Flow Motion

I’m sure you’ll agree that the obvious place to start an article about improving focus at work is by referencing 1970’s German cosmic music. I’m certainly partial to shoehorning this in wherever I can — so much so that my new company, Bamyazi, owes its name to a record by one of my favourite bands, Can. And it is to their album, Flow Motion, that I turn for this overly long and obtuse introduction to the psychological state of ‘flow’.

When harnessed correctly, flow can enhance performance in learning and creative tasks, as well as in sport — in which we tend to refer to it as ‘being in the zone’. It provides disproportionate improvements in productivity and effectiveness, which could help me find an answer to various questions, including, “what the fuck am I going to do with my life” and, “how do I do it in less than 40-hours per week”?

Reaching a ‘flow state’ takes a lot of practice, and I’ll only touch here on the conditions required to get there; the first of which is to be fully absorbed in work. It requires switching off entirely from the numerous distractions of modern life that impinge on the working week. I define a distraction as something with no discernible value that is preventing you from delivering on your work or personal goals — e.g. pointless meetings, digital notifications, the instant (but negative) gratification provided by endless scrolling on social media feeds, or interruptions from colleagues.

A significant life event can force you to reflect on your aspirations in the face of new, unavoidable limitations on time but, frankly, I’d suggest everyone would benefit from doing this RIGHT NOW! You’ll find it starts a welcome process of reducing stress and anxiety while increasing contentment and happiness. Tot up how much time you waste on these things and consider how you can use this time on positive pursuits.

In continuation of the spurious Germanic theme, I’ll quote the Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and philosopher, Viktor Frankl. He advocated grabbing life by the horns when he said, “live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.’

I’ll talk in a later article about how I use my natural physiological rhythms — known as chronobiology — to optimise my daily schedule. In respect of effective job design, though, I now segment my days and weeks into four categories of work –collaborative, spontaneous, focused and downtime — that allow me to work productively and creatively.

During my collaborative sessions, I’ll plan any activities and meetings that require me to spend time with other people. The only consideration is whether there’s value in me being there — either to me or others.

Spontaneous time is for those moments of shallow work (non-cognitively demanding tasks) where some background noise and interaction with others is both enjoyable and potentially constructive. After all, you are allowed to have some fun at work!

During collaborative and spontaneous periods, I ‘timebox’ my day, scheduling every task in my calendar with realistic durations rather than the defaults set by Google — If something is going to take 12 minutes, I put it in for 12 minutes, not 30. Of course, things pop up now and then that take priority, so the trick is to build in some flexibility with what I call ‘overflow time’ — leaving a free half an hour at the end of my morning or afternoon.

It’s when we get to focused work, though, that I tend to be more disciplined and need to remove distractions. To do this in the office, I’ve tried out explicit visual devices like a home-made ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and a traffic light system. Red means ‘it better be urgent, otherwise, leave me alone’, amber means ‘you can interrupt if it’s time-sensitive’, green means ‘I’m free as a bird’).

I find myself much most effective, though, when I remove myself entirely from the office.

When I established these working habit, I brainstormed all the places I might consider going for focused time — at home, local cafes, meeting rooms, libraries, museum and galleries. Frankly, anywhere that I could sit comfortably and undistracted for a period of between 90 and 150 minutes will do. I now balance my tried and tested favourite places 80/20 with somewhere new. Evolving where I work for me is an integral part of the creative process, placing myself in new, unfamiliar environments can force my brain out of its comfort zone.

Studies show that when mastered, flow can increase output by 400%. To put this in perspective, four two-hour focused-work sessions every week would be the equivalent of a 40-hour ‘distracted’ work-week (compare this to the 15 hour average for UK office workers!). There’s much talk about whether a four day-week could work and there’s your answer!

Now, I accept, it isn’t quite that simple as that — not all periods of focused work yield such high productivity. Plus, depending on the nature of your job and level of experience, isolating yourself may not be realistic. However, it’s indisputable that focused work adds value to roles requiring any degree of creativity or problem-solving.

Lastly, giving your mind the space to be creative is vital, and a critical counterbalance to focused work is downtime. Any chef worth their salt will advise that when you’re cooking meat, you should aim to rest it for an equal amount of time to that which you cooked it. The same is true of your brain — focused work is demanding, and you need to allow it to recover. I like to practice restorative yoga, have a gentle walk or, if I can get away with it, indulge in a relaxing mid-week massage!

How has this practice helped me towards working out the new business idea?

Firstly, it will allow me to write this and every other article in this journal. I’ve set myself a goal of writing 1,500 words during each focused work session, without any expectations or quality control attached to it. For me, a period of concentration and immersion is the primary objective. Critical thought and analysis of the quality comes later.

My hope and expectation is that through the development of my writing, I bring focus on my purpose, aspirations and vision for my future work life.

And “Purpose’ is where I will turn next in this series of articles — specifically, applying the Japanese principle of Ikigai to help me uncover my ‘reason for being’.

Further reading:

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Indistractable by Nir Eyal