Not being able to come up with fresh new ideas is a terrible experience, especially when you have a deadline and you know time is a factor. Your problem may be as simple as not getting enough sleep, or it may be something a little more serious like you have just burned out. It’s time to get out from being stuck and learn a few little things you can do start being more creative and innovative in your work and life.

How to Get New Ideas When You are Feeling Stuck

1. Get out of thinking loops

Are you stuck in a form of thinking loop? The best example of a thinking loop is when you lose your keys. You will keep returning to the place where you “think” they are, even though you have checked already. Many people return more than twice to the same spot because they are sure that is where they left their keys. A thinking loop is very similar. It is where you keep buzzing the same ideas around your mind to the point where you cannot think of new ideas.

Getting yourself out of this cycle involves analyzing the reasons why your current ideas will not work, and then concentrating your future ideas on fixing the reasons why your current ideas will not work. This will help guide you out of your loop. The other option is to take your mind off the subject and try again later.

2. Take vegetarian omega 3 pills

This tip is not a joke or an urban legend. For some reason, a person that is suffering with repetitive writer’s block or idea’s block should start taking one vegetarian omega 3 pill with their evening tea. Just one per day is fine, and it has to be the vegetarian kind. You shouldn’t take them at the same time as any other medication because they stop it from working. For some reason (there are probably plenty of scientific ones), you will be able to come up with more ideas very easily after about a week of taking the pills. Just try it before you complain that it “cannot” help.

3. Be negative (no, really!)

Many people get stuck trying to think of ways to improve something. They hit a wall and do not know where to turn. One option is to take a form of negative bias. Instead of thinking of ways you may make something better, think of ways you could make it worse, and then consider how you would stop things getting worse. As you think up new ways to stop your “thing” from getting worse, you often find ways of making it better (which was your original intention).

4. Set up a structure for your creative process

Some people work better if they set up some form of structure to their process. They cannot work with the idea of brainstorming or simply coming up with ideas. Instead, they have a structure such as writing the pros and cons of their situation, writing about their current methods, writing about alternative methods, and changing the external parameters of their situation.

For example, you could consider changes in the external parameters such as if the market dropped and your investment lost money. You may then come up with an idea that you use as a counter measure for if the market turns against you.

5. Make the mundane your game

They say you should take pleasure in the mundane, but it is easier if you make it a game. When you are coming up with new ideas, you should make that a game too. Even if it is a simple and silly game such as writing as many bullet pointed ideas in 2 minutes and then trying to beat that score. It is often a good idea to apply different unrelated ideation techniques to your process, simply to see if it will work or make a difference.