We all have the kind of days where nothing goes right. Everything you try to work on takes twice as long as usual, the computer crashes before you have saved what you were writing, your Internet quits while you are updating files, etc…
Recently I spent over an hour working on a theme I was creating and got nowhere. By the end of the hour, I replaced everything I had done with the original files and it felt like a wasted hour. When I went back to that project a day or two later, everything was fine and I finished the work quickly.
I’ve gotten better at walking away and coming back to a task with a clear head and then completing but it can still be really hard to do. Here are the reasons for this:
- My schedule may be really tight and it might not be possible to work on the project at another time.
- I told the client that it would be completed today.
- I might wake up super sick tomorrow. Unlikely but I do find when I put something off until later, that something unexpected like food poisoning gets in the way.
- I am a little (a lot) obsessed with schedules. If I plan to work on something between 2pm – 3pm then I get flustered and lost focus if this doesn’t happen and find it difficult to move on to something else.
As I’ve aged, I’ve found that things out of control happen all of the time and that I am not always 100% focused when it’s necessary. So, it’s important to be more flexible. I might feel like I’m not accomplishing anything if I walk away from something that isn’t working properly but by doing so it gets resolved quickly later on and I ultimately end up saving time. In the past I would have kept working and working to find a solution and usually only ended up feeling frustrated and that wasn’t very good at my chosen profession.
It’s important to take a break, think about something else for awhile and then come back to what you were trying to accomplish. The solution almost always comes immediately when I do this.
How about you? Do you find this works? Are you able to walk away? Or are you doggedly persistent? I used to be and found that I only ended up feeling frustrated and wasting time.
photo credit: markgoodwin
After working long hours and several weeks every body needs break. And as you said replaced all files this happened to all many times and this is human nature if we are doing work in hurry we will always miss the right things.
Hi Jass – Yes, sometimes we do need to take a break and when we come back to the task we usually find the solution right away.
Hi Kim,
My proverb in life: If you have problems today, forget them, you get new tomorrow.
Sometimes, some days just so annoying and it all goes wrong. I usually take a long walk or go down to the gym to come home with new energy.
Hi Marbella – Days do seem to follow a mood of the day. If it starts off annoying, it seems to stay that way all day.
Working a Straight Job means, most of the time, if I can’t solve something by 4pm, I’m out the door anyway. Sorting out how to have inspiration between 8am and 4pm is complicated, but I find that by allocating time “8 to 9, email. 10 to noon, work on X. One to 4, work on Y.” doesn’t work all the time for me. I still block my schedule, but if I’m not in a ‘zone’ where I’m grooving like crazy, I stop and fiddle with other things in the middle (Twitter hi) to keep my sanity.
I try to point out “You can’d schedule inspiration” to my project planners. They still want to know how many hours it’ll take to invent things.
I wish I could schedule inspiration – when it does happen, I try to get as much done as possible. And, yeah, it’s so not fun to determine how many hours it will take to do something that you’ve never done before.
Yes, at some point after a tough day, the brain seems to surrender at the thought of doing any more thinking. At such times, it is best to just close shop for the day and resume the task the next day with a clear and recharged mind. But certainly, we don’t have a choice when it comes to deadlines.
-Jean
Hi Jean – I try to do things ahead of time. I find it I wait until the last minute something happens like I get sick or my daughter does. I do know that when I worked in an office things had to get done and I usually couldn’t walk away and come back later :-)
Hey Kim,
It also helps if you know your biological highs and lows. Could be that those “mental mountains” appear at the same time of day due to your own energy levels. However, there are “those” days when nothing but getting away is the answer!
Hi Gerry – Some days nothing works and then the next day everything works perfectly. I do know that I’m a morning person so I don’t schedule anything that requires a lot of thought after 2 – 3pm.
I am, what you call, a restless person and I tend to get all worked up for nothing. Being such a person, I actually had the time to differentiate two sorts of days when thing’s simply aren’t going my way.
Sometimes, I simply feel that nothing I do makes any kind of difference, and I should just quit. Problem solution – drop everything and go swimming!
Other times, I get impossibly stubborn and push it until I overcome that “bad streak”. It takes amazingly lot of energy.
I used to push myself to keep going but have found it ends up being a waste of time. Even if I just walk away for a little while a fresh solution will come to me.
Hello Kim.
I have also encounter same problem like yours. But instead of walking away with my work I just take 20 – 30 min nap and everything will be OK for me. I have noticed that if I force my self from doing things I might end up messing things up or doing a low quality work :)
I’ve never been able to do the quick nap solution. I do some cleaning, go for a walk, make some food, or even read. It usually helps.
It’s helped me just to take a break and get away from the computer. An answer will sometimes come when you least expect it. When you’re doing other things sometimes the mind can subconsciously sort through information and find a solution.
Exactly!
Yes Kim, walking away is the best solution, I agree. Sometimes the solution comes to me while doing something totally unrelated.
Hi Pat – It really does work but it can be SO hard to do. Especially when you have a deadline.