Having problems doing the "right thing"? Can’t find the motivation to turn your eyes from DigitalSpy.co.uk to, well, to something a bit more productive? Or are you maybe wrestling with yourself as that carrot cake you bought in Tesco’s yesterday demands to be eaten all in one go and you’re not quite sure that you have the strength to resist?

Hang on, that’s… that’s me I’m talking about! It’s true. I’m as human as the next man and probably have less willpower than most, especially as I work alone and don’t have a boss looking over my shoulder, wondering what I’m doing.

How do I do it? How do I get things done? Why am I able to get out of bed in the morning?

Well, it’s not always easy. Seriously! You wake up, think "Got a sore throat. And it’s raining. And I’m 40 now. And the last real day off I had was last October. And blah blah blah blah blah where are the razorblades?" and immediately want to just turn the alarm off and roll over. One thing that helps, however, is a little mantra I say to myself over and over again. Here goes:

Help or Harm?

Will this help me – in other words, will what I’m doing now make it easier to get to where I want to be – or will it harm me? It works for pretty much every eventuality. For example: I’m about to eat a second massive slice of carrot cake and at the same time I want at some stage to be fit enough to run the London Marathon again. Will what I’m doing now help that goal, or harm it? It’s not always a case of being a good boy and putting the cake away for another time; sometimes I think "You know what? To hell with it. I’m having that second helping and will deal with the calories some other time."

It’s just about being conscious of my actions and their consequences. If you’re anything like me, you might find yourself day-dreaming your way through life from time to time. You’ve just come back from lunch and you want to check something on Wikipedia…. and when you come around and fight your way back to reality you’re shocked to find there are only 30 minutes left in the day. That kind of thing happens to me all the time – or, at least, it would if I let it. But once you make yourself wake up to the consequences of what you are doing – "If I look at Bizkit the sleepwalking dog on YouTube another five times I’ll laugh a lot, but it’ll mean I’ll have to make up the time later in the evening" – you can decide for yourself how much you really want to do what you’re about to do and not just do things in a daze.

So that’s where the "Help or Harm?" thing comes in. I’ve even got it as my desktop wallpaper, because my memory is bad enough sometimes for me to forget about the mantra without having it glaring at me in huge red letters.

What about you? Got a similar thing you say to yourself to push away the evil little pixies that sometimes alight on your shoulder and ruin your life? Want to use mine? You can, you know! I won’t tell anyone and won’t charge a commission.

I’ve even done you some wallpaper of your own, in case you want to download it to be your own reminder. Click on the links to get the size you want.

1600×1280 / 1280×1024 / 1280×960 / 1152×864 / 1024×768 / 800×600 / 640×480

Have a great weekend.