How To Motivate (#1 in a series of 4)

Make things fun:

The technical term is intrinsic motivation. This is motivation that is based on the sheer enjoyment of performing the task. A large body of interesting research exists which suggests factors that diminish and sustain this type of motivation (e.g. Deci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999).

Clearly this type of motivation is relatively easy to generate. Someone loves coding? They're gonna be motivated to do it (see open source projects). Of course is isn't always that simple. What if there's an activity that people find boring? For example some convoluted, tedious process activity. Well (to paraphrase Apple), there's a technique for that.

However you'll have to wait for number 2 in the series...