Repeat after me: Deadlines are good! So how do you motivate yourself when you want — or need — to get something done, but you don’t have a deadline? Try these strategies to make more progress today.
Sometimes this happens because a project is ambiguous, boring, or messy. You naturally deprioritize it whenever possible, because working on it feels uncomfortable. But other times you don’t mean to avoid the project. You just never get to it, because items with clear deadlines feel more pressing.
https://hbr.org/2019/09/how-to-motivate-yourself-when-you-dont-have-a-deadline