These days everyone loves to talk about “productivity hacks,” the simple habit changes, behaviors, or actions that can help you work more efficiently and/or get more done in the span of a day. It makes sense why they’re popular, since we’re all incredibly busy and eager to achieve more.
But many articles strive to list as many productivity hacks as possible, telling you to do everything from drinking more water to putting more plants in your office.
To be fair, these hacks are all worth knowing, but in my experience, it’s better to focus on one big change than dozens of smaller changes; not only is it more manageable, it’s also more rewarding.
So in this article, I’m going to tell you about the one productivity hack you’re (probably) not using: flow optimization.
What is flow?
First, you need to know what “flow” is, and why it’s so important. In the field of psychology, a flow state is a mental state when a person is fully immersed in what they’re doing. Colloquially, you might hear it called being “in the zone.”
In any case, when you’re in a state of flow, you’re hyper-focused—which means you’re less susceptible to distraction, and you’re much more effective at accomplishing tasks that require concentration. Additionally, people in a flow state tend to lose track of time.
While this may seem like a bad thing (since so many productivity hacks focus on time management), it can actually improve your bottom-line results since you won’t be constantly checking the clock or agonizing over what you’re doing.
When working in a flow state, you’ll be not only more productive, but more satisfied with your work, leading to higher overall happiness—in fact, some experts (including positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) have suggested that flow is the “ secret to happiness.”
Achieving flow
That sounds amazing, but how can you achieve flow? For most of us, flow isn’t something we create; it’s something that simply happens to us, without us even realizing until after we break the state.
There are a few competing theories for how flow develops, but the mechanism certainly depends on your attention. If you’re able to devote your attention fully to a given task, you can hypothetically enter a flow state.
For practical purposes, you can think of flow as existing in the nexus between two main variables in a work experience: interest and challenge.
- Interest is your level of personal fascination or resonance with a given task. The more personally interested you are in something, the better. If a task is fun, captivating, or otherwise entertaining, it’s more likely to help you achieve flow.
- Challenge represents the level of difficulty you face in this task. Here, you’ll be seeking a balance. If a task isn’t challenging enough, you won’t devote much attention to it. Conversely, if a task is too challenging, you won’t be able to enter a flow.
There are some other factors you’ll want to consider as well. For example, to achieve flow, it’s important that you feel a sense of control over the task; merely witnessing a meeting unfold is unlikely to help you produce a flow state.
Additionally, it’s important to get real-time feedback from your actions. Fortunately, most work tasks have the capacity to provide this.
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Flow optimization improves productivity
Okay. We’ve established that flow is revolutionary in terms of productivity, but that it’s usually something that happens to us passively. The trick—and the actionable “hack” for higher productivity—is to make it something we can actively control. What actions can we take to enter a flow state more frequently and more reliably?
The goal is to find that perfect balance between interest and challenge in your daily work, which you can accomplish in the following ways:
- Plot tasks in terms of interest and challenge. Your first goal is better understanding. Take a look at the types of tasks you achieve on a regular basis and chart them in terms of your level of personal interest and how challenging they are. Strive for high-interest, medium-intensity tasks.
- Get rid of distractions. While achieving flow can help you block out all distractions naturally, getting started requires some measure of immediate focus. Block whatever distractions you can, like turning off notifications, isolating yourself, and putting away your mobile devices.
- Delegate more frequently. Delegation allows you to assign tasks below your interest or ideal “challenge” level so they don’t bog you down. That way, you can devote more attention to the tasks most likely to help you achieve flow.
- Seek new types of tasks. If you have a dearth of tasks capable of allowing flow, it’s important for you to seek new types of tasks. Consider taking on new responsibilities in place of your old ones, or venturing into different departments within your organization to experiment with new types of work.
- Adjust your approach. If a task isn’t interesting to you, but it’s about the right level of difficulty, consider adjusting your approach. Is there a way you can gamify this task? Can you try to tackle it in a more engaging way?
Flow optimization takes work, especially because it’s hard to know when you’ve entered a flow state in the first place. But if you can get better at achieving flow on a regular basis, you’ll be able to accomplish more at work—and feel better doing it.
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Want 10 more suggestions for how to boost your productivity while working from home? Check out the infographic below:
Courtesy: Jayson DeMers
