Sometimes you just get stuck.
Whether you’re a writer and you…just…can’t…find…the next thought or you catch a glimpse of the sunny skies outside your office window and you start to daydream, it happens. The biggest step to moving ahead is to get “unstuck.” Here are a few quick tips on how to get your mind on track and get back to the task at hand:
1. Indulge
Just go with it. If you can’t stop thinking about next weekend, then don’t. If you can’t get that next sentence on that report, then don’t. Distract yourself, but do it productively. Pick up the phone and make plans for the weekend. If that next sentence won’t come out, then start to write about something else – make plans for what’s to come, perhaps. Sometimes you have to indulge in what’s got you stuck before you can get out of it. It’s like quicksand: the more you fight it, the quicker you’ll sink.
2. Insist
You can go the opposite way of indulging and insist you push through what’s on your plate. It’s not the most pleasant way to go, but the short-term pain leads to long-term gain. Think about what’s beyond the task at hand; that’ll help you get done what you need to now so that you can get to where you need to be next.
3. Inquire
Start asking yourself questions. Does this “getting stuck” happen often? Does it happen with just this type of work, or with a lot of what you do? Sometimes searching for the answers to these initial questions will give you a lot of scope as to what really lies beneath. Sometimes it’ll just get you moving again. Sometimes it’ll get you moving on.
Do you have strategies that you put into practice when you get stuck? What do you do to get unstuck? Let us know in the comments.
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Hi. I’m a Brazilian Public Relations and I like to write about comunication, market, behaviors and new tecnologies (I have a blog called Comunicação e Tendências – alanabrinker.wordpress.com). But, some times, when I started a text, I got stuck. Then, whenever this happened, I start to write about several things related with the subject I want write, not in any given order. After this, I stop and I read all I have written. Usually, after this I get to pick up the nice bits of text and join them together into a final text. Well, this`s my tip.
Cheers!
Nice article, I think number 1 is tricky because you could also fall into a pattern where you do “other stuff” instead of what you have to do… but its worth a try if you’re truly stuck.