This lesson took me years to learn, and I still sometimes fail to apply it, even though it is soooo simple. When I am well into a problem or project and I get stuck, I can get stuck for days or weeks. It is as if the problem is challenging my entire worth as a human being. The days seem a little darker. I obsess over it. I think about it when I’m going to bed. I wake up with it squatting like some evil gnome in my head.

Of course, there is no flow in this state. The ego is super-involved, and you feel like you’re in a fight. Creativity suffers. I tend to try the same solutions over and over, with perhaps small variations, expecting them to magically start working. They don’t. I am miserable, but at the same time I can’t tear myself away.

What you need at this point is a hard reset. It feels like a supreme act of will, but you have to abandon that problem. Ask yourself if there is any way you can get around it. I have been stuck on problems that were totally unnecessary – by simply shifting my goals I could let go of them altogether. Supposing this isn’t the case, you still need to get far away from the demon that is living in your brain now. Don’t take an hour’s break, take a week. Go get some sun. Have a stiff drink. Then, go work on another, unrelated problem, someplace else. If you don’t shift location and give your mind something else to wrestle with, you will be thinking about the old problem before you know it.

I’m not saying the solution is going to magically appear, though it might. I’m just saying that more conscious thought is not the answer here. You have to create space. The best way to do this is to get into flow on something else. Even if nothing else, you’ll feel better.

Sometimes, we place too many conditions on states like flow. We have categorized flow triggers, looked at circumstances which create flow, and studied recovery and maintenance routines. Might we not just be making too much of this?

For instance, we know that exercise, good sleep and changes of scenery contribute to flow. So, we might start thinking that, without optimizing these things, our flow would suffer. Maybe it does, but some of the world’s greatest achievements did not occur in optimal circumstances. We should remember that most of history’s great art and science was not created by a bunch of biohackers, and we should be wary of those who promise us techniques to conquer the world, when they themselves have not contributed much. I am worried that by being so obsessed with how we can do things optimally, we sometimes don’t realize that the best thing is just to cut the bullshit and do them.

Face it, Einstein did not study books on flow in order to come up with his revolutionary theories. He didn’t even do keto. He ate pastries and smoked a pipe, and slept late. So, rather than trying to optimize your life for flow, just get to the work, and sort out the details later.

My Rocketbook is a staple of my daily work. I absolutely love writing, and I love to think on paper. I also have to do a lot of calculation, and for that pen and paper can’t be beat. But I am also terrible at organizing my notes, and my cupboard was always filled with old notebooks that had work that I wasn’t really using, but didn’t want to throw away.

Of course, this is a terrible system. I had different notebooks for each subject, and trying to pick up a line of reasoning from months (and sometimes years) ago was impossible. Whilst not the perfect solution, the Rocketbook is definitely a step in the right direction.

Rocketbook

For those of you who don’t know it, the Rocketbook is essentially a portable whiteboard. It comes with an app which makes it easy for you to upload your notes to the cloud, or email them, and is usable over and over again. This has made my life a lot easier in daily life and also when traveling – I don’t have to carry extra notebooks with me, and my notes don’t get lost or forgotten. After a few years though, it gets hard to write in, in such a measure that I was considering ditching my current Rocketbook altogether and getting a new one. However, there are two things you can do to ensure that your notebook still works for years to come:

If you’re using Pilot Frixion 0.7 mm pens, stop! The 0.7 mm is my go-to pen size, whether it be the Pentel (some of my all-time favourites) or the Frixion. Problem is, after a few years the Frixion pens do not want to write properly in the Rocketbook any more. An easy alternative is to simply switch to 0.5 mm pens. The difference in enjoyment is immediate – they write better, dry faster and clean better.

Pilot Frixion Pens

Get yourself another microfiber cloth. Even assuming that the cloth that comes with the Rocketbook is pristine, I find that moistening one side of it and drying with the other does not give me the results I desire. So I got a new microfiber cloth from the dollar store, and now when I clean I dampen the original cloth entirely, and use that to wipe the pages. I then dry them with the extra, completely dry cloth. Important: every ten or so pages, completely rinse out the cloth you do the first wipe with.

Microfiber cloth

As I stated in my previous post, I have been thinking about Cal Newport’s idea of “slow productivity”. In this post, I would like to explain why I think this is an excellent idea for someone interested in creating a life of flow.

To recap, slow productivity is about doing fewer things, doing them at a natural pace, being obsessed with quality, and focusing on longer-term results. In a way, this is antithetical to the way I always thought I should work. I have been obsessed for a long time with increasing my work output, and this has naturally lead to being obsessed with speed. The results speak for themselves: they sucked, and I was constantly overworked and underperforming. When you do lots of work very quickly, quality suffers, which means you did negative work, work which actually requires more hours to fix at a later time.

Changing your mindset to being slowly productive requires better planning, and saying goodbye to the idea of measuring productivity by busyness. I believe that it will also improve flow by lowering the barrier to entry. Flow is not something that all of us can switch on at will. Much like exercise, the first while can be really hard. If your intention for a flow session is to get an enormous amount done, you will constantly be evaluating your progress, which brings the inner critic online and kills flow. Yet if you have a realistic goal which relates to a bigger picture (and is therefore meaningful to you), but willing to commit yourself to doing high-quality work instead of just lots of it, I believe you will drop into flow that much easier. After all, the intention is not the extrinsic goal of getting lots done, but the intrinsic one of immersing yourself fully, because that is necessary to increase quality. It also means you’re not constantly watching the clock – another flow-killer.

There is another important aspect. Like most people, especially those who care deeply about their work, I hate doing a bad job. Even if I get a lot done, there is far less satisfaction when the quality is middling. When my goal is to focus on quality, I get a much deeper sense of satisfaction and that, after all, is what keeps you going back for more.

We do not like doing hard things. At the same time, we know that the only way to be happy and satisfied is to do hard things. I found myself quite incapable this morning of doing things that I knew I should, but which seemed daunting given my current mindset. I managed to overcome this quite successfully, using two principles:

1. Use your preferred mode.
2. Remember Slow Productivity.

Let’s start with the second first, because it is the more philosophical, whereas the first is more practical. Slow Productivity is best explained by Cal Newport, but the essence of it, as I currently understand it, is that your planning should be about achieving significant things over years, instead of achieving small, ephemeral wins in the short term. In this context, I see it as giving myself permission to make steady and incremental progress, without needing to put in a teeth-grindingly intense session of deep work. As such, I told myself that I did not have to master an enormous amount of background reading today, I can simply learn a few things, which I will mull over and try to relate to what I currently know, and which will contribute to my foundational knowledge of my field. This is indeed taking the long-term view: I am not trying to master anything today, but am planting seeds of concepts which will be used and refined for years to come. By taking away the pressure of having to work that hard, the barrier to entry of actually accomplishing something has been lowered, increasing the chances of a successful day and an enjoyable work session.

As far as the first point goes, I have repeatedly stressed the value of working in the way which fits you best. With me, that means writing. This could take the form of typing, but I take even more pleasure in writing by hand. To implement my slow productivity then, I took the small task I set myself, moved to the writing desk, and laid out my instruments. A big A3 pad of paper, Sharpies and the book I’m working on. Instead of focusing on the hard mental work of understanding difficult concepts, I concentrate on the pleasure of pen on paper, trying to sketch the concepts I’m busy with, doodling when I don’t understand something. There is something in this haptic environment which I take great joy in, and before I know it, I don’t want to stop, which is my most reliable indicator of flow.

Bought some soundtracks that claim to enhance flow. What have I got to lose, right? If they work, I will definitely share the link.

In meditation this morning, I was observing my thoughts arise and then the associated emotion. Turns out, nearly every emotion has to do with something I desire, or am averse to (which is another form of desire). Mostly, these take the shape of judgements. Given that flow demands that the constant inner critic be turned off, this is significant. Evaluating your actions at each stage is antithetical. In a way, there must be a loss of self. Indeed, I think that most peak experiences involve this loss of the ego.

I was going to spend more time on goals in this post, but feel so strongly about this idea that I will not dilute it by switching to another topic.

They say you can only be happy when you are not asking yourself whether you are happy or not. This is not completely true, because we sometimes take a great deal of satisfaction from stepping back, regarding our situation and really appreciating it. However, and this is key, we simply can’t be doing that all the time. When you’re biking a challenging trail, sitting back and admiring how well you’re riding it is a sure way to get your ass on the ground quickly.

Of course, in that situation there is some immediate survival pressure at play. Your brain is putting everything into it, and there are simply no resources left for your “personality”. Which raises the question, is that personality patiently waiting somewhere, or has it been switched off?

My opinion is that personality is not your actual self, and much of modern neuroscience will bear this out. To put it bluntly, you are not your personality. It is only a part of you. And it is such a bothersome part that, when the shit hits the fan, it is often shut off.

As Darrin M. McMahon observes in “Divine Fury (A History of Genius)”:

Divine Fury

“And the author known as Longinus, in a treatise on the sublime that would have a major impact on later thinking about genius, describes how writers of great natural talents were in possession of a force that could carry them out of themselves ‘above all mortal range,’ lifting them ‘near the mind of God.'”

Whilst we are probably too secular these days to entertain the idea of a genius or daimon, this metaphor has survived since ancient times for a reason. The highest creative ability still seems to have something of the mystical about it. We try to explain it in terms of dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, brain waves, and the like, but that is hardly inspiring. They may help us to deconstruct the process of entering flow, but they’re not the whole story.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang writes this of Barbara McClintock (Nobel prize-winning scientist) in his excellent book “Rest” – which I’m now rereading:

Rest

“As a child, she told her biographer, she discovered that she could focus so deeply on activities that she’d lose her sense of self, to the point of forgetting her own name. As a graduate student, she learned to apply this ferocious capacity for attention to her scientific work and began to learn how to recognize when her subconscious was working through a problem.”

Even as we try to scientifically understand genius and flow, we still create modern myths. We love the mystery of genius. Perhaps a large part of the solution is that we can never aspire to genius, for the self that aspires is forever denied entry to that particular heaven. It is only when we can immerse ourselves so fully that even the concept of self, honours, glory and attainment disappear, that the gates can open.

Some inflammation in my hand (carpal tunnel?). Nearly skipped exercise this morning, then thought there’s plenty to do without hand-stuff (that just sounds dirty). Such as knee rehab, for instance. Bummer not to be able to practice pull-ups and handstands, though.

I have started to set the rules. Here’s the first one:

Rule #1: Get up at 06:30.

That may not seem like much, but when I have had trouble falling asleep, a late night having drinks with friends, or just woken up repeatedly because of mosquities, I tend to press that snooze button more than a few times. Any exceptions have to be determined beforehand. These are: being sick, and recovering from jet lag (which I will manage according to a new app I downloaded). Update: Totally forgot about the app…

Apart from the “how”, which from now on I shall call the mode, I have found that the “where” also makes a great difference. Being in my study all day can become a drag, especially when you’re not finding flow. For me, the answer is often to simply go do the same work somewhere else. I like going to coffee shops or restaurants – and these should preferably not be fancy. Some kind of franchise with horrific décor is perfect for me. I put on the noise-canceling headphones, a jazz album, and go. (Weirdly, this is pretty much the only time I listen to jazz.) I especially like to have a booth to myself, and waiters that aren’t too attentive. If they get to know you, so much the better, since they know you do not want to be disturbed until your cup is empty. Because I’m taking up table space on not having anything to eat, I make sure to always leave a big tip – upwards of 30%.

Once again, it is a day filled with tiny and annoying tasks, including physically going to the bank, (why does this still exist?). To make this more bearable, and to sneak in a little mini-flow, which I am just assuming exists, I am grabbing an hour at a coffee place to work on setting and solving some equations. Because I am out of the house, there is little distraction regarding the move, and I can get focused very quickly. For the same reason, I love working on long flights. Most of the movies suck anyway, but when my brain gets full I will turn to something which probably has many, many explosions. (“Bullet Train” really hit the spot on my last flight.) To make this work, you have to experiment a bit in order to get to know your own style. On the plane, I won’t do very high-level conceptual work, but rather hands-on things, like writing or calculating. This means that it is vital to decide on what to do beforehand. Same with the restaurant. If I have a clear idea of what to do, I bring only the relevant material and get stuck in immediately. The mental act of preparation and the physical act of isolation gets me to a very good place, very quickly, and I have spent many of my best working sessions this way.

Back to goals. Now that I have a purpose, I need the high, hard goals. Since these are supposed to contribute directly to my purpose, I am going to let these have a timeframe of several months to years. My feeling is that you should be a different person once these have been achieved, in the sense that you will be much closer to the person who can fulfill that purpose. It should be tangibly closer.

I am not trying to have the best goals possible at the moment. I just need something to get me started. It is okay for your goals to shift, until they feel right. You don’t have to get it right out of the gate! Finding the right goals is an exercise in self-exploration, and I urge you to approach it that way. I have set many goals in my life that I have never achieved, and, to be honest, did not particularly want to. This is because those goals originated in what I thought I had to be doing and in the expectations of others. When you explore your goals, you might even find out that your purpose gets adjusted, as well.

You should spend time on your purpose before you write it down, diving deep into what will satisfy you. But I do not recommend spending so long on it and making it such a big deal that you are paralyzed for weeks. Take a few hours, write it down, work on your goals, and re-think. Self-knowledge does not arise overnight. Pay careful attention to your feelings; they are there to let you know whether you are on the right track. They do not lie. And as you evolve, so might your purpose and goals.

A warning is necessary here. I am not advocating that goals should be easily discarded when something new and shiny comes along. Pursuing a goal is hard, and that is what makes it satisfying. Really invest in the soul-searching. For myself, I have found myself out of alignment with certain goals, but that was not because the goal was wrong. Rather, my mode was wrong, in the sense that I was approaching the goal in the way I though it should be done, rather than the way which is true to my specific character and neurology.

Tablets – a must for reading and note-taking

Drove back from dropping the cat off this morning. Driving sometimes wipes me out, especially a difficult, pothole-ridden road like this, and added to that is the emotional burden of having said goodbye to one of my favorite creatures of all time. There is a mountain before me this week, consisting of the thousand tasks to make the move to Canada possible. I don’t want my Flow experiment to take a back seat, but the more I can get done this week regarding the move, the more I can schedule work sessions for the next without being weighed down by a mind drifting to all that is unaccomplished. Less than a month to go before getting on the plane.

One of the biggest problems when you have many, many small things to do in a limited time frame is knowing which order to do them in. I feel the pressure creeping up on me, and am a little paralyzed. In such a case, I only know one way to get momentum: do the easiest possible thing. It is of course common wisdom that the most difficult task should be done first, but that mindset only leads me to procrastinate. I prefer doing the easiest, quickest thing, which gives me a tiny nudge, building my momentum so that I realize I can get the next one done, and so on. Now, this does not work when you have only one or two major tasks for the day, because you might actually use the accomplishment of these small tasks as a method of procrastination. As I’ve said previously, you can do something to get into flow, like I’m doing with writing, it just should not serve as a means of avoidance.

But back to goals. I now have two, high-level goals that give me an inspired direction for my life. When I feel like skipping a morning workout, I can remind myself of the second one. When I feel like watching Netflix instead of reading up on my field, I can remind myself of the first one, and know that every wasted moves that goal further away from me.

That is still not enough. When your goals are lofty, it is sometimes easy to ignore them, especially when you’re not certain what the next step is. So we have to introduce the high, hard goals, as Kotler calls them. This is one step below the previous, and should be more achievable, but contribute to the purpose-related goals.

This is a page for things that I am finding useful in my search for flow, and in my life in general.

My new favourite thing (kind of): The Supernote A5X. I love taking notes by hand, but was sick and tired of having ten notebooks for all the things I’m reading and interested in. I was using the Rocketbook, but that essentially contained only notes for work. It was still isomorphic to an ordinary notebook as well, so switching between topics was not effortless, and space ran out quickly. With the Supernote, I can do all the writing I want, knowing they’ll be synced to my Dropbox, and can use the same device for every topic.

I did a lot of research on E-ink notebooks before settling on the Supernote, and it is a pleasure to use. However! There is one big problem! My battery runs down markedly overnight, when it is supposed to be sleeping. I can lose anywhere from 20 to 50% overnight, which often means I have to charge it in the morning before I can start working. Of course, you can use it while charging, but the cable is a pain. I am going to give Supernote the benefit of the doubt though, and assume this is not normal behaviour. I have already contacted support and will update here if they come through – or not.

UPDATE: The Supernote seems to have stabilized. Whilst I did not hear back from Supernote support after initial contact, battery life seems to have increased over time and I can now get many days of hard use from it. No more mystery drains. I am loving it more and more.

Sony Headphones

Usually my “favourite thing” list was topped by my Kindle Fire or my Sony headphones, before the Supernote arrived. There is simply no better way to shut the world out than Sony’s noise-cancelling technology. And, they are bloody brilliant on planes – I never want to fly without them again. I go nowhere without these.

Art of Impossible

This really is the starting point. If you are at all interested in flow, get this.

L-Tyrosine

I am no medical doctor, and you should always consult with someone about supplements, especially if you have any underlying conditions. But this stuff is great! It works on your dopamine levels, and so should not be taken every day, if you’re taking it for focus. I use it twice a week, maximum. Those are often the two best days of the week…

Removable Whiteboard

This is not the exact brand I am using, since that one seems to have disappeared from Amazon. This is such a simple idea, but it works brilliantly. It’s great for keeping a project outline visible in my office and adjusting as needed. I also love thinking a problem through on a whiteboard, and of course it’s ideal for collaboration.

Still at the parents-in-law. The cat is settling in better than expected, but still requires a lot of attention. She is demanding, as befits the queen of all she surveys.

I’m getting in a substantial amount of pondering, at least, in-between trying to keep the cat from scaling every tree and destroying everything in sight. Still struggling with my purpose and main goals. That’s okay. Maybe I shouldn’t take it too seriously. Just take a purpose, write it down, see if it works, and change if it doesn’t. Try this one:

Purpose goal 1: Optimize my life and my mind so that I am able to finish one research-level project each month, whilst having more fun working than should be humanly possible.

What makes that resonate with me is that it is very much focused on the how, the process. On the other hand, it has a component that doesn’t seem to be measurable. How do you measure fun? Also, it’s not really “change the world” type stuff, is it? But perhaps that is okay, too. The important thing is to have something to get me going. At the end of the day, I want to look back and go, “That was great! Can’t wait to do it again!”

Something Kotler emphasizes is the need to accomplish more than one thing at the same time. This does not mean splitting focus, but that you should carefully choose your pursuits so they can contribute to more than one aspect of your life. In the spirit of this, I am going to add another purpose-level goal, even though the first one hasn’t yet been formulated properly.

Purpose goal 2: Ski a double black diamond.

This is something that is dear to my heart. I started wrestling at an early age, had to quit because of injuries, took up cycling and Tai Chi, which I am practicing to this day. Additionally, I maintain fitness through various other forms of exercise (e.g., calisthenics and kettlebells, swimming). I am not in peak shape at the moment, but physical activity is such a major part of my life that it would feel wrong if I did not include it on my purpose-level. Additionally, I know how much this impacts my mental capabilities, mood and getting into flow. Neglecting it it inconceivable.

For those of you who ski often, the above might not seem to be much of a goal. Just remember that I am 48 and have spent a total of two days on a snowboard. More than that, I sustained a catastrophic knee injury about five years ago (two torn ligaments, torn tendon, ruptured meniscus, cracked bone). I did tons of rehab, and things were going well – until I re-injured it by pushing too hard. The knee has never been the same, and since I am a 6’4”, 230-pound human, it has a lot of work to do. Even the thought of getting on the snow fills me with a slight terror, but man, I want to ski!

Adding in a torn ligament on the other knee from my wrestling days, plus several ankle tears, it’s going to take a lot of work. Right now, I’m following this guy: