In today’s Mentor's Corner, we’re tackling a universal struggle: being stuck. Call it procrastination, call it a slump — whatever the name, it's a place we've all been. You sit down to get started…but suddenly, doing anything else seems more appealing. So, what's the way out? I’ll walk you through what I do.
This is Coached Weekly, my career notes where I share the tiny % of ideas that actually work in real careers. It takes 5 minutes to read, but could speed up your career by years. I write this myself (no AI) and I read your replies. —Rohan Mahtani (LinkedIn)
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Say the nice thing when they're not in the room
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What I do to get unstuck
Procrastination is one of the strangest things people do. You know exactly what to do. You know that putting it off will only make things worse. And you still don't do what you know you need to!
People have gone to absurd lengths to beat it. In the 1800s, the famous French author Victor Hugo made his servant hide his clothes — and return them only when the day's writing was done. So he'd be stuck home naked and had to write. And while that might work, I prefer to work clothed!
Anyway, I'm a stereotypically lazy guy. But over the years I've found a few things that reliably get me unstuck. Let’s dig in.
🧠 The two of me
The first thing I figured out is that I'm not one person. I'm two. There's productive-me and lazy-me, and they take turns. Which one shows up isn't really up to me — it depends on how I slept, the weather, what I ate. In lazy mode, starting anything feels impossible. In productive mode, I can't remember what the problem was.
So procrastination isn't about the task. It's about being stuck in the wrong mode. And switching modes takes a kind of activation energy — the kick a chemical reaction needs before it'll run on its own. The whole fight is supplying that kick. Once you're over the hump, the work takes care of itself.
🌀 Borrow momentum from the small stuff
So how do you build up the energy to get over the hump? Build momentum.
Say I've got a big, chunky proposal I've been putting off for days. It's the highest-activation-energy thing on my plate, which is exactly why I keep sliding off it.
So I don’t start there.
Instead, I do what I call flow tasks: things so small they get me into flow. Follow up on an unpaid invoice. Fix a small software bug. Outline next week's Coached newsletter.
None of these tasks are important tasks I need to do right this second. But, that’s exactly the point. They’re easy, don’t require planning, and have one purpose: to get me into what I call my flow state and out of my lazy inertia.
It sounds counter intuitive. Every productivity book says start with the most important task yada yada. But usually that important thing is HARD, and is the source of procrastination. The flow tasks help me work up to it. Do three or four and you'll cross into productive mode.
🏃 Change your physical state
A lot of people don't realize how tied together the mind and body are. When you're sunk into the couch, you feel lazy — you couldn't focus on a hard problem if you wanted to. When you feel good physically, it's the opposite: you've got energy, your mind's racing, and starting feels easy.
So when I'm stuck, I hack the mind through the body. Go for a brisk walk, do some pushups, or whatever you can do to briefly raise your heart rate. Most of the time, productive-me shows up right after.
It feels too dumb to work, but it does: a Stanford study found that a short walk, even on a treadmill facing a blank wall, lifted people's creative output by about 60%, and the boost hung around after they sat back down.
🤖 Let AI go first
My other big unsticker is AI, and the trick is to let it go first.
The worst kind of stuck is the blank page: I know what I need to do, but there's nothing on the screen yet, and making something out of nothing is brutal. So I don't. I open ChatGPT or Claude, dump everything rattling around in my head at it (through a voice note/record button), and ask for a rough first pass. The activation energy is little - I just record myself talking for a few minutes.
What it gives me is almost never what I'll use directly, and that's fine. The moment there's something on the page, I've stopped creating and started reacting, and reacting is a far lower gear. Now I'm just editing.
I hope this approach not only helps you find your rhythm on those tough days but also changes how you view and tackle what you need to do. Let me know if it did! :)
Hopefully that’s a piece of advice you haven’t heard before. If you enjoyed this:
Forward it to a friend, family member or colleague. It does truly make a difference.
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Speak soon,
Rohan Mahtani
Founder at Coached & Resume Worded
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