If it’s Monday, then we have Monday Moving Forward, a series of posts about getting unstuck, igniting the week on a reasonably positive note, or just getting along with the unbearable frivolity of the existence.

One of the things that works really well for me to remove blockages, especially at the beginning of the week, is choosing a different route to work.

I work from coffee shops for about 10 years now, alternating with co-working spaces, so I always had to move from the place where I live to the place where I work. Sometimes I also work from home (mostly when I’m forced to, like during lockdowns) but I’m not a very big fan of that. I believe there should be a clear separation between the space where you live, and the space where you work, otherwise they will both eventually blend into one grey ball of boredom.

Although there is enough diversity to prevent me from getting bored (as I try to alternate coffee shops too) I invariably end up feeling stuck. So, especially Mondays, I sometimes just take a different route to work. There are Mondays in which I even take a route that I never took before, even if that means I will be 10 or 15 minutes late.

There is a certain mental stimulus in changing the path. Even if you know the destination, by choosing a different route to it, you create some challenge that will act as a refresher. Sometimes, after starting my week like that, I realize I just found the solution to an old problem, or that some old idea lingering around got a new twist.

We function most of the time on autopilot. We have reflexes and habits. Shaking these reflexes and habits every once in a while, even with something as little as picking a different route to work, may have deeper implications than we think. In a good way.