Flow States and Productivity

I had this realization while standing in my kitchen, sipping tea and staring blankly at the wall. I had just finished telling Marie, "I wasn't productive today," feeling a bit deflated. Yet that day I had written a blog, a newsletter, and updated some lessons in our course. I hadn't planned on doing any of that work though.

It struck me then—my most productive days often happened when I didn't even touch my “productivity systems” or log anything in my “journaling systems”. There were no checked boxes or entries in my capture system, just me; deeply immersed in doing the damn thing. It was a paradoxical moment; I was productive, yet I had no tangible evidence to prove it, just the satisfaction of having been completely engaged in my work.

No tracking, no journaling, just pure, unadulterated engagement in the task at hand.

Flow.

This realization prompted a curious question: how do we truly gauge our productivity in the moment, or even after, without our usual systems and tools? It's strange, isn't it, how our perception of productivity might be tied more to the tools we use than to the actual work we accomplish.

Productivity expert and PARA mastermind Tiago Forte tweeted this recently and it got me thinking whether this felt true to me. While I definitely agree that “unproductive” people are unique in the ways they move through the world, how would it be even logically possible that “productive” people aren’t unique in their “success”? It almost sounds like we’ve given some kind of godhead to a productive person; ya either got it or you don’t!

Seems a little…reductive?

And, yet, I don’t think that’s what Tiago is trying to say here, nor do I think he believes that the folks who seem to be productive are alike, per se. Scrolling even a little bit up on his timeline, we find this question:

If productive people are all alike, surely there’s an objective answer to this question!? But perhaps that’s the point he’s making here, that productive people are all generally alike in that they have a system for keeping themselves noticing what works for them; a system that focuses on mindfulness, awareness, and energy.

So if you’re noticing that work got done at the end of the day, but you didn’t check any boxes or capture any data, does that tell you anything about the systems you’ve designed to keep yourself in the proverbial flow state?

What makes an individual productive or unproductive?

In general, I don’t think we can objectively assess whether a person is unproductive or productive. Most times I think we’re looking at outcomes of actions performed. When we focus on outcomes of action, what tends to be discounted is both the environment and the person performing the action.

“Productive or not”? is an evaluation of an outcome of action performed in an environment. Environments and people wildly differ and therefore I think people aren’t productive or unproductive per se.

In order to determine whether an individual is productive, we then need to consider:

• What are the expectations of the environments?
• Who are participants?
• Who is evaluating the outcomes of actions taken?

To say we differ when we “fail”, but are the same when we “succeed” seems confusing to me. These are states we can move between and I think a sensible way of measuring how “productive” you are may be a measure of how fluidly you move between the states. When you have an off day, are you able to notice what was different? If you feel as if you’ve been told “eat the frog” for the millionth time, but working in the evening when your inbox is quiet seems to work, could you allow yourself to work differently from what the experts say is the best way to do it?

Not to mention your lexicon and/or methodology for labeling action as productive/unproductive. How does culture/family/mental health shape that? Ranting, but I just can’t ship “productive people are all alike”. I do love that second sentence though!

Redefining flow state

Flow state, also known as "being in the zone," is a mental state in which a person is fully immersed in an activity, experiencing a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process. This state is characterized by a high degree of concentration, a sense of control, and a loss of self-consciousness. It typically occurs when there is a balance between the perceived challenges of the task and the individual's perceived skills.

What if we redefined the concept of the flow state to not just encompass deep immersion in activities, but also the elasticity of smoothly transitioning between intense focus and rest? How might this emphasis on mindfulness and awareness as key components enable individuals to move with less friction between work and relaxation? Could this approach, which nurtures an elastic mindset, enhance our ability to recognize the optimal moments for deep engagement and necessary breaks, thereby fostering a balance that benefits both productivity and personal well-being?

How nice would it be to be in perpetual flow, whether at work or at rest?

Elastic flow.

On Focus

My oddball thesis about productivity is simply that being able to fluidly move from flow to rest at will is one of the most important factors.

I think we often talk about "flow state" as being wholly positive, but there are what I see has multiple levels of flow, some of which can be detrimental:

focus → hyperfocus → ensnarement

Being focused is good, and I think the measure of it is being able to stop at will and rest.

Hyperfocus, on the other hand, means you’re sometimes not able to stop. And, yes, this can be wildly productive, but also potentially incredibly harmful. Think burnout, think missing important tasks, messy houses and messy relationships.

Sometimes I see someone just crushing it on Twitter and I think “that person ships” and then months later see the same person writing about health issues and burnout. That’s hyperfocus.

On the far end of the detriment, we find ensnared focus. This is hyperfocus to the extreme that you create a negative suck of energy, a black hole of focus that wills the people in your lives to think of your focus as the most important thing in their worlds as well. They NEED to focus on what you’re focusing on or else. Shouting to get attention from another room. The relationship destroyer. The marriage-ender.

As someone with general anxiety disorder, I know a lot about ensnarement.

In teams ensnarement leads to a “black hole” of focus. It’s highly destructive to teams because it demands the focus of others, disrupting and oftentimes wholly preventing collective focus.

Question: what's your relationship with flow? Is it static? Highly elastic? Somewhere in-between?