Sometimes 9-5 just won’t do it. Especially in creative tasks, flow is an essential element. It’s something you can’t always have on demand.
I always find web development work and creative processing difficult during the day time. I can produce standard business portraits with no problem; but when there’s a more creative task to do…
There are a million interruptions; either the phone will ring, or emails will come in, or I’ll think I really could be doing something else.
So a technique I use to get into the required flow for such a task is to get up in the middle of the night. The world is silent. There’s nowhere else I could possibly be. There is no feeling of guilt if I don’t open my email. That’s when the truly creative work gets done.
Of course, any work carried out must be checked carefully in the morning! And I have to remember to give myself an equivalent amount of time off in the day.
Do you need flow in your life? Where do you find it?
2 Comments
That’s something I struggle with too – some days I feel completely in the zone, others I wonder whether I’m coming or going.
At work most days I have regular interruptions, which lead me off on wild goose chases. If I don’t say “no” I end up feeling like I’ve worked hard all day and achieved nothing.
I know what you mean about working when no-one else is. Sometimes I start work at 6.30am for a 8,30am start, and the strange thing is that the part of the morning I get paid for (8.30 – 12.30) seems to last longer than if I’d got in at 8.30. It’s like I’ve had the mental space to find focus, and the focus actually stretches time out somehow.
I think that’s the key thing for me – focus gives me the flow you’re talking about – I have my objective, and I’m not getting distracted.
My main challenge though is to do that when the whole factory is knocking on the door asking me to deal with urgent irrelevances (they often are).
Personal organisation flavour of the month in December was planning work at the start of the day, estimating the duration in 30min chunks, then working through the list marking off when I’ve done a full chunk without allowing myself to be distracted, or anyone else from drawing me away. I note them down on the task list, and at the end of the day I can see how much of my time I’ve spent on key projects. The shock was that to begin with I struggled to spend 1h per day achieving key goals!! I’m working on improving that in the new year…
Keep writing your posts – I’m enjoying reading them, running a business is something I’d like to come back to one day…
Jon
Thanks, Jon.
I received a CD excerpt of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as a gift. In the discussion, they talk about tasks that are:
1. Urgent and Important
2. Non-Urgent and Important
3. Urgent and Not Important
4. Non-Urgent and Not Important
They go into detail on section 3… those tasks that are urgent to others but actually not getting you anywhere near your values and goals. It sounds like your door-knockers belong firmly in that category.
Good luck dealing with them!