How do I effectively punish/reward myself?

There are two types of children in the world. Those who respond to punishment and those who respond to rewards. Do you really think you were the first type of child that’s grown into an adult who needs punishment?

I didn’t get much punishment, so…

But further, I would also accept, how do I reward myself when I get an accomplishment answers.

Well, giving yourself a time out won’t work. Take away TV, cell phone chatting, twittering, going to the movies? Extra exercise? No skateboarding? Walking instead of other transportation?
I don’t know how effective punishment is. Maybe you don’t really want to get those things done. You may wish you would do them, but want, maybe not.

If you do the dishes, you get dessert. If you don’t do the dishes, you don’t get dessert. If you clean the bathroom, you get a nice dessert. If you go to the bank when you were supposed to, you get half an hour of tv. If you miss a deadline, you have to use the stairs instead of the elevator.

What seems is that you feel you are not doing things correctly.
If you want to ensure that you live a life without making mistakes you need to follow a plan/schedule at least for few days and then it will get inside your sub-conscious mind and become a habit.
So if you already know you are on right track you won’t need to punish yourself, the success in following the plan would automatically reward you or you can set some rewards that as well

The results of the action should be reward enough. If you “get it done’ you are moving toward your goal. If not, then you’re off track.

It is difficult to come up with a reward/punishment system when I do not know what you like or dislike. I do not reward or punish my kids the same way because they do not have the same likes or dislikes. I have also found they adapt a lot, an example, my son loves texting. I took away his phone for low grades. He adapted and does not care so much about it anymore. It became an irrelevant punishment.

What I have found that works for me when I am in a rut is to break a job down into smaller pieces or time frames. Maybe I know the house needs to be clean but do not feel like cleaning the whole thing. I will clean the kitchen. If I do it by time, I will give myself a half hour or hour wherein I will clean whatever I can. I do not actually get a real reward, but the feeling of accomplishment and having a weight lifted off my shoulders feels great.

Do the hard thing first. The rest of the day gets easier after that. Sometimes that means that is the only thing you plan to do for that day. And the reward for completion is free time, which you can choose to do other things, or do fun things.

Hard things have a way of growing in your head. I hate getting things together to take to the accountant for taxes. I’m not sure why; I’m somewhat organized (everything is in one basket), do not have complex finances, and always get money back. It takes me exactly 2 hours every year to get it together. Yet I tend put if off until the last minute until I make the decision that’s all I’m going to do.

Generally what happens is that I would make the mistake of working on taxes in the evening, and would want to organize the office and paperwork before I started, which makes getting the stuff together for the accountant a huge task. I started separating the two things. Organizing the office and paperwork is a separate task from getting the tax stuff together.

In my early twenties, I found myself not reading much, and buying too many albums, so I made a deal with myself to only buy an album after reading a book. I did that for about 2 years, and it worked fairly well.

What types of things are you talking about that you are failing to accomplish?

Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” taught me a whole lot about creative discipline, which basically translates to self-discipline over a lot of areas.
One method that I particularly liked is to give yourself an external condition, but internal leeway. So for example, she would say to herself: ok, I have to finish this notebook a month. I can slack off in the beginning and end up writing through the night on day 27, or I can pace myself. Or you say: ok, I give myself five minutes to slack off now, but then I have to be at the writing table concentrating.

In general, in psychology they talk about intrinsic (enjoyment of task itself) motivation and extrinsic (reward/punishment) motivation. I personally find extrinsic motivation not that sustainable – because in terms of self-image it assumes that you are passive—i.e., that you have to be prodded or lured. (c.f. Dan Pink’s TED talk) Rather, I would go back and ask yourself why you think that task is that important. Even if, for example, it’s flipping burgers at McDonalds, it might be to pay the rent. Then, I dunno, play games with yourself. I used to have to mark a lot of boring papers when I was a research assistant, and every ten papers I would swap the colour of my pen… somehow that amused me and kept me going.

Simultaneously, if you are avoiding the task ask yourself why it is that you are avoiding it…