For unsticking one’s self try doing something completely new (but within your physical ability if you can’t cliff dive, don’t do it). For me it was curling.
I’ve had an interest in it for a long time and finally did a learn to curl a while back and the aspect of going into something completely foreign and learning a new skill (even though it has minimal usage outside the curling sheet) just kind of clicked something inside me.
I now go most Sunday evenings. And if anyone needs 40lb chunks of granite slid across some ice, let me know.
It's a checklist. Pilots don't use checklists because they're dumb, it's because they're smart, but overwhelmed. The list allows you to see everything that needs to be done, and marking things off gives you a sense of accomplishment.
I don't know if that works for creatives, but I know it's how I get unstuck.
I write for work but the subject matter is super narrow. When I'm stuck it's usually because another unrelated idea is holding up the works. I have to write the stuck idea, even if just to toss it.
I will not punish Billy Joel, whose music I like, for having awful fans. (See also: Springsteen, Dave Matthews.) I do also note that Joel came to prominence in the "Let's See How Much Cocaine Elton Can Do While Working With the Worst Producers in Pop" era, so it may have been more of a substitute teacher thing.
ANYWAY: you asked about stuckness. I have a few strategies for this depending on the stuckness.
Shower - as many folks have said, I do some of my best designing with water bouncing off my head
Look out a window at green things/small animals
Pick a busywork task - usually data entry - to defrag the brain
Talk to someone about it
And honestly, reviewing good work I've done in the past helps too.
Personally I'm usually about one to two small inconveniences away from throwing my phone into the sea (ok, Ohio River) and retreating to the woods, so perhaps I'm not the best for giving advice, but I know that personally, sometimes it's easier to give into the temporary slump and say "I will come back later, banging my head against my desk will not help."
If I'm working from home and things aren't toooo urgent, I sometimes make a batch of cookies that I can bake up a few of and freeze the rest - gives me something to do with my hands, involves a little bit of critical thinking, and I get a cookie at the end.
I also love planning dream vacations/road trips as a distraction activity - again, it requires some thought and care, but is kind of creative, and looking at photos of Monument Valley or whatever usually gets me at least a little inspired.
Oh, and I can not recommend birdwatching as a hobby highly enough - if you have the patience for it! You go outside, on no one's schedule but your own (and the birds), you can gamify it, and it gives you a bit of a deeper appreciation for your own backyard (or city park system)
I will follow your wife into hell for being correct about Billy Joel.
I go for a long walk, and try to do something else if I'm stuck with writing - clear something small off my to do list to feel a little accomplishment.
If it's a "need an idea" issue, I take a shower. Mainly bc no one can hear me debate myself in the shower, but also the water flow stimulates my brain.
If it's a "get your crap on paper" issue...the only thing that works is a deadline.
When I’m in a rut I read writing that I know will inspire. I have a few volumes of travel and food writing by the late AA Gill close to hand. I dip into the likes of Nigel Slater. I shun social media, and I write what comes to mind even it’s not going to go anywhere straight away. It usually gets me kickstarted
Not sure how everyone else feels, but I would be fine with you outsourcing some of your heavy lifting parts to other well known entities from the internet and/or people here.
Instead of having to read a book and review it, let someone else do that for you. Or have your wife or kids do a book review or music review for the Friday newsletters. Same thing with the food.
I bet people around here would be excited to contribute!
When I'm stuck, sometimes I take an Expo Marker to the whiteboard. I don't know why, but it helps.
Here are my ideas for you:
For Valentine's Day, turn this space over to your wife and let us hear what it's like to be married to a culinary genius. (I mean, you are, aren't you?)
Watch "The Menu" and create a similar experience (In a column) based on courses of your favorite low-brow foods. (Note, I haven't actually seen it yet but think it involves the ultimate high brow restaurant experience and makes fun of our consumerism.)
Apply your architectural senses to building the perfect home for your dogs.
Groundhog Day has become about a man who gets stuck in a time loop. What day would you want to live over and over again until you got it right?
Whenever I get stuck in any capacity, I listen to comedy. It generally gives me a new perspective or at least helps make light of situations, despite how difficult they might be. I've even found family friendly comedians that my 10 year old listens to before he falls asleep, and as a result, the kid is now hilarious (*evil, but thrilled laugh).
Feeling sad? Comedy. Bored? Comedy. Unmotivated? More comedy. Although it would make sense to watch the stand up, I generally don't have time to sit without kids around, and frankly some of the best comedy has foul language. Some personal favorites - Jim Gaffigan, Hasan Minhaj, Fortune Feimster. Hope you jump on the funny train!
My best ideas/solutions most often come during/after a workout where I’m not listening to music, podcasts, other people, etc. I don’t get to swim laps often these days, but it’s great for this.
For technical problems (I design experiments and perform analytics for a living), I find that beginning with the end in mind (shout-out to Habit #2) and working backward to my failure point helps a lot. Quite often, I figure out an alternate path.
To get unstuck with something, I like to just take a little break or try something unrelated that uses different parts of the brain or muscles. Kind of like when you're looking for something and cannnot find it so you stop looking for a while and end up finding it.
Two comments unrelated to the prompt:
1. When I make eggs there is about an 75% chance that I will state, to no one in particular, that they are an excellent source of selenium.
2. If your wife ever joins Twitter that will garner an immediate follow.
So there was an article by Sweet Dumb Brain this week on Substack about the exact same thing and it came with advice!
Also, I tend to be able to get inspired when I read other works by people I admire.
Or even sleeping on it or stepping away from my bank of ideas can help. I’m currently rebranding and after my mom passed last month almost none of my old writings feel “right” anymore. So I’m making a new draft bank.
That Billy Joel take has me shook. Straight fire.
For unsticking one’s self try doing something completely new (but within your physical ability if you can’t cliff dive, don’t do it). For me it was curling.
I’ve had an interest in it for a long time and finally did a learn to curl a while back and the aspect of going into something completely foreign and learning a new skill (even though it has minimal usage outside the curling sheet) just kind of clicked something inside me.
I now go most Sunday evenings. And if anyone needs 40lb chunks of granite slid across some ice, let me know.
It's a checklist. Pilots don't use checklists because they're dumb, it's because they're smart, but overwhelmed. The list allows you to see everything that needs to be done, and marking things off gives you a sense of accomplishment.
I don't know if that works for creatives, but I know it's how I get unstuck.
I write for work but the subject matter is super narrow. When I'm stuck it's usually because another unrelated idea is holding up the works. I have to write the stuck idea, even if just to toss it.
I will not punish Billy Joel, whose music I like, for having awful fans. (See also: Springsteen, Dave Matthews.) I do also note that Joel came to prominence in the "Let's See How Much Cocaine Elton Can Do While Working With the Worst Producers in Pop" era, so it may have been more of a substitute teacher thing.
ANYWAY: you asked about stuckness. I have a few strategies for this depending on the stuckness.
Shower - as many folks have said, I do some of my best designing with water bouncing off my head
Look out a window at green things/small animals
Pick a busywork task - usually data entry - to defrag the brain
Talk to someone about it
And honestly, reviewing good work I've done in the past helps too.
Personally I'm usually about one to two small inconveniences away from throwing my phone into the sea (ok, Ohio River) and retreating to the woods, so perhaps I'm not the best for giving advice, but I know that personally, sometimes it's easier to give into the temporary slump and say "I will come back later, banging my head against my desk will not help."
If I'm working from home and things aren't toooo urgent, I sometimes make a batch of cookies that I can bake up a few of and freeze the rest - gives me something to do with my hands, involves a little bit of critical thinking, and I get a cookie at the end.
I also love planning dream vacations/road trips as a distraction activity - again, it requires some thought and care, but is kind of creative, and looking at photos of Monument Valley or whatever usually gets me at least a little inspired.
Oh, and I can not recommend birdwatching as a hobby highly enough - if you have the patience for it! You go outside, on no one's schedule but your own (and the birds), you can gamify it, and it gives you a bit of a deeper appreciation for your own backyard (or city park system)
I remind myself of the one immutable truth: it ain’t gonna write itself.
I will follow your wife into hell for being correct about Billy Joel.
I go for a long walk, and try to do something else if I'm stuck with writing - clear something small off my to do list to feel a little accomplishment.
If it's a "need an idea" issue, I take a shower. Mainly bc no one can hear me debate myself in the shower, but also the water flow stimulates my brain.
If it's a "get your crap on paper" issue...the only thing that works is a deadline.
When I’m in a rut I read writing that I know will inspire. I have a few volumes of travel and food writing by the late AA Gill close to hand. I dip into the likes of Nigel Slater. I shun social media, and I write what comes to mind even it’s not going to go anywhere straight away. It usually gets me kickstarted
Not sure how everyone else feels, but I would be fine with you outsourcing some of your heavy lifting parts to other well known entities from the internet and/or people here.
Instead of having to read a book and review it, let someone else do that for you. Or have your wife or kids do a book review or music review for the Friday newsletters. Same thing with the food.
I bet people around here would be excited to contribute!
When I'm stuck, sometimes I take an Expo Marker to the whiteboard. I don't know why, but it helps.
Here are my ideas for you:
For Valentine's Day, turn this space over to your wife and let us hear what it's like to be married to a culinary genius. (I mean, you are, aren't you?)
Watch "The Menu" and create a similar experience (In a column) based on courses of your favorite low-brow foods. (Note, I haven't actually seen it yet but think it involves the ultimate high brow restaurant experience and makes fun of our consumerism.)
Apply your architectural senses to building the perfect home for your dogs.
Groundhog Day has become about a man who gets stuck in a time loop. What day would you want to live over and over again until you got it right?
Whenever I get stuck in any capacity, I listen to comedy. It generally gives me a new perspective or at least helps make light of situations, despite how difficult they might be. I've even found family friendly comedians that my 10 year old listens to before he falls asleep, and as a result, the kid is now hilarious (*evil, but thrilled laugh).
Feeling sad? Comedy. Bored? Comedy. Unmotivated? More comedy. Although it would make sense to watch the stand up, I generally don't have time to sit without kids around, and frankly some of the best comedy has foul language. Some personal favorites - Jim Gaffigan, Hasan Minhaj, Fortune Feimster. Hope you jump on the funny train!
My best ideas/solutions most often come during/after a workout where I’m not listening to music, podcasts, other people, etc. I don’t get to swim laps often these days, but it’s great for this.
For technical problems (I design experiments and perform analytics for a living), I find that beginning with the end in mind (shout-out to Habit #2) and working backward to my failure point helps a lot. Quite often, I figure out an alternate path.
To get unstuck with something, I like to just take a little break or try something unrelated that uses different parts of the brain or muscles. Kind of like when you're looking for something and cannnot find it so you stop looking for a while and end up finding it.
Two comments unrelated to the prompt:
1. When I make eggs there is about an 75% chance that I will state, to no one in particular, that they are an excellent source of selenium.
2. If your wife ever joins Twitter that will garner an immediate follow.
So there was an article by Sweet Dumb Brain this week on Substack about the exact same thing and it came with advice!
Also, I tend to be able to get inspired when I read other works by people I admire.
Or even sleeping on it or stepping away from my bank of ideas can help. I’m currently rebranding and after my mom passed last month almost none of my old writings feel “right” anymore. So I’m making a new draft bank.
Living in Ottawa, when I saw the newsletter title the first thing I thought was, I hope he has a shovel in the trunk.