A few years back I was doing work for a university course and working full time. I was burned out and exhausted mentally. The problem was staring me in the face for weeks and I felt powerless and unable to progress at all.
I then decided that I won't be progressing with it at this rate (I would wake up at 5, study for 3 hours, go to work, work for 8 hrs, come home, eat, study another hour or two). So I just decided to not study for a week (it felt extremely stressful at the time because it felt like I won't be progressing with the coursework unless I'm staring at the screen figuring it out).
I came back and finished the entire coursework a week after that in one day. I went on to complete the remainder work within a couple more days for the other courses. Since then I've been trying to remind myself that trying to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results is very much the definition of insanity. I also understood that sometimes the problem needs a different angle, maybe you need to just wipe the slate clean and go for a walk/run. You need to switch the context and let your brain wonder a bit.
Once you do that, you might open yourself up and become more receptive to new approaches and new ideas. Sometimes it's better to map out a problem in your head, twist and turn it on all of its facets and then decide how to proceed. This idea that you're not productive unless your Teams activity icon is green and you're moving your mouse and typing away furiously, is ludicrous.
For those who play games, I used to play Warcraft 3 (semi competitively). A friend said that APM (actions per minute) = skill, so the higher the APM the higher the skill level of the player. And that to reach level 50 (the max at a point on the ladder) you need APM 300-350+. I said that it doesn't matter if you have 500 or 100, how you spend those actions is more important. We played a series of games, he ended up averaging 380-390 APM and I averaged (on purpose below my average) 180 APM. I won 5 games in a row and we left it at that. Looking busy does not equal being productive. Seeing "stuff happen" doesn't mean its useful stuff.
I then decided that I won't be progressing with it at this rate (I would wake up at 5, study for 3 hours, go to work, work for 8 hrs, come home, eat, study another hour or two). So I just decided to not study for a week (it felt extremely stressful at the time because it felt like I won't be progressing with the coursework unless I'm staring at the screen figuring it out).
I came back and finished the entire coursework a week after that in one day. I went on to complete the remainder work within a couple more days for the other courses. Since then I've been trying to remind myself that trying to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results is very much the definition of insanity. I also understood that sometimes the problem needs a different angle, maybe you need to just wipe the slate clean and go for a walk/run. You need to switch the context and let your brain wonder a bit.
Once you do that, you might open yourself up and become more receptive to new approaches and new ideas. Sometimes it's better to map out a problem in your head, twist and turn it on all of its facets and then decide how to proceed. This idea that you're not productive unless your Teams activity icon is green and you're moving your mouse and typing away furiously, is ludicrous.
For those who play games, I used to play Warcraft 3 (semi competitively). A friend said that APM (actions per minute) = skill, so the higher the APM the higher the skill level of the player. And that to reach level 50 (the max at a point on the ladder) you need APM 300-350+. I said that it doesn't matter if you have 500 or 100, how you spend those actions is more important. We played a series of games, he ended up averaging 380-390 APM and I averaged (on purpose below my average) 180 APM. I won 5 games in a row and we left it at that. Looking busy does not equal being productive. Seeing "stuff happen" doesn't mean its useful stuff.