When you become so focused on a single task that you lose awareness of everything else it means you have entered a psychological state known as “flow”. Flow can last for long stretches of time and it’s common for several hours to go by without you even realising. Being in flow feels really good and afterwards you look back with pride at all you’ve achieved.

When you learn how to activate flow your productivity will skyrocket and so will the quality of your work because flow is your brains optimal state for getting things done. Your increased competence and productivity will make you feel like your doing worthwhile things with your life and you’ll feel powerful with your ability to crush challenging tasks with ease.

Flow is something that spontaneously happens to you if the conditions are right and it’s not something you’re able to consciously switch on. What you are able to do and what this article focuses on is how to set up the optimal conditions for flow to arise.

The optimum conditions for flow are:

• The task is at the right level of challenge
• The task is enjoyable
• There are clearly defined goals
• All tools are readily available and mastered
• There are no distractions

The task is at the right level of challenge

The task needs to be challenging enough so you feel you’re being pushed though it’s still achievable. If the task is too easy then you’ll become bored and if it’s too hard you’ll be stressed in a bad way. One a scale of 1 to 10 the optimal difficulty would be an 8.

Your skill level will go up over time so increase the level of challenge to avoid boredom. For instance if writing a blog article starts getting too easy then instead of writing one at a time you can aim to write two back-to-back in a single session.

The task is enjoyable

You need to enjoy the task so that your brain wants to keep doing it and is not looking for excuses to stop doing it. If it’s a task you genuinely enjoy then that’s great and there’s nothing more you need to do. But if this isn’t the case then there’s a couple of ways to make it fun:
a) Set yourself a challenge of doing it much faster than usual – if this task normally takes you an hour to complete then aim to do it within 30 minutes.
b) Find a creative way to make it fun – if your task is to write a business report then write your commentary as if you were a pirate or an aristocrat with a great big smile on your face (you can change it back to normal later on)

There are clearly defined goals

Having clearly defined goals gives you immediate direction. The smaller and more defined these goals are the better. I find it extremely useful at the start of a session to create a handful of bullet points about what I want to achieve. If a goal is too large or too vague then chunk it down in to smaller more achievable goals. “Write computer code to write report from dataset” is pretty vague, so you’d chunk that down to a) “Define you want to report on”, b) “Write code to extract raw data”, c) “Derive new variables from extracted data”, etc. Knocking off small goals gives you the feeling of progress which feels good and your brain will want to keep on going.

All tools are readily available and mastered

Usually this means you’ll have a computer you like to use and all required software is installed and running smoothly. If there are any documents you need to refer to then they’re saved locally on your hard drive. It’s important that you’re no longer merely learning how to use the software – you’ve become a master and you don’t need to think about how to use it anymore.

When it comes to software I believe you should use the simplest tool available l because it’s easier to master and there’s less ways for it to go wrong. For writing new things I’ll normally use notepad++ (essentially a better version of windows notepad) and later I’ll copy it to google docs using google chrome which includes a spell checker. That’s all I need!

There are no distractions

Flow involves focusing on one thing at a time so it’s crucial you’re not tempted by any distractions or interrupted by anything. You’ll want to set up your environment in such a way there’s minimal chance of anything disrupting your concentration. Ideally you’ll lock yourself in a room with nothing but a computer that has no internet access.

If you work in a environment where there are other people around it can be difficult to filter out their conversations. I recommend you listen to music and invest in some noise reducing headphones such as in-ear buds or a pair of over-ear ones.

Internet can be one giant distraction with email, facebook, news sites, etc acting like a vampire on your concentration. A good way to solve this is unplug the internet which can usually be done by pulling out the network cable from your computer (don’t worry you can plug it in once you’ve finished your task) or switching wifi off. Other notable distractions are things like TV and a messy environment that you feel you need to clean. Sort out (i.e get rid of) any and all of these distractions before you sit down to work.

Taking a laptop in to a quiet room or off-site is a great way to focus because there’s literally nothing else to do but work. Personally I’m a big fan of taking my laptop to the airport and working from a cafe for a few hours where there’s no way for me to get internet. I’ll often go through about $25 worth of parking, juice and coffee but it’s money well invested because I’ll get far more done than at home surrounded by a million distractions.