Getting into Flow State

In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as ''being in the zone'', is the mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, & enjoyment in the process of the activity.

We all know what that feels like right? When you get so deep into your task that you lose all track of time. And we also know what their evil cousins, distraction & procrastination feel like too. I'm sure we have all had peaks & troughs of productivity over the past few weeks.

Getting into flow state is about priming your body & brain. It's programming your brain-computer with will and choice. To help optimise your workflow and to own your flow try these hacks:

Chunck or chook? Chunk your time, so you don't end up feeling like a headless chook. Do one task at a time, yes one thing at a time. It's mentally straining on your brain to do multiple things. I know we all (especially women) think that we're amazing multi-taskers but we're not. It can and will create an anxiety gap when we try to do too many tasks at once. This is the whole concept of mindfulness and my favourite example is how Scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn simply explains, "The next time you're in the shower, check and see if you're in the shower. Because you may not be in the shower. Or you may have your whole Monday morning 9 o'clock meeting in the shower with you, but you're not actually there under the water, feeling the water on your skin," he says. "You're off in the future. Or off in the past."

Know your energy zone. Do you focus better early morning, mid-morning or in the afternoon? For the tasks that take more mental concentration, do when you know you naturally work better. For me it's mid-morning. And then try and structure your day to do other tasks that you can more or less ''wing it''. For me, I like to do my "winging it" tasks is the afternoon. This is the same concept of ''Eat Your Frog'' and doing your harder tasks first. If you haven't heard of this concept, Mark Twain once said “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

Visualization. If you have a ''frog task'' that you don't want to do, imagine yourself doing. Picture the task, and how you're going to tackle it, how it feels. This will only take a few seconds. This is why lists are useful, as you write the tasks in a list, your brain automatically starts thinking of how it will tackle that task.

Triage your emails. I know there's stuff out there about not checking emails twice but I'm with Aubrey Marcus, author of ''Own the Day'' on this one. Check your inbox in the morning and triage it; for a lot of us, what's in your email can determine what's in your day and what needs urgent attention. In Gmail, you can label and colour items using Folders and Outlook has a similar colour function. You can also star important emails, Gmail has different colour stars too. And archive completed stuff, you don't need it cluttering your inbox and therefore cluttering your brain. Triaging your emails will give you peace of mind so that you can get into flow-state for your ''frog-tasks'', and then when you get back to ''email-time'' as one of your ''chunks'', you can truly focus on that, with the goal of getting that inbox to zero by COB.

Notifications. This is key to ''chunking''. Since working from home I have been way more distracted by Slack and I just realised that's because I have my laptop sound on full for Zoom meetings. I have one hour of zoom meetings per day and seven hours of work time so this doesn't make sense. Damn that pesky clicky sound interrupting me all the time! Turn the sound off and minimize, or turn notifications off altogether, you could go even further and close programs, letting your team know you will be uncontactable. At a business I once worked for in London, each team member had a 90 min block per day, when no one was allowed to interrupt them. You can do this digitally too.

Posture and breathing. Is the shape of your body a question mark ? or an exclamation point! You want to be an exclamation point! Focus on tucking your pelvis slightly, turn on your core, and then draw your chin down and back. It can also be useful while sitting-up straight to imagine light or energy moving from the base of your spine through to the crown of your head. Breaks and movement are also of course very well documented as productivity tactics. My personal fave is banging out some power poses and warriors just before you get into your task. You can also try breathing techniques such as Wim Hof breathing or 4-7-8 breathing by Dr Andrew Weil that are great for priming your nervous system.

Trigger scents. OK this is a weird one but getting a good smell up your nostrils has shown to help focus. Recent research into the nose-mind connection has shown that certain odors (like lemon) make people more alert, while other smells (say, spiced apple) aid relaxation. This Japanese study showed that the smell of lemons/citrus infused in an office made typists 54% more effective, 3% fewer with jasmine, and 20% fewer with lavender. Following this Idemitsu in Japan now pumps citrus aroma through the ventilation ducts every two minutes, all day long-part of a computerized "environmental fragrancing" system designed to make employees more productive. While this may taking it far, why not buy a little essential oil, sniff that before you need to focus or have a little diffuser on your desk.

Noise-canceling headphones. Submerse yourself in your favourite trance-inducing playlist. A leader I know who manages a large digital team once told me that his team knows that different headphones mean different things; his small headphones mean sure, you can interrupt me, and large headphones that make you feel like you are part of a Daft Punk act mean Do Not Disturb. His team eloquently then named the latter his ''Piss Off Headphones''. Put your PO headphones on, and get into it. If you have meeting rooms in your office and really need no distractions, why not book a room.

Tea & coffee time. Not only are these stimulants due to their carrying levels of caffeine but they can also signal to the body that its show-time. I often have a coffee at 9.30am to get into flow state for the core-hours of 10am-12pm when I try to achieve my hardest tasks. For me, a cup of something and putting on my big-ass headphones on signals to my brain that its time for business! There's a whole world of nootropics out there that you can explore such as Lions Mane Mushroom, Ginseng, and Alpha Brain to help you focus but for me, I'll stick to tea and coffee for now.

Learn to say no. Lastly and truly. Create boundaries and say no, where you need to.