You’ve probably heard of the ‘flow state.’ In fact, you may even be highly familiar with the concept—especially if you’ve been learning about the brain, the human power of focus, and how to get more work done and maximize your effectiveness.
Headspace.com defines the flow state as such:
“…that sense of fluidity between your body and mind, where you are totally absorbed by and deeply focused on something, beyond the point of distraction. Time feels like it has slowed down. Your senses are heightened. You are at one with the task at hand, as action and awareness sync to create an effortless momentum. Some people describe this feeling as being “in the zone.””
There are many benefits to utilizing the ‘flow state’ in your everyday life.
If you can tap into this powerful mental mode, you can get a lot more accomplished in less time at vital parts of the day.
But here’s the problem.
A lot of people don’t quite understand how this ‘state of mind’ works, or how to make use of it.
So in this post, we’re going to give you 3 tips for how to maximize your odds of successfully using the ‘flow state’ to get more accomplished.
1. Identify Your Ideal ‘Flow State’ Time
Most people feel the power of this focused mental state more specifically at certain times of the day.
For the vast majority of people, this time comes around in the early morning hours—but it’s also possible that it comes at different times for different people.
In order to maximize your ability to utilize it, consider keeping a journal of when you feel like you’re at your ‘creative peak,’ and figure out what time of the day this mental state tends to come around the most.
Then, you can plan your most important work to coincide with this timeframe to maximize productivity.
2. Engage In Your Most Important Work
When peak opportunity for ‘flow state’ focus comes around, you want to spend it doing things that are equally demanding and important.
Don’t waste it doing menial tasks that could be done later, or by scrolling through social media and just ‘letting the hours go by.’
Prioritizing tasks and focusing on your key objectives during this timeframe will help you to maximize returns on your energy.
3. Eliminate Distraction
Distraction is the ‘bane’ of the flow state.
It’s super easy for things to pop into your frame of focus and ‘disrupt’ your workflow.
Therefore, it’s always in your best interest to make sure that you’re scheduling ‘outside distractions’ for a time after you’ve already spent your flow-state energy.
It’s also a great idea to hold interruptions (messenger, emails, getting interrupted by your assistant, etc.) while you’re engaged in this deep and meaningful work.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has helped to give you some effective tips for how to utilize your own ‘flow state’ time to get more done.
It’s important! This is important energy, and it’s not to be wasted.