I am a creature of habit. I use daily routines to keep myself on track to fulfil my commitments and maintain focus when regular life is full of distractions. Most of the time it works and I can maintain my creative flow and that feeds into my energy and motivation for all things HIVE...and beyond. For the last couple of months I’ve been able to write almost every day and also drive a few pet projects forward, but this week I’ve stumbled and hit a wall. I’m not down for the count but I’m feeling that familiar one-two punch of Burnout and Writers Bloc that always seem to hit me together.
The wife and kids are away for the weekend so I’m taking a breath and trying to sort my shit out. We’ve just come off the 2 kids birthdays back to back and we’ve had a mild virus going through the family too (no, not the bad one). On top of that I’ve been trying to play a 4 Day Poker Tournament that culminates this weekend. I had won a couple of tickets to enter and couldn’t say NO, so it’s been a few late nights in a row. I’ve Redlined a little bit this week so it’s no surprise that I’m feeling a bit run down and unmotivated for HIVE stuff…
The real problem is that my routines and daily structures have broken down. So that means I’m dropping the ball on commitments that very quickly turn into chores when I’m not “Feeling it”. I don’t know if it’s the Burnout that hits first and then the Writers Bloc, but the latter is the bad one for me. I can deal with Burnout with some decent sleep and short break, but the Writers Bloc gets worse the longer you leave it because my creative flow dries up. So taking a break to deal with the Burnout makes the Writers Bloc worse, therefore I’m pushing out this shit-post today to try and break it up. Maybe I can tread water a little bit and pick up the slack when I’m rested up. One of my daily commitments is dropping off in a few days time so that’ll help too.
I know that dealing with Burnout and Writers Bloc is probably a common challenge with other regular posters here on HIVE. How do you deal with them? Please share with a comment below because maybe you have an idea that will help me out.