How much time do you find yourself being "in the zone" per day?
interpolator
I've been researching ways to improve productivity by being able to do more in less time. Just wanted to ask you guys how many hours per day do you find yourself being "in the zone" doing game art. Also known as state of flow in positive psychology.
In my case, I counted the number of hours I spent everyday being in the zone doing 3D art for a span of a month. In a normal 8-hour work day, my average was 5 hours being in the flow state. In rare cases, I pushed to 6 hours. Any more than that made my head hurt or caused drowsiness. The remaining time was spent in things like emails, chats, breaks, lunch, snacks, and many other things.
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I can do 4-5 hours at work, and the rest of the time is taken up by meetings or non creative work and then 1-2 nights a week bang out a few more hours making my youtube content in a flow state, but other times it is more of a struggle to power through or get started.
one thing I can say for sure is whenever my nutrition and gym routine has been on point consistently, I seemingly have more willpower to get started and access to that flow state for longer periods of time. eating garbage and being lazy leads to that being crippled, but not surprising seeing as usually your inputs=outputs
Maintaining flow is very important - not just in terms of productivity but also in terms of morale.
Since a happy team means I have less whining to deal with I have a vested interest in improving flow which leads me to ask the following question
(if it's not too much of a derailment)
Apart from the obvious interrupters (meetings, lunch break etc) I'm curious as to what breaks people's flow during the day and/or what improves it.
It’s important to note that one can’t experience flow if distractions disrupt the experience (Nakamura et al., 2009). Thus, to experience this state, one has to stay away from the attention-robbers common in a modern fast-paced life. A first step would be to turn off your smartphone when seeking flow.
Also, the balance of perceived challenges and skills are important factors in flow (Nakamura et al., 2009). On the one hand, when a challenge is bigger than one’s level of skills, one becomes anxious and stressed. On the other hand, when the level of skill exceeds the size of the challenge, one becomes bored and distracted.
Since the experience of this state is just in the middle, the balance is essential.
What is the Motivation Behind Your Flow State?
Most conscious actions require motivation, and there are two basic motivation types: intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is when you do something because you love it. Csikszentmihalyi said the highest intrinsic motivation is a flow state where self-consciousness is lost, one surrenders completely to the moment, and time means nothing (2013). Think of a competent musician playing without thinking, or a surfer catching a great wave and riding it with joy.
Extrinsic motivation is when your motivation to succeed is controlled externally. That includes doing something to avoid getting into trouble or working hard to earn more money. That type of motivation is short-lived. A good kind of extrinsic motivation is when you are practicing to get better but you still need a tutor or teacher to validate your efforts.
One thing for sure, forums and YouTube are terrible distractions.
But I think brain needs certain amount of distraction time too. I expect it's all highly variable and individually based. In other words, waiting for flow to happen is like waiting for good weather. You can kind of predict it but not really. When it comes, savor every moment.
Sometimes it's okay cause can't push yourself constantly, bit when I really need to make shit happen I find it best to just save distraction time till end of day entirely. Really depends what type of work is being done though. Some things require me to have entire project in head at once for constant complex decisions to be made on.fly. other things just like busy work and a distraction now and then may even help. Like playing music.
But that being said, when I really get into it, it can be between 2-3 hours up to 5-7.