Is Flow State a real thing?

Flow state has been associated with 500% productivity boost. Most of the musicians and entrepreneurs came up and achieved the most incredible goals WHILE being in the flow state.

There are no real ways to achieve a flow state, it will come naturally to you. What you need to do is avoid the known habits that will not let you enter the flow state. The biggest damage is Multitasking. If you are multitasking you are constantly switching between different tasks. Of course, you will not enter a flow for any of them.

Also, multitasking is hitting you really hard where it hurts the most.

Causes more mistakes and less productivity: Multiple studies have found that multitasking causes people to take longer to do simple tasks, drop your IQ by an average of 10 points, and can even have the same negative impact as losing a night’s sleep.

Flow state lets you fully concentrate and come up with unaffected ideas and solutions to problems that you couldn't solve before. Flow state also allows us to open up new realms of creativity with never explored ideas will start flowing into your mind.

Do not take Flow for granted

There are only about 2% of people on Earth that are able to enter the flow state more than once a month. Those are the elites of the creative and business societies as they are overachieving with less time than all of their competitors.

Some people who understand their body have gotten the hang of conditions and environment needed to enter a Flow state and are easily able to replicate them.

If you want to do twice the amount of work in half the time, focus on 1 task at a time. If you are lucky to enter a Flow state, you will be doing 10 times as much work in 10 times less time.

Believe me, the Flow state is a magical feeling.

Tips on Achieving Flow state

There are not scientifically proven routine for entering Flow state so I will only be stating my personal ideas and findings.

I have found that a comfortable chair with high back as well as a table that doesn’t rock and is stable are deal-breakers.

The other thing is surrounding. It is either has to be my personal space with nothing moving in my field of view so I don’t get distracted(nature movement such as waves and trees moving is okay).

Or it has to be a coffee shop such as Starbucks where I know that I can be focused and everyone there also is working on their own ideas and projects(co-working space would also work). But this surrounding is not possible anymore, thanks Covid 😢.

What also matters is the notifications. I have by default put my phones 24/7 on Non disturb and my laptop as well. That way I know that the only time I have to use the phone is when I want to do it. Not when someone is asking for my attention.

It helps me in life, but it is most noticeable when I am in the Flow state. There are no distraction, I am not even able to think about some notification ringing sound as it is impossible for there to be one.

When I was studying at University, the best place was the Library, I actually think that if you utilise the facility correctly you can consistently enter the Flow state and become kinda a superman.

Also, all of this is completely personal to me, I know that some people go to busy restaurants or night clubs to enter a flow state. Everyone is different.

Experiment and find what works for yourself.

Closing Thoughts

Sometimes you will not enter the Flow state, but even focusing on one task and not having distractions is already a great improvement from the usual work you probably did.

When we looked into the email habits of 50,000+ knowledge workers, not only did we find that on average they spend 40.1% of their day multitasking with email and IM. We also found **most people can’t go for more than 6 minutes** without checking those tools**. (Even worse, 35.5% of workers check their email and IM every 3 minutes or less.)

So yes, if you want to improve, seeking the Flow state is half the work. The process is already what will help you get that atomic improvement you have been seeking.

Start now. Get perfect Later.