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If you want to maximize your learning, growth, and productivity, the key, apparently, is to think like a surfer. The sport of surfing has been around for 1000 years. Up until just a couple of decades ago, the tallest wave ever ridden was 25 feet. Today, surfers are tackling 100-foot waves. That’s an incredible amount of progress and it can be attributed, according to Steven Kotler, author of the bestseller The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, to something known in the productivity community as “flow.”
Kotler says, “Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, when you feel and perform your best. It’s the moment of total absorption. Time speeds up or slows down like a freeze-frame effect. Mental and physical ability go through the roof, and the brain takes in more information per second, processing it more deeply."
And it’s not just elite athletes that experience it. Anyone can achieve a state of flow, while working on any task.
The amazing thing about flow is that it’s not just about productivity—it’s also about happiness. Research has repeatedly made powerful links between flow and life satisfaction. Flow is one of the most sought-after states in human existence, but it can also be very hard to achieve. According to recent Gallup polls, nearly three quarters of American workers consider themselves to be disengaged at work. That means most American workers are spending little to none of their work days in a state of flow. Just a small increase in flow would skyrocket productivity and happiness for these people.
So how do we get there? According to Kotler, there are a few principles that are widely used by athletes to reach a state of flow that can be applied just as well in business.
Your environment is an important trigger or inhibitor of flow. The best environments for flow are those that provide you complexity, unpredictability, and novelty. The idea is to move away from routine and habit. While habit saves mental energy and routine often lends itself well to efficiency, these states won’t put you into a state of flow. Instead, surround yourself with things that require focus. Change up your routine. Have lunch with someone you don’t spend much time with. Work in the conference room instead of your office or cubicle. Play instrumental music as you work. Doing these things will make you more likely to approach your work as creatively and innovatively as possible, which may well inspire you into a state of flow.
You’ve probably noticed that projects which are either too easy or too difficult often cause you to lose focus and get distracted. We all thrive on work that challenges us and stimulates us without being (1) so challenging that we become anxious or (2) so easy that we get bored. To the extent that you are able, choose tasks that will challenge you to grow and stretch your abilities without causing you undue anxiety, and you will be well on your way to reaching a state of flow.
Flow is often triggered when we pay attention to all five of our senses—looking, listening, smelling, tasting, and touching. To be in a state of flow is to be deeply entrenched in an experience, says Kotler. For example, an elite athlete in competition must pay attention to his environment and the game with his entire body, himself becoming part of the action. This is also a great learning tool, as is illustrated by Montessori education, which promotes learning via action and the engagement of multiple sensory streams. Recreate this effect in your work life with mindfulness practices and close attention paid to your body and your senses.
I’m sure you know how frustrating it can be to sit down to work on a project, only to lose focus a few minutes in. This happens because it takes time—five to twenty minutes, according to the research—for your mind to really become immersed in a task. The takeaway from this is that, to reach a state of flow, we must force ourselves to stay focused on an activity, resisting distraction, for twenty minutes. The best way to force focus is to remove as many distractions as possible. Turn off your phone or put it on airplane mode, log out of your email and social media, close your office door or put in earplugs, let colleagues or family members know that you don’t want to be disturbed, make your environment physically comfortable, et cetera. If you can work, distraction-free, for at least twenty minutes, you’ll find it much easier to reach the flow state.
We aren’t wired to work for hours at a time. Our brains and bodies just can’t take it. You may think that, in order to get your work done, you have to stay at your desk for eight straight hours with minimal breaks, but this is actually counterproductive. According to studies, the most productive work cycle is 52 minutes of uninterrupted work, split up by 17-minute breaks. Of course, it may not be practical to stick to this schedule rigidly, but it does shed light on the fact that about an hour’s worth of work, split up by 15 to 20 minute breaks, is probably the most productive way to tackle your tasks.
After each of the breaks mentioned in the previous section, you’ll have to be able to shift your focus back to your work. Even if you had reached a state of flow before your break, you may find that, after your break, you’ll have to start from scratch in getting focused. The best way to shift from “break mode” back into “work mode” is to follow the steps listed above. Use your senses mindfully, remove distractions from your environment, and force yourself to stay focused for five to twenty minutes. Do this purposefully, and you should be able to get back on task fairly easily.
We’re all familiar with the ways emotions can disrupt your focus, your workflow, and even your entire day. The frustrating thing is, we generally can’t control the situations that arouse these emotions, whether it’s a challenging coworker or a frustrating project or an issue in our personal lives. And it’s neither possible nor advisable to attempt to control the way you feel about certain tasks, situations, or people.
However, you can and should learn to control how you react to your feelings. The first step in doing so is being honest with yourself about an emotion you are experiencing—as you experience it—and the reason you are experiencing that emotion. Label the emotion with words that make sense to you and that put the emotion into tangible form. Once you have an understanding of the emotion and where it comes from, you’ll be in a good position to decide the best way to react to that emotion. In doing so, you will get into the habit of dealing with emotions in a way that keeps you from spiraling and allows you to maintain focus and productivity.
For example, let’s say a co-worker you don’t like comes in to criticize a memorandum you drafted and circulated around your office. You may feel anger, indignation, frustration, and self-doubt. There’s nothing wrong with feeling these things, but there is a problem if you let these emotions drag you down and interfere with your work and your interpersonal interactions for the rest of the day. So, as you feel these things, notice that you are feeling them and label them—anger, indignation, frustration, and self-doubt. Then briefly consider where these emotions are coming from. In some cases, this will be easier than in other cases. Here, your co-workers criticisms call into question your professional aptitude, and this threatens your job security and your ego. A productive response would be a decision to react to your feelings by making note of the criticisms, deciding honestly which ones may have value and which ones don’t, and determining if you can use any of the criticisms to improve your work product. This may also be a good time to reflect on how your ego may be preventing you from taking poorly-delivered but perhaps accurate feedback to heart and growing as a professional.