Are you looking to soar to higher levels of productivity? With flow and focus, your ambition is within your grasp.
A flow state is when an activity is all-consuming. You might be playing chess, intensely focussed on thinking several steps ahead of your opponent. Or on a martial arts gym mat, trying to avoid an armbar submission by a Brazilian Jujitsu expert. Or delivering a complex presentation to a challenging stakeholder group. The challenge is high, as is your concentration and will to win.
Flow teleports you to a place where there is no space or time. Once you are in a flow state, you can focus. Focus removes the unnecessary distractions so you can work on high-reward activities.
Do we learn and produce the most when we’re doing an activity with so much enjoyment we lose track of time?
Friday afternoon. I blocked out four hours to focus. For months, I had procrastinated over documenting an important document for my team. I wanted to document our organisational change practice. This meant we had a standard way of delivering change. My document had started with about five pages (and lots of blank space) the day before. It was time to get it done.
The Myth of Multi-Tasking
Multi-tasking doesn’t work. When we say we multi-task, we switch between single tasks. Research shows that switching between tasks results in a 40% loss in productivity.
Switching invites more errors in our work. Research suggests an increased risk of 50% or more errors. It might take you 20–25 minutes on average to get back on task after switching 50% longer to complete a task.
I put on my headphones and sat away from my colleagues. I get this type of deep thinking done while working from home. Yet we are all going back to the office more and more these days. What music did I put on? Classical music, Slipknot, dance music or the sound of rain and distant thunder? It doesn’t matter; I got into a flow state without realising it. Pure focus on one task only.
Over twenty years ago, my colleague had the radio playing in the background in our office. The radio deejay mentioned this task-switching study. I switched my attention from spreadsheets to his commentary. I remember him saying that multi-tasking lowered IQ by up to 15 points.
His off-hand comment stuck with me: “You may as well smoke dope if you don’t want to focus on one thing.”
Peak Time
Deep work is a concept coined by Cal Newport. Flow and focus work in tandem to allow you to undertake deep work.
“Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”
- Cal Newport, author of Deep Work: Rules for Focussed Success in a Distracted World
Starting today, what deliberate habit can you make to carve out time for deep work? Here are some suggestions:
- 30 minutes before peak time, finish your meetings
- Prepare with intention
- 15 minutes before Peak time, have a preparation ritual
- Set a Pomodoro timer
- Put on headphones
- Clear your head
- Take a moment to be mindful
I found out later that one of my colleagues had tried to get my attention. With my headphones blaring, I didn’t hear. Nor did I want to — I lost track of time and place. He thought I was being rude until he saw my headphones. So if I didn’t have them on? Yes. And it’s hard to get back.
How to Get Flow State
The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy.
- Fadeke Adegbuyi, Doist.com
So you have carved out the time and environment to focus. The psychological state of flow can take you to the right mental place for deep work. Yet flow doesn’t appear on a whim.
How do you begin drawing on your inner mental resources to get into a flow state?
The Pomodoro technique suggests time-boxing 25-minute work sessions with 5-minute breaks. Great music or white noise on your headphones also helps you get into the right mindset.
- Be free of distractions.
- Turn off your email and notifications.
- Put away your phone
- Have a clear goal
- A challenging but not too difficult task
- Be free of friction and blockers
- Having positive feedback loops
- Focus on a single task
Keep your flow and focus on work solo where possible. Distractions will pull you out of the flow state if you start on your task but then have to wait for something or ask for help.
Procrastinate productively
Sometimes the best creative insights come from when you are doing nothing. You could be taking a shower or bath. Ideas may strike when you are walking in your neighbourhood. Productive people embrace procrastination rather than fight against it. Stop wasting mental energy fighting against the urge. Let go of your mind’s natural desire for stimulation.
Sitting in blue or green spaces help. Head out to a nearby ocean, lake or river. Sit in nature. Seek optic flow experiences. Have you ever heard of optic flow? Optic flow happens when things move past your eyes. Walking, biking, driving a car, or watching waterfalls are great examples. Optic flow experiences calm your mind and lower your anxiety.
Relaxing your eye muscles and lowering brain activity make you feel relaxed and in control.
Mid-afternoon, I got “stuck”. My team’s change practice was emerging, but there were some topics where I couldn’t put words and images on a page. I went for a walk. I enjoyed walking past nearby cafes and offices and getting out of the office. The cool autumn air was crisp and energising. After a brief walk, I headed back to the office. Headphones back on, I was in the zone again.
Ruthlessly cut distractions
I have no idea what the time is, despite the system clock in the bottom right-hand corner of my computer screen. It’s just me and my emerging change practice document. A single Microsoft Word document. My outline of topics in this document helped guide my attention. Music in my headphones keeps me in a focussed, flow-like state.
- Stop trying to resist distractions and work like hell to avoid them in the first place. Focus is much more of a subtraction problem than an addition problem.
- Some distractions are inevitable. Yet many of them are avoidable if you’re willing to make some tough choices.
Be compassionate with your mistakes.
My document isn’t coming together in places. I reprimand myself, then steel my resolve to continue. Then I remember that I’m not perfect, nor will I have an excellent first draft. Relaxing a bit, my mind jumps out of frightened, linear patterns to start joining the dots again. Creative ideas helped me fill the blanks in parts of my document where I was stuck.
- Being hard on yourself is a short-term strategy with disastrous long-term consequences.
- Constant self-criticism leads to anxiety, stress, and low self-esteem. Your self-criticism isn’t exactly motivating either, is it?
- Cultivate self-compassion in the face of adversity or mistakes.
Take small breaks
- If you work in flow for too long without a break, your energy levels will fall off a cliff.
- Taking small breaks allows a flow state to last a long time.
- Keep your headphones playing music while you take a break to go to the bathroom or get food.
Take advantage of inspiration but don’t rely on it.
I had tried to document my change practice on a few occasions before Friday. Yet nothing “clicked”. For some writers, starting is the hardest part. For others, editing drafts towards a final draft is as hard. I didn’t beat myself up in my first failed attempts. The creative muse wasn’t there. Instead, phone calls, meetings and an intermittent email flow were distractions.
- Inspiration is like extra credit: Good to take advantage of when you can but never be relied upon.
- Highly focused people know that the relationship between feeling and action is a two-way street. Focusing and working well tends to produce motivation and even inspiration.
Clarify your values
Before the end of my four hours, my team’s change practice was at a first draft. I’m working with intensity on a Friday afternoon. For weeks beforehand, my team and I worked long and hard hours on a series of project go-lives. Most people would be taking it easy. Why not? Yet my four-hour documentation wasn’t something I planned well in advance. I sat down, blocked out the time and got to work. It happened without feeling “forced”.
- Clear, compelling values are the ultimate source of focus and motivation.
- The real secret to staying focused is working on things you value.
- The real secret to staying focused is to work on things that you value
- When you’re in a flow state, you can concentrate on a single problem and generate better ideas.
So why did I invest the time on Friday? To help my team — both current and future team members. I saw the change practice document as a way to help many people. This practice is also a way to systemise and standardises how my team operates. I want my team to run efficiently. Effective organisational change leaders aim to make their roles redundant because their team know what to do and when. These reasons are satisfying to me; they also speak to my values.
Want to build your organisational change management skills? Check out my book — The Change Manager’s Companion. Or take a look at my online course on Change Management.