If you’ve not yet done the work in our Flow Theory Primer, please start there, then head back here for the first in our 12-part master class.
First up, let’s talk about recognizing when we’re *already* in states of flow.
Today’s work: Track your existing states of flow as you naturally shift into and out of them. Are they 90 minutes? 120 minutes? Shorter? Longer… but then weakening as you continue forward?
What are your natural inclinations for flow state and where can you begin scheduling opportunities to go into states of flow starting today?
Very cool. So excited to get a better understanding of how I work as a creative. Thanks!
*smooch* Excited to jam with you about all this deliciousness!
I really wish we could just cruise in Flow all day. 🙂
I seem to do this in 20 minute segments throughout the day. Clocking in for 90? That sounds like a luxury, and I realize that would be delicious to have so it’s something I’d like to manifest. Thanks, Bon!
So you have a baseline and now a target to work toward. Yay! As you build the muscle for it, you’ll find “all day” flow is exhausting in its own way and — as always — balance is best. 😉
I think I might be mixing up Bliss with Flow, because… well, there seem to be similarities to me. Being in that wide open joyful space of Bliss sometimes feels like The Flow, because both places seem inspirational and celebratory. If I really look at Flow though, it absolutely feels like an energy moving me forward whereas Bliss feels like an expansion of joy in the moment. Does that make sense?
Definitely! And I’d say those states overlay for quite a few of us much of the time! Especially when it’s win-win, I get less concerned with semantics and more focused on how to stay in “that state” (whatever its label) for productive bursts (because the labeling concern could be a form of resistance). Rock on, girl!
that 90-120 minute thing is interesting. The first evening I decided to sit down and start writing short stories, I ended up writing for… at least 4 hours, but it could’ve been longer. And I wrote an entire 5k+ short story in that time. And I just couldn’t stop. I had on music that fit the mood of the story, and while there was definitely a dip in the middle of the story where I wasn’t exactly sure on the detail/dialogue, I’d say I was going strong for about 95% of the time. And even looking at the story and that weaker section, it’s still an area that I’m not totally sure how I want to change or want the dialogue to go and is just waiting for me to come back and play with it when I get around to editing the story.
Then last night, I was flying back from Seattle and went to see Lindsay (yes our Ninja Lindsay Noell!) at her work, and I wrote about 1,000 words of a new story before I decided to stop because I needed to do some journaling (and future life journalling, working on being far more specific). I ended up writing for about an hour, and then journalling was just flowing from my pen. I wrote four (smaller) pages before I realized I needed to switch to future life journalling or I wouldn’t get it done before we left.
As I was typing this up, I totally get in the zone when I am sewing and designing costumes/clothes too. I get so into it that I end up spending the entire day on it and forgetting to stop and eat, or take a break. Which is something I was aware of about myself, especially when traveling to new countries, but it seems like these flow sessions all surpass the 120 min mark by a good deal.
How do you reign that in, especially when doing things like writing? I feel like it’ll throw off my whole groove if I’m sailing on and writing up a storm, and then I stop because I’ve hit 120 minutes and should let the flow rest for a bit, even though I feel perfectly fine.
It’s a bit like fixing your relationship with sleep. I’ll use myself as an example.
I can operate on very little sleep. For two solid decades, I would sleep 3 hours for every 30 I was awake, then once every four or five months, I’d do a hibernation weekend of like 20 solid hours of sleep, 4 hours awake, then another 12 hours of sleep to sort of reset.
This was how I explained being able to get SO MUCH DONE for so long because, hey, I have AT LEAST an extra day per week on all you suckers who actually sleep! Right?
Welp… in recent years, I’ve fallen in love with sleep. I’ve become obsessed with its healing properties, its restorative function, its anti-aging benefits and the way it helps keep depression at bay (and I’ve battled depression) how it helps keep our weight healthy (and I’ve battled unhealthy weights in BOTH extremes) and so so so so so many more benefits it provides.
Now, the part of my brain that does math like a genius KNOWS I’m sacrificing *quantity* of awake time (and therefore productivity time) by switching up my relationship with sleep to something much closer to normal (it’s still not “normal” by any stretch and I don’t know if it ever will be, but go with me on this). I KNOW that I — on paper — can just get a whole hell of a lot more done when I’m not sleeping as much simply because there are more hours in my life, right?
HOWEVER.
Once I started playing with this and experimenting — like I’m asking you to do with these 90 to 120 minute sets for maximum flow — I found I get a ridiculous amount of stuff done in far fewer hours! AND the quality of the work I’m doing is spectacular. I mean, the best shit I’ve ever ever EVER done and I’m a prolific mo’ fo’ who is pretty sure everything I’ve ever done has been amazing. I’m blowing MYSELF away with how impressed I am at what I’m creating (and y’all… you haven’t even seen a fraction of it yet).
Son of a bitch, if there’s not something to this sleep thing!
Same with these flow cycles.
I get it. I’m like you in that I can get going and not push away for HOURS of productivity and it ALL feels like flow and it ALL is so so so so so damn good.
But just imagine — just for a moment — that there’s an even BETTER version of everything you’ve ever done available to you if you’ll just give yourself these wee breaks. They don’t have to be long. They can be as small as what it takes to push away from the desk, put the pen down, go get a glass of water, take a deep breath or two, then right back down to the page. But those breaks, Alexandra, I’m telling you, they’re gonna shift the QUALITY of what you’re doing.
So try. Don’t think of it as reining it in. (Note spelling on REIN, there, BTW.) Think of it as maximizing something by creating tiny shifts in your HOW. It’s like taking a rest day when you’re doing massive amounts of exercise. Those rest days allow your workouts to ALL be better for the overall goal, vs. pushing to show up EVERY day with no break.
Just try it. 😉 I think you’ll be pleased with the result — after you deal with the part of you who gets pissed at being told to stop when you’re ON FIRE. I really get that. But I think you’ll find the rewards are so worth going through that little stage of brattiness with the creative genius who does NOT want to stop. You’re giving a little oxygen to a raging fire. It’s required to keep it burning.
That makes sense, thank you! I was definitely seeing it as stopping for hours or something, but knowing short breaks can reset that flow clock when I’m in the middle of writing a story I’m really excited about definitely clicks. I am excited to try that out!
I’m excited to hear how it goes for you!
Hm, I have to admit that I don’t actually feel “flowy” often. When I do, I do, but since I AWAYS seek this state, it feels like a hamster wheel, no end to it. I guess it is a mixture between accepting that the state of flow only lasts 90-120 minutes and then embracing not-being-in-flow for the time in-between.
I manage a maximum of 90 minutes and most of the time in the morning between 10 and 11:30. That’s when I usually do my best writing work. And most days, frankly, that’s it. Every now and then I manage to re-create this feeling around 5 pm again. But in-between…?
What I am curious about: Can you have smaller resting periods in between the flow periods? Is that mere practice? Does it mean, I can jump start my flow by looking at what my profile suggests I need?
“If you really wann hack flow, you need to learn how to struggle better, and you need to learn how to recover better.”
That was interesting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=JWy_cBcawKQ
Definitely, Julia. For instance, in the morning I have a Pilates class for 50 minutes, then a 10-minute drive (less than, but walking to and from the car, bathroom stop, shifting clothing a bit for the next workout, etc., I’m counting), then a 90-minute pole class. When I started doing these classes back-to-back, I would hit a WALL halfway through pole and just be DONE. I was pissed because there was still so much left of class and I was wiped out — not so much physically, but just DONE. Frustrating.
Then I revisited this flow theory work and realized that I wasn’t resetting flow states. I was hitting the zone for Pilates, then *staying* in the zone for the drive over — “OMG, so excited! What a badass am I? I’m doing two workouts back to back and I am such a hoss and OMG, yay me! So fired up!” — and then diving right into the warmup at full-speed because I really didn’t NEED a warmup but that’s how pole class starts and then OF COURSE I hit a wall once we were two full hours into my fitness, overall. Duh. Flow can’t last that long! I messed up!
So *now* I spend that walk to the car, that drive over, the shifting of gears into the next type of fitness really STOPPING the momentum of the Pilates class. Really *completing* the experience, mentally. Telling my muscles to leave that ON state for a bit. Doing deep breathing. Now, I’m not yet practiced enough to NOT have some sort of dip after about 75 minutes in pole class when it’s backed up right against the Pilates class, but I’m getting MORE practiced at it (and I’ll find out in a few hours how I’m doing with it).
Anyway, just stuff to think about as you start playing with your setpoint for recovery. Not sure how quickly it can happen and still create nearly back-to-back states of flow… but I’m game to try and find out!
Bonnie, best example ever!! Thank you so much, that totally makes sense to me 😀 So the goal is to allow for the stages (rest, re-boot) inbetween to happen, in order to get into a *new* state of flow. And through time, patience and practice to be able to conciously tap into whatever you need at this point. <3
Soooo helpful to hear this, Bon! “Really *completing* the experience, mentally. Telling my muscles to leave that ON state for a bit. Doing deep breathing.” It helps me to increase my awareness of how and where I’m running my energy.
My focused flows run for about 5hours with me really enjoying and heavily invested in the process of whatever I’m doing. Then right at the 5 hr mark I hit “ok I’m done” and switch off immediately. Close down my work and move onto normal life 🙂
Yeah, that’s not flow, hon. That’s stacking a flow state INTO adrenaline, which burns out and creates an unhealthy place overall. Chemically, flow cannot last more than 90 to 120 minutes. 🙂 What you’re describing is a sustained productive space, but the ability to be SO much more creative and brilliant exists, if you will reset to create more flow. Yay!
im still parsing out the difference between flow state and “hyperfocus.” i feel like my most of my deep dive work on castingabout and imdbpro is “hyperfocus.” but when i think about jamming w my old band back in brooklyn, we couldn’t work for more than 90-120 minutes without a break. always. when im prepping a scene for acting class, i wont work more than 90 min without a break. also curious that the first yoga i started practicing was a 90 min class. im so excited to dive into this master class. so glad i discovered it in the vault 🙂
You’re gonna love this work!
I’m glad you differentiated between being in flow and being productive — I was actually going to ask about that. For me, flow is when I walk around the golf course — it’s a 2-mile walk and I’m not a speed walker so it takes me about 45 minutes — and because I don’t have to cross streets or think about where to turn because I’m just walking in a huge circle, I let my mind go and it’s like a walking meditation for me — it’s where I solve problems or come up with new ideas. It used to be where I would come up with the next section of my children’s book I was working on — I would walk early in the morning, come up with the content, and then head to a coffee shop for a few hours to write. The writing process itself could have potentially been considered flow except that I would need to take breaks and have snacks to keep feeding my brain.