在一個大的項目裏，當你被一些問題阻礙前進的時候，你經常會偏離自己正在做的東西，甚至沒有激情繼續做下去。當我們從正軌偏離出來的時候，心理上就會建起一堵牆。重新回頭去做那件事情變得越來越令人畏懼。惡性循環發生了：由於牆越來越高，我們對於攀爬它也就感到越來越恐懼，越是這樣，牆也就變得更高。
唯一的解決辦法是：做點事情，任何事情都可以，但這只是一個小小安慰，你還要面對項目未完成的巨大的挑戰。這裏列出一些小的技巧，讓你在高牆面前有個好的開端，單方面看你可能不會很清楚這裏講的什麼意思，但是如果你能試着去體會一下，就像把腳慢慢的放到水裏試試溫度一樣，你就會覺得其實高牆沒有想像中那麼難爬。而且你會發覺高牆會自己在你面前下落，倒塌。
1. 讓它在進行
重新開始的一個強有力的方法是轉換到一個新的地方去解決你項目中的問題。如果你正在你的座位上盯着這個高大而又堅固的牆，試着在家辦公一天。如果你的周圍到處都印着項目的名字，試着去咖啡間或者同事辦公的地方甚至公園的長椅上。
關鍵點在於改變場景。環境和行爲活動在意識裏有一個強烈的連接關係 —— 不幸的是，在意識中沮喪且無效率的工作和開心地有效率的工作是等同的。在同一個地方受的挫折越多，你越會在那個地方表現出沒有效率的狀態。去一個新的工作環境會給你一個沒有過去記錄的，沒有交往的環境，它通常可以打破你任何的心理阻礙。
2. 做20分鐘
這個是我最喜歡的“拖延殺手”：設置一個20分鐘的計時器，讓自己去工作，直到計時器想起“叮”的聲音。這個辦法對於那些不需要你調動創造性的，很簡單的，由於枯燥而不能進行下去的項目很有用，例如數據登記 （嗯，我承認，還有那些等級考試）。但是不管你多討厭這些任務，你都可以忍受大概20分鐘。這樣做的美妙之處在於，一旦計時器到時間時，你就會有種莫名的動力想把事情完成 —— 這可能遠遠好於你再次回到原來那裏在那恐懼並且拖延工作。
3. 限制自己
這與第二條恰恰相反：不是強迫你自己做一小段時間，而是做至少半小時，1個小時，4個小時，甚至是更長只要是合理的。設置一個定時器然後努力工作，但是當計時器到時間是，停止。即使你連一個操作還沒有做好。這樣可能會給你造成壓力，你也許會坐在那焦慮煩惱半個多小時，你也可能會猛的把衣服拉開在那咬牙切齒的。這樣也不要在做任何有關工作的事情。強迫你自己等到明天再做（或者什麼時候你可以再計劃出一大塊時間）。
意識是需要限制來成長的，即使有時這需要些培訓。如果你知道你只有x那麼多時間去完成一項工作，完不成你會面臨更令人頭痛的選擇，你的意識就會做出相應的調整。你會擠出時間來花在這個項目上，你會從那些花很多時間的瑣碎事情上轉移到那些必須花大量時間完成的事情上。你將懲罰變成了獎賞。
4. 跳過很難的部分
很多項目面臨中止是因爲遇到了一些不知道如何向前的難題，一種解決這些難題的方法是先把它放在一邊，好像你已經解決了一樣。比如說，你在寫一個項目計劃，你可能會在收益效果圖上耽擱很多時間，想不出怎麼算它。此時，你可以把它先放在一邊，繼續做下一步，如果你必須要寫出他們纔可以繼續，你就先編一個來湊數，之後你在用更精確的數字來代替他們。我在寫學術論文報告的時候，當遇到手頭沒有參考資料證明某些部分的時候，一直採用這種方法。我會跳過他們，如果之後我需要填充這部分內容，我會先寫一些沒有任何意義的話，用Word“提亮”功能把它標出來，這樣可以提醒我之後改過來。當你完成一些簡單的事情的時候，往往那些很難的事情會變得簡單些。這時候你可能已經變成了處理那些開始對你來說比較難的問題的專家。
5. 試圖轉移
放放風箏，或者建個鳥窩，畫個滑稽的漫畫等。總之就是暫時放下你正在做的事情，做一些完全隨機的，不同的，並且完全沒有壓力的事情。大腦是一個很有趣的東西——它通常在壓力下當你做出一些艱難的解決方案的時候不聽使喚。有時，你索性隨那些問題所去，卻洽洽是解決那些問題的有效途徑。
原文：
In any significantly big project, there are bound to be times when you lose the track of what you’re doing, when for whatever reason you stop moving forward and, what’s worse, can’t seem to find the motivation to get going again. When we “fall off the wagon” like that, a kind of psychological wall starts building up, making getting back in the swing of things seem more and more daunting. An ugly cycle develops: as the wall gets higher, we get more anxious about climbing it, which makes the wall higher still.
The only real solution is to do something, anything, but that’s small consolation when a project is taunting you with its unfinishedness. So here are a few little tricks to help you take a running start at that wall – you may not clear it in a single bound, but if you can just sink your toes into its cracks you might well find that climbing it wasn’t quite the chore you thought it was. And when you discover that, the wall itself often comes crumbling down before you.
1. Take it on the road.
A powerful approach to getting re-started is to switch up the scenery by tackling your project in a new place. If you’re sitting in your cubicle at work staring at the foam-and-fuzz walls, try taking a work-from-home day. If the butt-print in your chair has this project’s name on it, try going to a coffee shop or co-working space or even a park bench.
The point is, change your scenery. The mind builds powerful associations between places and certain activities – and unfortunately, being frustrated and unproductive is just as much an “activity” to the mind as being happily productive. The longer you stew in frustration at the same place, the more likely your mind is to fall into an unproductive state just by entering that space. Moving to a new site gives you a clean slate to work with, a place with no associations, and is often enough to break whatever mental block your mind is throwing in your way.
2. Do 20 minutes.
This is my favorite procrastination-killer: set a timer for 20 minutes and promise yourself to work until the dinger goes “ding”. This is useful for projects that aren’t beyond you creatively or conceptually but are simply too dull to look forward too, like data entry. (Or, I confess, grading exams…) But no matter how hateful the task, just about anyone can manage 20 minutes of it. And the beauty of this is, once the timer goes off, you often find that you’ve got some momentum and really just want to get the job done – which may well be far more preferable than going back to dreading and putting off the work yet again.
3. Limit yourself.
This is the opposite of #2 – instead of forcing yourself to do at least a set amount of time, limit yourself to doing no more than 30 minutes, or an hour, or 4 hours, or whatever is reasonable. Set a timer and try to work, but when the timer goes off, stop. Even if you haven’t made a lick of progress. Oh, you’ll be stressed. You’ll want to sit there and stew for 30 more minutes. You’ll metaphorically rend your garments and gnash your teeth. But DO NOT DO ANY MORE WORK on that project. Force yourself to wait until tomorrow (or whenever you can schedule another block of time).
The mind thrives on limits, though it might take some training. If you know you only have x amount of time to work on something, and if the alternative is even more frustration, the mind will adapt. By depriving yourself of time to work on your project, you’re turning it from a chore that you have to spend so much time on to something you only get to spend so much time on – you turn a punishment into a reward.
4. Skip the hard stuff.
A lot of projects stop dead when we hit a point where we don’t know how to move forward. One way to get past that is to just set that sticky bit aside and proceed as if you’d figured it out. For instance, while writing a business plan, you may get hung up on income projections, with no idea how to figure that part out. Leave that bit, for now, and continue with the next part. If you need figures to work with, make them up* – you’ll replace them with more accurate figures later. I do this all the time when writing academic papers where I don’t have a reference on hand to flesh out some part; I just skip it, and if I need to refer to that part later in the paper, I put in nonsense and highlight it with the word processor’s “highlight” function so I remember where I need to make changes later. Often, the hard stuff is easier once you’ve finished the easier bits – you develop the expertise to handle parts that earlier were beyond your abilities.
* You’d be surprised how many financial projections in business plans were made up anyway…
5. Tend to your knitting.
Or fly a kite. Or build a birdhouse. Draw caricatures of minor celebrities. Just drop whatever you’re working on and do something totally random, totally different, and totally non-stressful. The brain is a funny thing – it often freezes up under pressure and then, when you’re least expecting it, starts churning out solutions to whatever thorny problems are holding things up. Ironically, letting go of the problem is sometimes the only way to solve it.
Do you have any tips for getting back into the flow of things? Let us know about them in the comments
