One of thousand insightful morsels from one of my favourite books "The Art of Looking Sideways' by Alan Fletcher...

" If you're in a hole don't keep digging - look around. Then get the bits and pieces into some kind of order so as to point up the problem. Sometimes it comes easy, other times it's like confining jelly with a rubber band.

Anyway, once achieved, the next move is to head off along the most promising route. The solution may become evident or you can end up in an exasperating period of hiatus when, despite trying this and that, the answer remains elusive.

Hopefully the germ of an idea eventually peeps through, but before leaping on it with relief let it incubate for a while. Here the mind works on the idea in some mysterious way.

Either the potential evaporates, in which case you have to start all over again, or it emerges [said henry james] with a firm iridescent surface, and a notable increase in weight'. Designing looks easy if you don't know how, difficult if you do."