How to Achieve Flow State and Increase Your Productivity

Why is it important

Think about how your working day usually goes. Four hours of hard work, lunch and four more hours of work? Unlikely. Rather, coffee, email, coffee, meeting, coffee, lunch with colleagues, coffee, and then just work. So what happens? There are only about two hours left for continuous work, the other six we are constantly distracted by something.

And during these two hours we must have time to warm up, get involved in work and enter the very state of flow that many psychologists talk about.

If your job requires any amount of creativity, you will achieve your best results in a state of flow. Of course, it can be achieved in an open office as well, armed with noise canceling headphones. But it is much easier to do this in a calm, quiet environment, when no one distracts you.

Switching from one task to another is not in vain. Even a simple text message with dinner plans can distract and negate everything you've been working on. This is confirmed by various Stephen Monsell researchers. Task Switching., including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of flow theory.

But employers often ignore this information for some reason. They keep putting their employees in noisy open offices. They continue to have endless meetings. Expect employees to respond to messages instantly. How can you manage to do at least something with all this?

1. Disable alerts

Think, is it really so important for you to know this minute that there is a new podcast? Or that a friend liked your photo yesterday? Wouldn't it be better to turn off these notifications? After all, if there is some important matter, they will call you.

Plus, when people know that you are responding during the day rather than in the next ten minutes, they begin to formulate their questions more specifically. No more "Are you busy?" and "Can I ask you?"

2. Save your time by avoiding unnecessary meetings

Do a little experiment at your next meeting. Write down any issues raised that could not have been resolved by email. Yes, there are probably some such questions. But was it worth it because of them to spend those 30 or 60 minutes that you could spend directly at work?

If someone cannot explain what he needs from you in a letter, it is unlikely that he will do it better personally.

The next time someone asks you to meet to discuss an issue, try approaching the situation differently. For example, like this:

You: "What did you want to discuss?"

Interlocutor: answer.

You: "And what do you think about it?"

Interlocutor: answer.

Now you can express your own opinion on the issue. Sometimes it just requires approval from you, and a simple "Good" will be enough.

That's all. You have avoided unnecessary meetings and saved time.

Of course, some might be offended that you didn't want to meet them in person. Be polite and patient, tell them that you will be happy to answer all their questions by mail.

Time is the most precious thing you have. Take care of it. Don't let others mindlessly take it away from you.

3. Ask for a separate office

Yes, this is not always possible, but it's worth a try.

Our productivity is increased by 13% when we work separately and not in a noisy office. If you don't have the ability to work from home, or just enjoy the atmosphere at work, try asking for a separate office.

You can do this the next time you talk to your boss about your success or a pay rise.