Issue 81 — Let’s Enter the Flow State
This newsletter was written by a human.
TOP OF MIND
Creative work starts with a flow state. A flow state is a state of focused attention that often leads to a sense of effortless peak performance. In a flow state, time melts away, and you can lose track of it, you push aside distractions, and self-doubt doesn’t exist.
Dropping “into the zone” like that can’t be forced, but it can be cultivated. Here are a few ways I try to get there when I’m writing.
I WILL START YESTERDAY
I visualize my workflow the day before, thinking about the number of hours I have, what I need to do, and the order I want to do it in. That might sound like the opposite of a creative plan, but I’ve learned that I think I’m some kind of super-human who can pack six hours of work into a four-hour day. And yes, I usually get a maximum of four hours’ of work per day that has the potential to be in the zone. Since I like apps, I use them. Sunsama for planning and Focus for timing tasks when I need to keep myself on track. (Links below.)
I DON’T KNOW WHAT ASMR IS
An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is that fuzzy feeling some people get when they listen to certain recorded sounds, like someone eating popcorn, whispering, or tapping on a computer keyboard. None of that is interesting to me, but I have listened to the sound of typewriters for years while working. I guess it’s ASMR, but it’s more about me competing with my fellow news writers in a local news station, trying to write as many stories as possible during our shift. Hearing them type made me want to type, and it still works, a few decades later. I use a YouTube loop, or you may want to listen to a piece of music that includes a typewriter. Suggestions in the sources, below.
MOVIE SCORES ON REPEAT
When I really need to get something done, the main title score to the first Jason Bourne movie on repeat usually pushes me ahead. When I don’t need to feel like I’m being chased through various European cities by killers, I will listen to Indonesian gamelan orchestras with their gongs, xylophones and drums, or German techno-drone compositions. Also, anything by Philip Glass will work.
If a flow state is escaping me, my last resort is to listen to the scores from certain Christopher Nolan movies. Actually, I don’t like watching his movies, but when Nolan collaborated with Hans Zimmer, the pretentious single mindedness of the scores hits the perfect note for a Batman-inspired flow state.
Writing this reminds me of a yoga teacher whose class I once attended with my wife. The teacher put the same song on repeat, just one song, for the entire class. It just about drove me crazy. But now I get what he was going for. For him, that song on repeat was the path to his flow state.
I hope you find what works for you and wish you many flow states.
DISCOUNTED
My novel Resist (written during various flow states, to be sure) is on Amazon now and just was listed on Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org. If you like discounts, I can offer you one: Buy direct from my printer, and you can get a paperback copy of Resist for $11.11, plus shipping. (Today, Amazon is listing the paperback for $15.99.)
Resist
Schneider, Lee
LINKS AND SOURCES
Resist discounted paperback $11.11 for a limited time!
The Bourne Identity, by John Powell
Click through to watch the Zauberberg video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVxnbBkCIJA
ASMR Typewriter (Kind of over the top, but a good example of ASMR.)
If you need to see a typewriter in a concert setting, watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LJ1i7222c
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, pioneering psychologist and father of flow
Apps
Disclaimer
When typing fast, and especially when in a flow state, I make mistakes.
