There’ll come a time when you just can’t bring yourself to do the things you like to do. Here’s how to get over a slump …
In 2020, the Covid year, I found myself unable to settle to anything creative.
I got my craft mojo back the following year, starting with a temperature scarf (a visual representation, in crochet, of daily weather data) among the projects I started work on.
But in 2024, I found myself limping along – it was a bad year, financially, and I was also putting a lot of effort into figuring out why I find myself burned out at the end of every year.
That was all a lot of work – and my craftwork took a back seat.
2025 has not been much better. Even though finances are looking up somewhat, and even though I have looked the burnout dragon in the eye and learned how to tame it, I’ve found myself unsettled, again. An illness and then a death in the family have been taking their deep underground toll in ways I’ve just had to learn to live with.
But we’ve just had the June winter solstice, and as the world turns again towards the sun, I think I may have found a way to get going. In the hope that you might also need some help out of a patch of the doldrums you might be in, here’s a look at the process I’ve been engaged in.
Preparatory work
Over the last few months, I’ve been worrying at this problem; why can’t I just work on that quilt (or anything else for that matter)? It seemed like the problem was that I didn’t have enough leisure time but I suspected something else was up.
So I tried making a custom AI coach called Time Helper: I don’t think of AI tools as people. The aim was to see if it could help me see what was going on. (AI coaches are not a substitute for professional help! But in this case, I didn’t think I needed therapy; I just needed an alternative way of thinking about things.)
In the process of making the Time Helper (using Google Gemini’s Gems), I identified all the creative pursuits that I feel have been neglecting: sewing, patchwork, quilting, crochet, gardening, reading. I know these are not all traditionally seen as “creative”, but they are the things that sustain me
The AI coach helped me to see that there were just too many of these things on the go, leading me to feel overwhelmed. So, with some regret, I’ve put the crochet project to one side for now. I can always start again next year (I now have scarves for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024).
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing
The coach then suggested selecting just one craft – say, sewing – to focus on for a specific period. “This isn’t giving up the others forever, but rather reducing the decision fatigue of ‘which of the many things should I do?’”.
Within that one craft, it was suggested that I should choose one project that calls to me most right now (or is closest to being finished, or is the easiest to do). “Tuck the others away, out of sight, to reduce that feeling of being overwhelmed. The aim is to make starting feel easier,” said the coach.
That all made sense!
So I picked one sewing project to work on, and tidied up my sewing table so I could only see that one thing. I even did an hour of actual sewing.
And I got stuck again.
I just couldn’t bring myself to pick up that quilt that needs repairing.
The aha moment
Then, in my email, was this column by Oliver Burkeman, which suggested the idea of a closed list: A closed list is any list that has a fixed number of entries, as opposed to an endlessly increasing number of entries. He says:
[F]irst, make one big “open list” of everything that’s on your plate, even if it’s 500 items long; then make a second, closed list, with (say) ten slots on it. Feed ten items from the open list over to the closed list, to fill up the slots. These are what you’ll focus on for now. And the rule is that you don’t get to add any more until you’ve freed up at least one slot by completing something on the list.
This last weekend, that’s what I did. And in the process of making a list of all the things I try to get done in my spare time, I realised something. The decision fatigue is not just about the crafts; it’s about a long list of all sorts of things that hang around in my mind, wanting me to do something about them. It was a long list. I picked six items that seemed most important. The plan is to work on those until they’re done, and then start on the other things. And, yes, that quilt that needs to be repaired is one of the six things.
And I’ve already made progress on three of those six items.
So how could this work for you?
Reverse engineering this process, I’d say the key is taking it step by step:
1. Identify the problem.
2. Make a list of all the things that might be feeding into the feeling of being stuck.
3. Pick a small-subset of those things. Make a list with just those items on it.
4. And then refine the things on that list to small, manageable tasks.
5. Don’t pile on anything else until that small subset of things is done.
Main picture: Rodion Kutsaiev, Unsplash
OTHER THINGS I’VE WRITTEN
How I lost and found my craft mojo – How the hidden worry of Covid-19 messed with the part of me that likes to potter around making things, that finds comfort in planning and executing a project.
A year’s weather in crochet – an update – The temperature scarf, a year in
How to build yourself a virtual coach with AI (for free) – So you know how to use ChatGPT (or Claude, or Gemini). But you’re sure there’s more you could be doing. Here’s how to build yourself a virtual coach with AI (for free).
How can I help you make order from chaos?
Join the waiting list for the Safe Hands AI Explorer learning circle!
Sign up for my Sensible Woman’s Guide to AI and Content Creation, which comes out fortnightly.
Or sign up for my personal fortnightly email newsletter In Safe Hands (it’s a place to pause and think about things).
Book a free half hour of my time, here. Find out how I can help with writing, editing, project management, general clear thinking, technical hand holding, or an introduction to AI.
Contact me via email.