Getting Back on Track After a Rough Patch: My 3 Go-To Strategies
Man, 2020 was a weird one for everyone, right? Especially when it came to work. I remember that April like it was yesterday—everything just felt…stuck. My career felt like it was moving through mud. But hey, I got through it, and actually, I started really finding my footing mid-2020 and beyond. I’ve been meaning to share what actually helped me claw my way out of that slump and get things moving again. If you were feeling that stagnant energy, these are the three things I started doing religiously.
1. Stop Chasing Perfection, Start Shipping Ugly Drafts
This was the biggest mental block for me. I’m a huge fan of detailed planning and making sure every piece of work is polished before anyone sees it. In April 2020, I was paralyzed. I had a bunch of side projects and potential proposals I was sitting on, thinking they weren’t “good enough.” I was waiting for the perfect time, the perfect idea, the perfect execution. It never came. Everything stalled.
My shift came when I forced myself to just send the draft. I mean the ugly, barely edited, ‘might-have-typos’ draft. I started applying this to everything—code snippets, blog ideas, client emails. I told myself: “Done is better than perfect.” The first few times I hit send on something I felt was half-baked, my stomach was turning. But here’s the kicker: the feedback loop started immediately. Instead of spending two weeks perfecting something that might have been the wrong direction anyway, I got validation or redirection in 24 hours. I cut my ideation-to-execution time down by 75% just by embracing the messiness. Try it. It’s scary, but it moves the needle immediately.
2. Re-map Your Network Around Mutual Skill Sharing (No More Empty Coffee Chats)
Pre-pandemic, my networking was pretty standard: coffee, brief catch-ups, maybe a conference. Mostly superficial stuff that felt good but rarely led to tangible results. When everything went remote, those quick chats felt even more meaningless. I needed substance.
I completely changed how I reached out. Instead of asking “How are you doing?” I started saying, “Hey, I’m working on X problem with Y tool. You crushed Y on your last project. Got 15 minutes for me to pick your brain on this one specific technical block?” Or even better, offering help first: “I noticed you’re struggling with the front-end rendering on that recent piece. I just figured out a neat trick for that. Want me to screen-share for 10 minutes?”
I turned my network interactions into mini-consulting sessions, both giving and receiving. This did two things: it built real, deep appreciation for my skills, and it solved immediate problems that were holding up my progress. It stopped being about collecting LinkedIn connections and started being about solving actual work problems together. That’s where the high-value opportunities really came from.
3. Block Out “Deep Focus Time” and Treat It Like a Non-Negotiable Meeting
When the lines between work and home blurred in early 2020, I found myself getting distracted constantly. A little email check here, a quick Slack response there. By the end of the day, I had done a hundred small tasks but achieved zero progress on my big goals. My focus was shot.
I read somewhere that you need at least 90 minutes of uninterrupted work to get into a flow state. So, I grabbed my calendar and blocked out 90 minutes every morning, right after my first cup of coffee. I labeled it “DEEP WORK: DO NOT DISTURB.” I physically put my phone in a different room, closed all tabs except the one I needed, and put on noise-canceling headphones.
This wasn’t about clearing my inbox. This was about tackling the single hardest task of the day first. The one I usually avoided. By treating that 90 minutes like a high-stakes meeting with the CEO (who, in this case, was my future successful self), I finally started pushing those big projects over the finish line. That dedicated focus time became the backbone of my week. It wasn’t about working longer; it was about working smarter and deeper, and that’s what really made the career momentum feel good again.
So yeah, if things felt slow back then, know you weren’t alone. But these three shifts—shipping ugly, sharing skills, and deep focus time—were the levers I pulled to change the trajectory. Give them a shot.
