Getting Unstuck
You’re crunching under a deadline and your brain is jelly. Synapses are fried. You can’t surface a creative thought for the life of you. You’re stuck. What do you do?
Dan Saffer has a practical prescription for getting unstuck, unblocked, and energized. Here are his tips for how to build a creative habit that sustains you through those dark days when ideas run dry.
- Prepare: Build a creative habit. Schedule a small block of time and show up every day.
- Find a ritual: Artists often create a ritual around the work they do to get them in the right headspace. It could be listening to music, arranging pencils, what-have-you. Find what works for you.
- Keep a list of your top three big questions: Hang them in a visible place in your workspace so you can think about them.
- Walk: If you are feeling stuck, get outside. Why? Because even Nietzsche thought it was a good idea.
- Be boring: If you are out and about, resist the urge to look at your phone and other digital distractions.
- Time: Spend as much time as you can with the problem you are trying to solve.
Solutions tend to come to us when we aren’t thinking very hard about them. Give yourself the space to ruminate over ideas, ideate, and percolate.