How To Access Flow State

A man whose name I can’t pronounce, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, popularised the term ‘flow’.

But what does flow mean?

And how do you access flow state?

How do you know when your work and life is in flow?

There’s a lot of different ways to express this idea of flow:

Deep work
Trance
Momentum

When Haruki Murakami talks about his novel writing process, he’s talking about working in flow state:

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerise myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training.

You know you’re in flow if your days go by quickly.

You know you’re in flow if you the day seems to end before it’s even begun and you’ve got a whole lot of shit done, but still feel like there’s more to do, still feel energised to get up the next day and hit it.

You know you’re in flow if there’s unbalance in your life.

Text messages from loved ones piling up, unresponded to for days on end.

Emails unanswered.

Dishes and dirty laundry piling up.

I like the term flow, but I love the term ‘momentum’ even more.

And the laws of physics apply to flow the same way they apply to momentum of physical objects.

It’s take a whole lot of time and energy to start up.

But once the engine’s hot and running, you can keep your foot on the pedal and glide along at a nice speed.

Just don’t take your foot off the pedal!

It’s easier to keep momentum than it is to achieve it.

This is a law of the universe.

It’s easier to keep in peak shape than to get in peak shape.

It’s easier to keep your money than it is to amass it.

It’s easier to keep a happy relationship than it is to find one.

But the caveat is that it’s only easy if you keep bringing your A-game.

Ironically, the more successful you become the harder you work, and the longer hours you work.

That seems unfair, but it’s not.

It’s a key piece of the flow puzzle.

You love what you do.

You don’t hit flow doing things you hate.

Either you love it straight off the bat, or you learn to love it.

But no matter what, don’t despise what you do, don’t resent what you do, don’t become complacent, and don’t coast.

The best way I know how to hit flow is to follow these 5 things:

Dive straight into your projects first thing in the morning.
Block of batches of uninterrupted time (4-5 hours) to work on them.
Take a break to workout, hit the gym, lift weights, and get sweat-producing cardio in.
Take advantage of a second wind after exercise and get another long batch of time in.
Rest hard. Have sex, eat a huge hearty meal (steak is great), then sleep as long and deep as possible (8-10 hours).