I did not make any plans or set goals for yesterday, because my day was fully determined. One long meeting in the morning, and an afternoon of taking the cat to the in-laws (a whole tale on its own). The whole weekend to be spent there, which means I expected essentially nothing to get done until Monday. But today, I just had to sit down and write a little, because I have ideas for this book and need to get them down. This is a very good indication that I have nailed the “how”.
This also gives me a good flow trigger on days when it is hard to get into it. The trouble is that I want to continue writing, so take half an hour of writing to get into the zone, then transition to my scheduled priorities.
Since I do not have much time so sit and work this weekend, it is a good time to take care of some things that do not necessarily require super-focused attention, but can benefit from diffuse thinking. Right now, the most important thing for me is to get clear on my goals for this experiment. Thus far, my intentions are kind of vague, and I do not have clear signposts for progress. Here is where it gets a little tricky. I cannot simply write down all the things I need to accomplish – that is just not how research works. If I want to learn to ski double black diamond slopes, my course would be much clearer. It is easy to formulate very abstract goals, but they need to be concrete enough to be inspiring, and enable gamification.
Gamification is going to be mission-critical here. Without it, I might just end up, as I have done so many times before, trying to get myself to sit in my study/office for longer. That is a sucky game, as I am sure many of you know already. Some pursuits are much more amenable to gamification – like improving your skiing. Since skiing is already a game, the basics are right there. You have clear feedback mechanisms, and clear ways of winning. Not so with an office job, or research.
Certainly, some jobs have clear goals, but they are often not inspiring. Therefore, you need to find a way to make them so. In doing research, it is very difficult to signpost progress in advance. You don’t know where the work will lead, and committing to results beforehand often means that you spend your time trying to enforce your will on reality. Trust me, reality will win.
The type of goal I have to set will then again have to focus on the “how” rather than the “what”. I don’t know what exactly I want to accomplish, but I do know how. (There are a few goals that can be made more concrete.) I know that if I am able to spend three 90-minute sessions a day in deep work, being in flow most of the time, I will produce good results. I know that if I get better at learning new stuff, my work will be better. I also know that the more I enjoy my work, the easier all this will get and the faster I will progress, and the easier I will drop into flow. And when I get to the point where my flow arises quickly, I will be able to work only two sessions a day, trusting my subconscious to come up with the answers the rest of the day when I am out mountain biking. To do so, I will also need to be able to attain mental states which allow answers from the deep recesses of my mind to come through, without the typical interference of my analytical mind.
Another note to self: collaboration and group flow will be key.
In writing about this, some clarity is beginning to emerge. It’s not perfect yet, but I can see a way forward. My aim is not to come up with a perfect system before I start, but to allow it to evolve as I go along. I mean, if I already had the answers, this experiment would not be necessary. The first thing is to gain momentum by having some early successes, as well as feedback to allow me to improve quickly.
The Flow Diaries 