Do you know the feeling of being “in the zone?” When your mind is completely focused on the task at hand and your brain is firing on all cylinders.
This is your flow state. A hyperfocused, concentrated mental state that is incredibly powerful for your productivity.
Given most of us feel we have a lack of time, using your flow state can maximize your efficiency and get more done in the same amount of time.
What Is Your Flow State?
Your flow state is a mental state where you feel an energized focus while doing something.
You’re so fully immersed and completely absorbed by what you’re doing that it may feel like you’re on autopilot, coming up with new ideas and making rapid-fire decisions without much active thought.
In reality, your mind is processing at such a fast speed that you don’t realize it’s in action. This could happen while you’re working, playing a sport, writing, or producing music.
“I’ve gone seventy-nine hours without sleep, creating. When that flow is going, it’s almost like a high. You don’t want it to stop. You don’t want to go to sleep for fear of missing something.”
Dr. Dre
While you can’t be in a flow state all the time, it’s something that everyone has experienced from time to time. However, it’s hard for most people to consistently tap into this powerful state because of the way their lives are set up.
Getting into your flow state requires you to concentrate on a task. The way most people’s lives are set up it’s difficult for them to even get into the beginning stages of flow, let alone take advantage of longer periods of flow.
They have distractions around them, they might be bored, or if they do manage to start their flow they will have something in their schedule that interrupts it.
When you can tap into your flow state, you can accomplish truly incredible feats that you never thought possible. Your best work will be done in your flow state and you will experience your mind’s true powers. The hard part is staying in that flow state.
How can you improve your chances of staying in flow? By designing your environment and schedule around it.
Your Environment Impacts Your Flow
Flow is hard to tap into. It takes a lot of time and practice to consistently tap into your flow state. I’ve found it’s much easier too when you’re well-rested and have a clear mind.
The trick to increasing the amount of time in your flow state is not increasing your number of tries, but preventing yourself from breaking your flow once you are in it. It’s much easier to stay in flow than to get into flow, and your environment is a big factor for staying in flow.
Flow takes time to reach and often times when we’re just about to hit it we become distracted. We hear a phone notification, see a new text message, become hungry thinking about food, or a hundred other distractions that cause us to shift our attention for a split second.
By the time you get up to do something else and come back, especially for tasks that require deep thinking, the great ideas have already escaped your mind and you have to start again from scratch to get into flow when it was just around the corner.
To avoid this, you need to structure your environment to stay focused by cutting out any distractions that can stop you from hitting your flow state and then pushing at full speed to stay in flow for as long as you can.
Since our bodies and brains get tired over time, the best way to optimize your time spent in flow is to push at full speed until it ends.
The process I found to work best is before you start working, make sure you’re comfortable, not hungry, well hydrated, and don’t need to use the bathroom. Sit down, turn your phone to silent and put it out of sight, remove all visual and noise distractions, and close your eyes to clear your mind by thinking of a past time you were in a deep state of focus.
Once your mind is clear, immediately jump into what you have to do. No getting up, no checking your phone, no doing anything that shifts your attention from the task at hand.
When you have no other distractions, your mind will focus all its energy on the task in front of you and figure out solutions to the problems you present it.
By doing the preparation ahead of time, you are far more likely to hit your flow state and stay there because of the way you structure your environment and your schedule (more below).
Give it a try.
Addiction By Subtraction For More Flow Time
Over the past few months, I’ve been increasing my time spent in flow by slowly eliminating things on my to-do list and reoccurring commitments on my calendar. The goal was to have as few commitments as possible and use the extra free time towards my goals.
When fitness was my top goal, I would wake up in the morning, immediately have breakfast, and make the time for the gym before I did anything else. I was able to make significant progress in my fitness because I got my workouts in consistently, using my highest levels of energy, with no distractions.
I was constantly hitting flow during my workouts for longer and longer periods of time. It was impossible to not achieve my fitness goals. While I didn’t magically get better at getting into flow, the thing I did differently was change my schedule to avoid breaking my flow state.
You want to have a buffer in your schedule so that on the days when you are deep in the zone, you can stay there for as long as possible without any other commitments getting in the way. Limit the number of things you have scheduled after and fully exhaust your flow state because it isn’t always guaranteed.
Not having any alarm, task, or time commitment to take you out of flow will allow you to stay in the zone for longer. If you have more flexibility in your schedule, on the days you hit flow push everything else in your day back until you naturally break out of flow. This way you can maximize your flow time and make significantly more progress than in your normal, distracted state.
Flow Sounds Great But “I Don’t Have Time”
You might be thinking “Well that wouldn’t work for me. I have too much to do on my daily schedule. I don’t have time to stay in flow.”
My advice here would be to try the early morning solution. This is the most foolproof way to make undistracted time for yourself if you have real responsibilities like family, work, or running a business. Alternatively, you can pick certain days to block out for flow state work (i.e. Saturday or Sunday).
However, I’ve found that using the daily early morning solution works better because you are working towards your goals every single day, which builds momentum and gets you into a rhythm of consistency.
If your schedule still seems overwhelming, use an 80/20 approach to your calendar and take a hard look at all your commitments. Ask yourself if you’re really getting benefits from each of them. Cut the ones that don’t.
Even if you are, ask yourself if the benefits significantly outweigh the fulfillment you would get from achieving your major goals. If not, cut them out.
Anyone can analyze their current schedule and cut out the things that give them the least amount of benefit/fulfillment. Make sure the juice is worth the squeeze before you agree to spend any more time.
Harness The Power Of Your Flow State
Remember, your best work will always be done in your flow state. You can use periods of flow to accomplish things in a fraction of the time, with much higher quality results.
If you can commit yourself to no distractions for short periods of time in your flow state, you can achieve life-changing results with limited time. Your goal is to hit your flow state and stay there as long as possible to produce your best work.
Do not sabotage your own success by capping your flow state. Structure your environment, clear up your schedule, and empty your mind to make sure nothing can distract you while you’re in flow.
“No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied… since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything crammed into it.”
Seneca
Let everyone be amazed by the things you accomplish despite having the same amount of time constraints and responsibilities.
Your secret: you learned how to maximize the power of your flow state.