I’ve been holding onto a blue three for several hands and Katy just slapped down a blue two, aggressively followed by a blue three (HER blue three) so fast I didn't see her hand move.

Dutch Blitz is not a calm game. It's violent, loud and the only reason we're not actually injuring each other is years of practice.

(Also, I may be cheating. I'm almost definitely cheating.)

We had been staring at the same script for two hours. The good kind of stuck, not blocked, just fuzzy. That overworked feeling where every sentence sounds wrong and right at the same time.

So we stopped.

Not because we gave up. Because we changed the container.

The thing nobody tells you about creativity

Sometimes the best thing you can do for an idea is stop squeezing it.

When we're stuck, we don't push harder. We switch.

Dutch Blitz. Azul, where we work as artisans, drafting colorful resin tiles to decorate the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora.

Whatever pulls us out of the loop we're running.

The script stays in the background. Our brains keep working on it. But the pressure's off, and the stakes are different. (The stakes are now: can I distract Katy long enough to stack my post piles without her noticing? The answer is no. She notices everything.)

That's not procrastination. That's incubation.

People don't need better ideas

They need permission to stop forcing the current one.

You know that feeling when you've been wrestling with something so long it starts to blur? Every option looks equally good and equally terrible?

That's not a problem with the idea. That's a problem with proximity.

You're too close. The solution isn't push harder. It's change the pattern.

How this looks in practice

When we hit that fuzzy, overworked feeling, we switch the cognitive mode.

Sometimes it's a game. Sometimes it's a walk. Sometimes it's vocal warmups because Katy insists singing resets the nervous system (and she's right, but I'll never admit it).

The container changes. The stakes drop. Pattern recognition gets to happen sideways.

And when we come back? The thing that felt impossible twenty minutes ago suddenly has a shape.

That's not magic. That's process.

The thing about creative partnerships

Most creative partnerships might collapse under pressure because both people think stepping away means giving up.

Katy and I learned early: if we're both staring at the same stuck place, we're not helping each other think, we’re amplifying the same dead end.

Changing the container together isn't avoiding the work. It's trusting each other enough to release the pressure.

The Dutch Blitz battle isn't just a break. It's a mutual agreement that we're protecting the partnership, not just chasing the answer.

That's not a process tip. That's how partnerships survive.

Before you move on

Name one idea you're currently squeezing too hard.

What if you let it simmer instead of forcing it?

Take a walk. Play a game. Do something completely unrelated that lets your brain work on it without you micromanaging.

The work doesn't stop when you step away. It just gets better at hiding from you until it's ready.