Thought Block

The last week of February is upon us and I can’t quite believe how quickly this year has gone so far. That long weekend last week already feels miles away from now. My mind has been filed over the past week with the usual to dos but this weekend has felt much less productive than my weekends usually are. Today all I have done is add article and literature resources to the workshop I am delivering in 2 weeks and that is all.

This week I created a list of all the conference papers that I need to write and prioritize in April. Two are collaborative so that is great, but one is not so I need to make sure they all are completed by the end of May.  I also made a list of research projects that I am working on (yes super plural), again many are collaborative, but some are projects I am working on solo and I need to make sure to factor time on evenings and weekends to complete the work and write it up.

I could work on this research a bit today but I am having thought block. It is not necessarily writer’s block but rather I am finding it difficult to gather and focus my thoughts today. Some of this work is on a deadline so I don’t have the leisure of putting it off, but others are more open to picking up in a week or so when maybe the cloud clears. Thought block is a difficult concept to work through and the only successful means I have found over the years is going for a walk. There have been studies about how walking increases creativity but it does not necessarily mean it provides focus. Regardless, walking does have benefits for getting over a block and that is why many do walking meetings like Steve Jobs used to do.

However, sometimes it is important to reflect on the source of the thought block if we want to try to remove it. For me I know at the moment it is a clear factor of three things:

1. Bodily discomfort: I am just getting over 1.5 weeks of a bad back and I can’t sit nor stand to work for any long amount of time. This make focus difficult and frustrating especially for someone who is used to sitting for hours on end and writing (which is exactly how I got the bad back in the first place). I have also had a bad tummy since yesterday so that is not helping either
2.  Spatial discomfort: I can’t find a space in my house at the moment that makes me comfortable to think and process. This happens to me every once in a while mainly when I am unimpressed with my apartment which is exactly where I am at the moment. A lot of things are breaking or broken and it is making me not want to be around the breaking or broken things. I am also pretty handy with stuff but I can’t fix the particular things that are broken and that is adding to the frustration.
3. Stress, mostly internalized: I am doing that thing that I do before I have to go anywhere where I worry that I have forgotten to do something important for my trip. This is ridiculous because I know I have double checked that I had papers in order, my paper/workshop is done, I have a few things to pick up at the store but nothing major. It is however enough to cause me that sort of low-level internalized stress that means I can’t focus on what I should today at the moment.

All of this to say I think a walk is necessary and it seems like a beauty of a day out there. It may help with my bodily discomfort and get me away from my spatial frustrations, if only for a little while. There’s a bit of something that I need to process and hopefully write out in draft form tonight (a few sentences of a framework) so hopefully the walk will clear my thought block.

I am sure you have experienced this before. What do you do when you have thought block?