Shoutout to the guy in the Lisbon coworking space who saved my week

I was in Lisbon last month working from a coworking space near the Time Out Market. There was this older French guy at the next table who noticed I was staring at my laptop screen for almost an hour without typing a word. He leaned over and said, "You look like you are trying to force the words out with your eyes." I laughed but he was right. I was stuck on a project report for a client back home and nothing was flowing. He told me to step outside and walk around the block twice without looking at my phone. So I did. When I came back I wrote the whole thing in 45 minutes. It sounds simple but getting away from the screen for just those few minutes broke the block. Has anyone else had a stranger in a coworking spot give you advice that actually worked?

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1 Comment

rivera.jesse3h ago

Nah, I gotta push back a little here... walking around the block works sometimes, sure. But I've had strangers try to "help" me with my writing block and it usually makes things worse. Had a guy in a Berlin coworking spot tell me to try some weird breathing exercise he learned at a yoga retreat, and I just felt dumb sitting there huffing and puffing at my desk. Then another lady tried to get me to talk through my outline out loud in the middle of the quiet zone... awkward. Sometimes you just gotta stare at the blank screen until the panic sets in and the words finally spill out, you know?