2 tips for fresh thinking

Finishing this dissertation is a emotional rollercoaster. Every other day, I'm completely sad and scared, being stuck in a new writing problem. I've been stuck all the time before, of course, but now the clock is ticking so much louder. Poor Mona and Synne, who have to live around me.

I've noted before that the solution often is to think differently. But how do you do that? I've heard that Brian Eno once made a tool for creative workers, a deck of cards with ideas like "try another colour". When stuck, you just pick a card, any card... The Big RPG plot list Mark wrote about yesterday is another example of the same. We should have a similar list for stuck PhD candidates.

Today, what finally helped after three close to wasted days was to:

1. Get an overview. Fit all the tangled thoughts into one sheet of paper.

2. Return to the research question. Should've guessed, the problem I was stuck in didn't really answer my initial question. Readressing the original question made me see another way out.

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