Finding the Flow

Is finding the flow as you work a foreign concept to you? When so many people from the C-Suite on down had to work remotely, many admitted struggling to tackling normal workloads let alone creative projects. Statista says that 17-percent of U.S. employees worked from home 5 days or more a week, but that number jumped to during the pandemic.

Reasons for the struggle in my own “unofficial” survey conducted through my nightly talk show included: too hard to concentrate with dogs, cats, kids, deliveries, leaf blowers, and everything else in between.

In a world that requires us to be more flexible than ever the flow can be magical. If working from home is still in your future or you’re doing a hybrid version, some in-office, some remote, I challenge you to block your time. Yes, there is lots of opportunity for interruption at home, but usually, we have some idea of when it is going to happen. No moaning. Work around it.

I have a golden retriever puppy named Guinness that needs lots of attention. He now goes to daycare two days a week so I can use those days for content creation, such as shooting videos, doing media, and conducting my own Zoom interviews. No dog under foot and blocking time for each type of content creation works like a charm. Do you have reports due? Meetings with your team? Back-to-back brainstorming Zoom sessions for an upcoming pitch or proposal? Block the time.

If you are doing several different tasks (which is highly likely), give yourself fifteen to twenty minutes to reset. Get up and walk around, grab something to drink, eat a snack, do some stretches, listen to a podcast.

Transitioning from one activity to another is so much easier when you reset. I didn’t used to do this until I realized by not giving my brain a break, I was exhausted and not as creative. Flow wasn’t even a word in my vocabulary.

Finding the flow by blocking time and setting boundaries led to substantial business growth and more time for the rest of my life. I found time to read Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow that sat on my desk for a year! After being asked to go to Yoga again and again I am finally doing it religiously. Even the dog is happy as I not only walk him more, but he chases squirrels in the park too. That’s another blog. What will you discover when you find the flow?