Welcome to another installment of Monday Moving Forward, a series of posts published – obviously – every Monday, with the aim of tackling the start of the week inertia. Which, as we all know, it’s a thing.
One way to get unstuck at the beginning of a cycle is to pick some project, task or hobby that was previously parked. You know, something like writing a book or an essay, learning to play the guitar, or some work project that you didn’t look at for months, because priorities. Ot it might even be a project that is deeply buried in the cellar or in the attic. Something that even has dust on it, something vintage, the older it is, the better.
Just aim at familiarizing yourself again with it, in the beginning. Look over the notes, pick the guitar, browse the requirements. Dust that chair and see how it looks now.
And then block 15 minutes or half an hour top, to just do something about that. Maybe reorder some paragraphs, or send the requirements back with some clarification requests, or pick the guitar and strum a little. Look at the schematics, pick a bolt, play a little. Don’t aim at finishing it. Just scratch it a little, enough to make room for it in your mind, or in your weekly routine.
I do this very often at the beginning of the week, I look at stuff that wasn’t touched for a while, just to refresh my memory. I may or may not continue that project (the fact that it’s parked says it wasn’t very important to begin with) but the simple action of playing around with it has a surprisingly refreshing effect on other areas. I find it easier to dive into the week knowing that something from the past was briefly revived.
I don’t know how it works or what are the psychological mechanisms behind this approach, I don’t even know if it works for everybody, but it does work for me.
Give it a try, you still have time, it’s still Monday in this part of the world.
Photo by Kevin Noble on Unsplash
