Sometimes getting out of a slump is like overcoming a hangover (which I consider to be a slump). For me, the worst thing I can do for a hangover is to let it settle into my body. This means, as soon as I wake up, I just swing my feet on to the floor. I don't allow myself to think about it, just do it. Then, I ingest things that I know will be good for getting rid of it. My personal regimen is soda water or seltzer, with a lime wedge, V8 and if I'm still feeling it, a banana blended in some milk (but no sugar!) and if that doesn't work, a little bit of booze. Then, as much physical stuff as I can handle. Swimming is good.

Boredom, or a rut can be overcome somewhat the same. Instead of drinking things to give the body fluids and precious vitamins and proteins, as AlderaanDuran mentioned, read books. Books are designed to capture imagination. I would go a step further though. I would read things and then try to think of how they applied to my problem, as I saw it.

Then, the other part of getting over it is, just put your feet on the ground and start doing something. Anything. Sometimes wandering around is the best way to start having an adventure.

A friend and I were studying abroad and we finished up our coursework early. We'd agreed to travel together, but had no real plan. All in all, it looked like a somewhat boring week. But, we got to the train station with no destination in mind, until an announcement came over the loudspeakers saying that the train station would soon close because people were going on strike. So, we quickly looked at our options and decided to go to Spain. One of the greatest weeks of my life.

In Madrid we hadn't booked a hostel, so we wandered around until we got to Plaza Real and once there discovered that it was some kind of field trip day and there were hundreds of Spanish high school girls in uniform. We found a cool little place to have some drinks and eventually found a hostel where we met an Australian girl doing a gap year and ended up going out all night with her. On the dance floor of some club I danced with these girls from the Canary islands and had a blast. On the way back we got lost and found a playground where I tried to go down a tube slide and had to back out because there was a homeless guy sleeping in it.

Do stuff, interesting things will happen if you do enough. Don't over think it.

I go outside of what I'm supposed to be doing.

So one day I was waiting for my father to pick me up in front of a church, and while I was waiting on this quiet Tuesday morning, I started thinking about my failures as a student and my failures in my studying and was really just in a slump.

I was taken by these odd looking shrubs placed near the front door of the church. The leaves were tiny and blade-like, and they were grouped in little clusters all over very thin long-ish branches. How fascinating the design, I thought to myself as I started to feel the little prickly leaves, turning them over in my hand, observing the little creases on each leaf. I looked a little deeper and noticed that there were brown little clusters of leaves hidden near the base of the shrub hidden from plain sight. I felt sad seeing this otherwise healthy looking tree conceal such a dismal little sight as that. I reckon that particular little branch never had a chance of growing to their full splendor.

I started thinking to myself about those leaves… And I started to wonder: who was to blame for their not being able to simply bask in the sun? It was a silly question, but in my defense I was young. I blamed the other leaves at first, since they took up all the sunlight and never gave those poor clusters a chance to grow, but I realized that these leaves had no say in the matter. They just did what they did best. They needed sunlight too, and they had what was needed to get it, so natural selection did what it did and now everyone who was lucky to have wider leaves is now on top, and whoever was at the bottom was out of luck, I guess. And yet it still seemed so cruel to me that life was as thus. Unfairness is a natural part of existence and is used daily by those living to continue living while leaving others to die, perhaps without even realizing it. What makes humans different is the need to make things fair, to rebel, perhaps not in actuality but definitely psychologically, against evolution by letting those who would normally die live.

These weren't great thoughts by any means, nor were they original thoughts, or even coherent thoughts, as I was only 15 at the time, but I was out of my slump and I got motivated to learn more about humanity and nature.

Or, if what I said wasn't anything interesting, here's a similar experience by Richard Feynman, a man much more interesting than I:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10036024/Richard-Feynman-...

The relevant part is here, although the entire article is worth a read:

Physics had slipped down his list of priorities, but he suddenly rediscovered his love for the subject in a most unexpected way. In the canteen at Cornell one lunchtime he became distracted by a student, who had thrown a plate into the air. As it clattered onto the floor Feynman observed that the plate rotated faster than it wobbled. It made him wonder what the relationship was between these two motions.

Sometimes you go outside and do something you've never done before, or just be in a different context, and you'll find yourself in a situation where your interest in rekindled by a seemingly unrelated event that turns out to be very related. Being bored I guess is the wanting to be derailed from your situation, so the solution is to let yourself be derailed and you'll find yourself naturally coming back.

My greatest motivation is spending a night or a weekend away from everything, away from myself. It allows me to sort of reset my brain and realise why it is I need to be working and improving myself; I want to work hard so I can spend my time doing the things that I actually want to do. Also it helps to hear what my peers are doing and knowing that they are graduating college, going to grad school and working someplace that they enjoy keeps me motivated to continue working at it and advancing in my life.

I read during those times. I pick up a non fiction book on space, Zen, positive thinking, success, or a biography of someone successful/famous/smart/whatever. Those are just my personal go to topics, but I find when I'm not motivated, that reading about other people that are motivated is a big help and can lead to some inspiration.

I'm never bored because I always have a coding project I'm working on or researching for, so I guess you could say that I code when I'm bored...?

I have not been "bored" lately, but I have certainly been in a slump. I recently wrote about how routine helps me be more creative. Actually, having a routine helps me be happier. Period.

I would suggest to anyone to have a few set things that you do every day, week, month etc. I was running 3-7 miles every other day and I fell away from it because of traveling etc. I fell out of the routine and it has really brought me down. I plan on running tomorrow and I already know that I'll be lucky to go 3 miles. My last real run was 10 miles. When I don't run my diet gets worse too, it's pretty amazing the effect it has on me.

So my advice is "routine".

My mother loves to tell the story that when I was three, I went up to her an said "I'm bored." She replied,

"I never want to hear that you're bored."

She says I went to the window and thought about that for a moment, then I started doing something. I was never bored again.

Too simple, right? However the point was not merely "don't impose your lack of engagement on others", which would dissuade you from asking a good question. Mom's point was that I should engage myself. I've refined the steps over the decades:

1) When you can't get to the solution and you start hatin' on yourself, stop right away. Even when you have a deadline (and there is always another deadline), you can actually destroy what you've already created by grinding when you have lost focus. You're also wasting time anyway -- getting the blood flowing will help.

2) Have other things to work on, and do not even let yourself go back to the original task for a while. Get distracted with some other positive (non-sedentary) task, even if it's simply doing the dishes for ten minutes.

3) Set a timer, or at least set a stop time. This will make the temporary distraction not become the next drudge. Letting a machine tell you when time is up will get you not to look at the clock. Your mind doesn't have that to consider, so other things get done. (It's like when I first got a cell phone and stopped memorizing phone numbers. I can no longer remember phone numbers as easily, but I gained a simple process to get those numbers immediately.)

4) Let your background processes solve things. You can actually get answers by letting the "back of your mind" (next to the pr0n) deal with what your active mind is not getting through.

5) Suddenly you'll get a hunch about your original problem. Even if the logic isn't fleshed out, you will want to get back to your original task. However...

6) Build up that tension and don't jump back just yet. Make yourself even more eager to "get back to work". You'll be surprised how nicely those next couple minutes of brewing while finishing your side project will give you two more hours of productivity.

This post was my process to get re-engaged with my customer reproductions at work. I ran out of ideas for a way to test a possible defect, but I didn't want to let myself surf aimlessly. So I went through the interesting posts on Hubski, replied, and am geared up to tackle scripting problems again.

Thank you all for your response, this is something I definitely have to read on.