Productivity

Stuck? Productivity Full Stops And How To Get Going

Mondays are productivity days at SimpleProductivity blog.


Photo by misteraitch

It always amazes me when I manage to trip myself up in the productivity realm. Usually it’s because I let things get away from me by ignoring them, or because I’ve taken on too much.

But not this time. I am completely blocked. No ideas, no desire to write, no wanting to do anything other than curl up and read.

That’s not a good thing to do for more than a day, if your goal is to get things done.

The Full Stop

Full stops are when you simply cannot make yourself do the things you want and need to do.

Kind of like walking into a closed door. Which I will admit, I’ve done. But then, I’m probably the only person on the face of the planet who has broken a toe while playing Scrabble. But I digress.

Full stops are more than just your body saying “I don’t want to do this right now.” They are more than procrastinating on a task or two. They are when you don’t want to do anything.

Another word for these full stops is burn out.

I’ve had this happen before, where I am so blocked I feel like my creativity is encased in cement. But it’s been a while. By planning, and making sure I have enough relaxation, I usually am able to keep going. I have my creative times, and generate enough ideas to push through the lean times.

But I went on vacation, and came home to a complete lack of enthusiasm for doing anything productive. I have lists of ideas, generated at more prolific times, but I simply don’t want to write about any of them.

Awareness

The first step to dealing with any problem is an awareness that the problem exists.

At first I denied the problem. “I’m on vacation.” “I don’t have internet access.” “I’ll just run an archive series because I haven’t had any time off in a while.” But as the week drew to a close, I knew something was amiss. The drive wasn’t there. Nope, peering into the deep dark depths, it was simply dark.

I knew this was more than just needing a break.

Acceptance

Once you are aware of the problem, it needs to be accepted.

This is one of the hardest things for me. I’m more of a let’s-get-the-problem-fixed sort of girl.

But this rarely works for me. It was rather serendipitous that I stumbled on a video by The Whimsical Woman that talked about blockages. And how fighting them simply doesn’t work.

Action

The funny thing is, Whimsical Woman was right. Fighting doesn’t work. That’s not the sort of action needed for a blockage.

A friend of mine once asked me if it was better to push and fight my way upstream, when letting go and have the current take me might take me to new and unexpected places. She is right. (Thanks, Nell!)

By relaxing into the blockage, things start to loosen up. All I have to do is go with the flow and make sure I don’t end up in the place where I am fighting to go back upstream again.

So what did I decide to do? Write a week-long series on blockages/burn out/full stops and see where it goes. It will probably be a lot more flippant than usual, as I feel a need to just be who I am feeling at the moment. But we’ll know by the end of the week.


Photo bymisteraitch