Get into the Flow State to Produce Your Best Work

Some work days drag by. The tasks ahead of you are monumental, you keep staring out the window, and time trickles past slowly.

But there are those lovely days when you’re in the zone, completely wrapped up in what you’re doing, and before you know it, you’re done–and it’s exhilarating.

The latter is called being in the state of flow, and it’s said to be “the most desirable state on earth.”

The flow state of mind

Like a stream that flows effortlessly downhill, you encounter no friction or resistance when you’re in a state of flow. You lose sense of time, such that you can keep on going and realize–with a jolt of surprise–that hours have passed. 

It’s also characterized by a lack of self-consciousness: you’re so concentrated on a specific task that you forget about yourself.

Not only does it leave us feeling good, it’s also essential for our wellbeing–and for our productivity. Do anything creative–cooking, painting, programming–and you’ll notice that you gradually slide into flow.

To use the example of writing, the most frustrating moments would be when you can’t even get a sentence out. Or you keep on deleting what you’ve written, because your inner critic is wailing loudly.

However, when you get rid of this self-consciousness–when you stop filtering and second-guessing yourself–that’s when you actually produce paragraph after paragraph.

Disengagement: a chronic workplace problem

Flow is the antithesis of a leading problem in the workplace: disengagement (and, consequently, boredom). Disengagement takes its toll on performance and is one of the reasons why people quit.

Boosting employee engagement has become a hot topic, given that companies with engaged employees earn at least twice as much revenue. Disengaged employees rarely ever experience flow in their work, struggling with every part of the process and maybe even resorting to procrastination.

Finding flow

Out of the nine conditions needed to trigger flow, here are three that fall under our control:

“There is a balance between challenges and skills”

To trigger a state of flow, there’s a delicate balance to be played in terms of your comfort zone. Stay too long in your comfort zone, and you become bored and stagnant.

But despite all the proclamations to venture outside your comfort zone, you have to make sure you’re not straying too far, either–get too uncomfortable, and you’ll spiral into anxiety and distress. In other words, you’ll thrive in the middle ground between too easy and too challenging–something that pushes you to grow without overwhelming you.

“Clear goals with immediate feedback”

This is consistent with deliberate practice, which is key to achieving mastery. Deliberate practice means focusing on a certain aspect of your performance and working towards improving it–say, doing specific piano drills rather than playing songs aimlessly.

Setting specific goals can go a long way towards engagement. You should have a clear picture of what you want to achieve as well as a way of receiving immediate feedback, whether from a mentor or based on metrics. In this way, you’re aware of what you need to improve on and can target that right after.

“Distractions are excluded from consciousness”

Getting into a state of flow takes time, with research saying that people take from 5 to 20 minutes to focus. During the first part of your task, your attention might wander, but you need to keep at it long enough.

Don’t allow yourself to be distracted–try to clear your space of clutter (unless you’re the rare kind of person who thrives in chaos) and minimize distractions, from social media notifications to phones ringing.

When you’re interrupted, it’ll take a while again to find flow. While focusing might not come naturally because we’re often short-circuiting our attention spans, we get better at it with practice.

Conclusion

Being in flow is similar to staying in the present moment, except that your energy is directed towards accomplishing a certain task. Flow can definitely be elusive. We can’t control it, but we can definitely create conditions that are optimal for it–and train our minds to concentrate rather than being distracted.

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