Thinking too hard can block coding and writing progress in similair ways. I just drafted an op-ed pitch and hit the block of pain despite being steeped in knowledge on the topic. So I took a step back from hot thinking to warm thinking with some mechanical brain-dead ways to perform idea composting. I got out the three by five cards and just wrote down ideas with words, one idea per card. I used about four of 25 cards for the final draft. The last leg of an idea's journey is being put into words by someone, usually a human.
Wall-staring is another productivity hack I'm using lately. It's an escape route from doom-scrolling. Here's how to do it: remove a wall picture from its hanger and leave it on the floor, leaning on a wall below eye level. Stare at the space where the picture once was. This forces insight.
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
