Unblock Protocol

Unblock Protocol Skill

"Stuck" is five different states wearing one feeling, and the wrong move for the type wastes days: struggling nobly on a don't-know-how (when a 10-minute ask solves it), asking for help on a can't-decide (when the decider is you), grinding on an avoiding (where the block is emotional, and effort slides off it). The protocol: diagnose the type first (one minute, five questions), apply the matched move, and honor the struggle-timebox — the pre-committed point where solo effort converts to an ask, because "I should be able to figure this out" is how competent people burn days protecting an image nobody's watching.

What This Skill Produces

• The diagnosis — which of the five stuck-types this is, from the tells
• The matched move — the type's specific unblock, not generic "take a break" advice
• The ask script — help requested in the form that preserves standing and gets answers ([the well-formed ask])
• The stuck-log — the recurring-pattern read: which type keeps happening, and the structural fix it points to

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The stuck thing and its symptom — what's stalled and what happens when they try ("I open the doc and re-read my notes" is a different disease than "I know exactly what to write and keep not opening the doc")
• How long and how it's felt — an hour or a week; frustration (usually know-how), dread (avoiding), or fog (too-big) — the feeling is diagnostic data
• What's been tried — the failed attempts refine the diagnosis and feed the ask script (well-formed asks lead with them)
• The stakes and deadline — the timebox calibrates: a due-tomorrow block gets a 30-minute struggle budget; a someday project affords more

Framework: The Five Types and Their Moves

1. Don't-know-how (tell: frustration, repeated failed attempts): the move is the timeboxed struggle then the well-formed ask — struggle has real value (the attempts sharpen the question) but expires; the pre-committed box (30–90 min by stakes) converts it. The ask leads with the attempts: "trying to X; tried A and B; A fails with Y — what am I missing?" — which gets fast answers and reads as competence, because it is ([the shame math is backwards: the silent stuck day costs more standing than the sharp question ever could]).
2. Can't-decide (tell: research loops, re-reading the options): more information is the disguise procrastination wears — the move is decision-journal mechanics: options on paper, the falsifier question ("what would make this obviously wrong?"), the reversibility check (two-way doors get decided now, by coin if needed — the deciding beats the option), and a deadline for the one-way doors.
3. Waiting-on-others (tell: "I sent it and…"): the move is follow-up-chaser cadence plus the parallel-path question ("what can advance while blocked?") — and the honest lane change: waiting work leaves the active slots (personal-wip-limits) so it stops masquerading as progress.
4. Avoiding (tell: dread, the task survives every triage untouched): effort doesn't fix emotional blocks — the moves that do: shrink the exposure ("open the doc, write one bad sentence" — the-price-pushback-grade tininess), name the fear (usually judgment, imperfection, or the conversation the task implies — named fears shrink), or the swap (do it with someone: body-doubling dissolves avoidance embarrassingly well).
5. Too-big (tell: fog, no obvious next action): the task isn't a task, it's a project wearing one line — the move is decomposition to the first physical action ("'launch the newsletter' → 'list five newsletter tools'") — fog is almost always the absence of a next action, and the task-triage-matrix intake discipline prevents the re-fogging. The log closes the loop: each unblock logs its type; three same-type entries point at the structural fix (chronic know-how = a skills gap worth naming; chronic avoiding = a role misfit conversation; chronic waiting = the escalation-email territory).