Step Back
Take a break to solve a problem
You’ve tried everything. You’ve thrown all your time, urgency and experience at it. But still it won’t budge or fix or resolve itself. You’re stuck. Whether it’s a bug, a way of coding something, a decision, a way of improving something or something else, it’s a problem and it’s blocking your progress.
But instead of trying harder, do the opposite. Take a break. Properly. Don’t just switch to another screen to browse memes, graze cat pics, answer your email or catch up with notifications, messages and socials.
Take a step back. Literally and physically. Step away from your computer, from your desk, from your office.
Depending on where and when you are, make a drink, have an unrelated conversation with someone (preferably without disturbing them…), go for a walk, go to the gym, do some yoga, meditate, play with the kids, prepare some food, do some washing, finish early. That grass is there to be touched.
But whatever you do, stop working on whatever you’re stuck on. Doing more of the same is not going to help — you’ve already tried that. You need a different kind of thinking, one that comes from detaching your busy and saturated mind from the task. To think different you need to be different. Change your pace and your context. Let your thinking loosen. Foster your creativity in the background by doing something else in the foreground.
Come back to your problem later — maybe a few minutes, maybe the next day. Either you’ll have a solution or you’ll have a new perspective. Either way, you’ll have clarity.
Busy thinking is as useless and counterproductive as busy work.
