Two types of motivation Anita distinguishes: internal (doing things because they feel amazing in themselves — the sweet spot) and external (driven by incentives like money, prestige, cookies, nice coffee). Direct external incentives are rare in dev work — there's usually no bonus for shipping on time — but you can hack your own brain by writing a personal incentives list (on paper, kept visible) so each finished task triggers a real reward and a dopamine kick, which in turn fuels internal motivation.