When I joined The New York Times as a columnist in 2022, I hadn’t worked in an office in over twenty years. I previously wrote freelance articles and books at home; my only collaborator was Tux, my tuxedo cat.
On the primary day, I used to be taken to my office and given a pc. Faking confidence, I sat down, opened my laptop, and located that I could not log in. I attempted again. I began sweating. I then called our IT department. The one who answered volunteered to assist over the phone.
“Please don’t,” I whispered. “Everyone will hear me fumbling. Can’t I just come to you?”
I grabbed my computer and ran upstairs, where a person named Adnan gently asked if I used to be okay. He told me that in his five years at The Times, he had seen many colleagues who felt overwhelmed.
So he shared something he thought might help. He told me to assume a jar and suggested that I add a metaphorical penny to it each time I completed something – even a small task like finding my way back to my desk.
Over time, he said, you will fill the jar. You will see that you just are moving forward, even should you do not feel it, he added.
I still take into consideration that jar, especially when I’m going through difficult times. I’m still paying my pennies.
Counting up wins, even the youngest ones, will be motivating, said B.J. Fogg, founding father of Stanford University’s behavioral design lab and writer of “Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.”
Over the twenty years of research for his book, Dr. Fogg discovered that adults have some ways to say “I did a bad job” and only a few ways to say “I did a good job.” But tracking your wins using the penny method is effective in improving morale and motivation, he said.
“You are intentionally making yourself feel successful in the moment,” Dr. Fogg said. And it adds up, “so you can think back and say, ‘Oh my God, me To have Progress.'”
Big achievements, such as completing an important project, have greater motivational power, says Teresa Amabile, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of “The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work.” ” But she added that larger achievements are rare, “which means we can’t rely on them to motivate people on a daily basis.”
Dr. – Amabile said her research suggests that the majority people have “experienced something like extraordinary pleasure” from small victories at work. For example, she explained how one subject fixed a bug in his office’s computer system, which left him feeling “pleased and motivated” for days.
The penny jar method also works in other areas of life. My friend’s father recently died, and she was so grief-stricken that she could barely perform even the simplest tasks. I told her about the jar and now she uses this method. Get out of bed? One penny. Did you manage to brush your teeth? Two cents. Even that, she said, gives her momentum.
If you feel overwhelmed or stuck – due to a new, challenging circumstance or an overwhelming task – you can use a real jar, imagine one, or write down small wins that add up to pennies.
I recently told Adnan how much his advice helped me. I thanked him for his technical and emotional support.
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