Solutions for when you get stuck

Hate to get stuck? 4 ways to get unstuck fast!

Recently I wrote about things you can do when you get stuck with work and sitting there at the desk going over and over the situation isn’t helping. What I suggested is that removing yourself from the problem often does do the trick.

Today I’m offering more options for dealing with that feeling of getting nowhere fast:

1. Take a tip from contestants who get stuck with a question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and phone a friend. But not necessarily to talk about what’s bothering you. Just chatting about something else might give you the space you need for new ideas.

If you do decide to mention you’re going round in circles, your friend might have a completely different take on it. Even if they don’t provide a clue how to fix it, they may give you a different perspective that helps make a shift in your mind.

2. Do something for someone else. Send a card to an elderly relative, drop a line to someone you haven’t seen for a while, just to say hello and tell them you’re thinking about them, or say thank you for a small favour someone’s done you. Getting out of your own head to extend a kindness is beneficial to you both.

3. Trust your instincts. Sometimes we don’t make much headway with a task because part of our brain is telling us we should be concentrating on something else, even if it doesn’t seem quite logical.

Five years ago we put our house on the market soon after I’d signed my book contract with my publisher. The deadline for the manuscript was the uppermost thing in my mind, but I couldn’t concentrate and found myself pulled into emptying drawers and cupboards instead, shredding old papers and getting rid of stuff we no longer needed.

And was I glad of that when our purchasers suddenly decided they wanted a very quick completion! The sale went through without a hitch at a difficult time for the economy and I did most of the work on the book after the move.

4. Now I know most of us regard surfing on the internet as a major cause of procrastination and something to be resisted. But there are also times when some focused browsing can turn up some valuable prompts that get stuck brain cells moving again.

I’m thinking of when inspiration fails and there’s an article or workshop content to write to deadline. Searching for some of the key phrases can provide useful hooks to hang your own thoughts on. The trick is to know when to stop!

What do you do when you get stuck? Have any of these solutions worked for you or do you have your own ways of kickstarting a stalled brain?