5 tips to making you achieve more with the time you have.

In the zone..

Have you experienced a time where your cognitive ability and task in hand where in sync? and the process of getting things done were just easily flowing? You probably were following a sequence of elements that were contributing to that success and haven’t realized it.

The concept of state of Flow was defined by Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues and talks about a state of optimal experience described by intense concentration, enjoyment, and fulfilment and can occur to an individual when fully engaged in a challenging activity that matches their skills, through clear goals, immediate feedback, and a sense of control.

Being at Flow means that your goals, even if challenging seem to feel achievable. You give complete focus and concentration on the activity in hand. Which also means that while you’re in action you are also getting this rewarding sensation of a feeling, that can even make you lose your sense of time. A rewarding feeling definitely, and we need more of it in our daily lives!

Here are just a few tips to help in increasing your state of Flow (I am sure we’re already familiar with most):

1. Make sure to have a clear desired outcome and goal in mind before you begin your day. This means prepare your list of activities the day before, or the very first start of your morning.

2. Understand the task in hand. Make sure to not overwhelm yourself with a challengeable task and deadline where it might be unrealistic. It’s easy to say that nothing is impossible, but don’t over stress in trying to do everything all at once (a popular advice is to always start with the smallest task on your list)

3. Challenge yourself, but with the right amount of stretch. Referring to the previous point, understanding yourself and task in hand is crucial to your ability to getting things done.

4. Create opportunities for complete focus, without interruption. These days being focused and asking for uninterrupted time seems almost impossible. I recently came across a device called the Remarkable that allows individuals to work in an interrupted space. The promise of quiet thoughts while working is so tempting and I’m considering in making the investment (maybe can consider covering the experience in a future blog)

5. Build in immediate feedback so you can adjust your performance as you work. When working on a project or task where others are involved is important to get guidance and comments as you go, this will make you be able to make any changes needed as you go.

In order to achieve there has to be a sense of consistency. Consistency comes with building and creating a habit. We live in a world filled with so many distractions - That last episode we promised we would watch ended in us rushing to get a couple hours of asleep before our alarm going off for work. Or that time watching a 10 second reel ended up being an hour long of multiple random videos cluttering our mind and time. Of course, there is some sort of pleasure, but they aren’t enjoyable. All are temporary happiness and are not sustainable. The beauty with focusing on our goals is that they create a sense of inner enjoyment, which can lead us to living healthy and happy lives and that is the goal. What I try to do these days is utilize the Focus feature on my phone that controls the notifications and also helps me with keeping away from glancing to my phone and fighting the urge to pick it up and get lost scrolling away. I am currently working out a time during my weekend where I want to dedicate to only creative work, I haven’t fully committed to this time yet, but seeing how my week is where I am trying to incorporate working hours and being active, weekends are a blessing and definitely need to utilize them more efficiently.

I sometimes get overwhelmed when thinking about how I need to use my time better, but these days I’m trying to take a more positive outlook on it and think that the first step to getting on track with my goals is to first realize and acknowledge the procrastination, then try and tackle matters one at a time, so it’s never to late – start by working out that list of goals and plans, set some time aside even if its just 30 mins of your day. Eventually with consistency you’ll be in that state of unbreakable flow that will lead you to making your goals a reality.