How we decide when to take a break...and when to persist

Time Magazine has an interesting piece about some research (led by Mathias Pessiglione of the Motivation Brain and Behavior Laboratory of INSERM in Paris, France) on how people decide when they need a break and when they're willing to persist.

The most interesting part, for me, is that we're willing to persist longer when we value the reward or when we think the task isn't that hard anyway.  This has interesting implications for motivating ourselves to keep at it, even when we'd rather stop and check Facebook.  In what ways can you shift your focus toward thinking about the payoff?  Or break the task into smaller pieces so it doesn't seem so darn hard?

"The peaks and valleys that trigger these [quitting or persisting] decisions are not pre-set:  they’re influenced by how much effort you’re expending and how big a reward you expect from the work.  The bigger the reward and the smaller the effort required, the more likely you are to keep going until you’ve done what needs doing.  As you work, it seems, your brain continuously calibrates your breaking point in relation to your expectations of gain."

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/31/how-your-brain-tells-you-when-to-take-a-break/#ixzz2K2yvwPNg

<reposted from the old OnTrack Academic News Feed>