If you’ve worked for any amount of time, you’ve come across a period where it’s hard to do anything. Maybe you’re sick (like I unfortunately have been, thanks preschooler) or maybe you’re going through a low energy period. Whatever it is, it can be a real problem when you have a full workload.

So if you are finding yourself in this position, let’s talk about what to do when you don’t want to do anything.

Work on the symptom first

Not wanting to do anything is a symptom of something else. But the thing is, sometimes we don’t have time to work on the root cause. So even though it’s tempting to work on the part that will have the most long lasting effects, you have to prioritize what will get you back to work.

Start with what will motivate you. You might lean on something that has motivated you in the past and find it’s not working. That’s okay. Don’t judge yourself over that. Instead, focus on who you are in this moment. What will motivate this person? Focusing on that question will get you further along and back to work sooner.

Try different motivators and see what happens. If something doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to throw it away quickly. We don’t need to stick to anything that isn’t working quickly at this point. We need to get to something successful, which means nothing is sacred and throwing away what doesn’t work in this moment is your best option.

Schedule feelings

I had a year where people close to me died, and those deaths rocked my world. But the fact is that I had to keep working through it, despite just wanting to sit there and cry all day every day.

In a stroke of genius, I scheduled a time on my calendar to feel my feelings. I took some deep breaths and shoved those feelings down. And then I got to work. When I got to the time I had scheduled for grieving, I grieved hard. I let everything in and felt it intensely. For ten minutes. And then I scheduled another time to do it again.

I kept doing this until I didn’t need it anymore. I can’t tell you exact timelines of when I scheduled those feelings breaks. It was more of a feeling that I would need to have that moment again in an hour or more. I’m in touch with my feelings enough that I just knew.

And I will say that I’ve done this with any overpowering feeling. Too excited? I’d schedule a time to feel all the excitement. And so on and so on.

If you just focus on stuffing down the overpowering feeling and not let it have a release, it’s going to come out at some point. The chances are good that it will come out at an inappropriate time and that could be very bad for your business. So do yourself a favor by honoring that you’re a human with feelings and give yourself some time to feel them.

Free write

There is no better way for me to figure out what is going on than to do a little free writing. You don’t think about it, and you definitely don’t judge it. You just let things flow through your fingers.

One of two things will happen. The first is that you will get some feelings out so you can refocus on work. You can read it back and work through it now or later depending on the depths of the feelings and your time constraints.

But you could also write yourself right into work. I’ve had this happen a few times where I start writing about my feelings and then, because I’m just letting everything come out without judgment, work problems that I had been trying to solve start coming out. And I write through to a solution.

When you don’t put any limitations on free writing (except time, I always limit the time I do this), interesting things can happen. It’s a great tool to get you back to working when you don’t want to do anything.

Don’t judge yourself

The biggest obstacle to me working is usually myself. I know I’m in a funk, and I try working anyway. Then I rip apart what I did which puts me right back to square one.

Even in your weakest working moments, there is likely something there. So what I do is focus on the creating. The editing can wait for another day when I won’t judge myself so harshly. Because I’m frankly not as bad as I think I am on these days when I don’t want to do anything. So if I work and shut out that judgment for the time, I actually can accomplish more than I think. And on a day when I’m feeling better, I can piece it all together into something good and usable.

Know when to quit

There comes a time when trying to get yourself to do something becomes counterproductive. If you just take the time to go through whatever it is you’re going through, you can come out on the other side more efficient and effective. And you could probably get twice as done in a day.

I can’t tell you exactly what the point is when you need to call it. It’s a gut thing. And yes, I know that’s an annoying answer. But if you try a few of these strategies, and it’s just not getting better, that’s your answer right there. Sometimes not doing anything and just feeling is exactly what you need to do.

What do you do when you don’t want to do anything?