An external factor for your motivation can be used to help you focus and complete your tasks. You can use a simple external motivator or you can do something more complicated. Here are a couple of examples:

If you’re short on money for bills, that’s an extrinsic motivating factor for your to focus on finding ways to make more money. It could be a second job. It could be freelance work.

If you like video games of any kind (be it Call of Duty, Halo, or Candy Crush), work for a certain amount of time or until you reach a certain part of your project and then reward yourself by playing a few minutes of your game. Sometimes, I will write for two or three hours at a time and then take a break for 30 or 45 minutes and play through all of my lives on a match 3 game of some sort.

If you don’t necessarily like to work out, you find something to motivate you. For me, it’s not the 11 miles. It’s the fact I can eat pretty much anything I want.

What you do is find an external motivational reward that can help you focus and complete your goal.

Please refer to the book for more details on this activity.