The Stoics beginning with Zeno (the founder of the Stoic philosophy) arranged the passions under four headings:

• Distress - an irrational contraction, or a fresh opinion that something bad is present, at which people think it right to be depressed
• Fear

The pain of taking action can be another reason why we fail to motivate ourselves. The pain can be fear, boredom, unpleasantness or drudgery. If a task is too unpleasant, we will procrastinate on it.

This knowledge suggests ways we can make progress on our goals.

• We can

Some individuals like a certain office ambient noise, even music, as it makes them concentrate more, or provides a distraction, which is also needed.

Others have an extreme aversion, a sort of panic attack to distracting sounds, which is called Misophonia.