etc. Total lack of motivation. Feeling hopeless and disengaged with everything. My mind is totally not on my work. I have tasks that have dragged for months, projects that are stalling for absolutely no reason, papers that are half-written and now just sitting there. I'm snowed under with work and a lot of it I just don't know how to do at all, like suddenly being in charge of the administration of a bunch of Linux workstations. I've never been good with system administration tasks and have been super stressed out about it--but refusing to just sit down and watch a 20 hour tutorial on Linux administration (mostly because it's hard finding a good one at the right level of difficulty).

In the mornings, when I can stand it, I make a list of all the tasks I want to get done for the day. I never succeed, but at least that gives me a bit of focus and if I cross out a few everyday, I seem to make some progress. But for instance, we're writing a paper that requires a figure from me. That figure required some coding, which I did. Now the results from that coding need another program, this one a graphical one to make a special kind of plot. Last week I was really focused on getting it done and at least completed the first step. But yesterday (Monday), while vaguely thinking about work but refusing to actually work on anything, I *remembered* that the figure was still pending. And I just had this shocked feeling of--wow, I totally forgot that was going on. That whole task/project just evaporated from my mind, even though I was working pretty hard on it less than a week ago. I guess on account of my total lack of engagement... Then I start worrying what other half-done tasks am I forgetting about. I sometimes make a project list, just to try to keep the big picture in order.

Sometimes I try to build myself up by reminding myself that it was always my dream to be a scientist and that my work is interesting and potentially impactful. Or else, I tell myself that I just need to compartmentalize--do my best on my work during the day and let myself be happy doing what I enjoy (writing) in the evening. Sometimes I try to focus on the future--imagining the results of some of my work, how maybe we'll finish the product and actually start selling and it will be exciting. But actually too much future-imagining has been bad for me and I no longer can really derive any feelings of hope from it. I'm actually sick of living for the future. Sometimes I list the tasks I'm stressed out about and instead of just leaving them like that, I try to list all the "problems" with them--what exactly is stressing me out. And then I try to come up with a solution. For instance, the Linux situation is stressing me out less because I did find some online resources to study in my spare time and also found 2 people willing to answer my questions from time to time. That made a huge difference.

I don't get it. How else are you going to get money? Work = money = food and shelter.