How I Stay Focused Working 14-Hour Days - My Flow System

Thanks to Remarkable for sponsoring thisvideo. So, if I had to say what the onething was that got me exceptionalresults at Cambridge and then allows meto continue to perform excellently in myjob as a corporate lawyer, it would be myability to focus, to get into a state offlow. So, in this video, I'm going to besharing my productivity system that’sbroken down into four different areas.As you build these techniques intoyour own productivity system, I want youto ask yourself one question that Ialways ask myself when I’m tempted byprocrastination: will I choose focus overdistraction? The reason I askmyself that question is that the

answer is binary, right? You can eitheranswer yes or no. Hopefully, you’rechoosing yes. You’re thinking, "Okay, I’mgoing to apply those techniques inLiam’s video. I’m going to get myselfinto a state of flow. I’m going to choosefocus. Flow is this state where you’refully absorbed in what you’re doing,where your work takes over, and whereyou’re able to produce way higherquality work and feel way more satisfiedat the end of work sessions. It is, in thewords of the founding father of flow,Check, send me high the state where theego falls away. Mentally, you lose yoursense of self; your work takes over.

You’re absorbed, and it is honestly apretty awesome state to be in. Hopefully,multiple times a day. So let’s dive intomy system. Okay, so first up, your physicalstate. This is really what I think ofas the baseline requirement forgetting into a state of flow. You have tobe physically comfortable, feeling good,energized in order to be able to reallybe absorbed in the work you’re doing.There is strong evidence to back up thatyour physical state has a statisticallysignificant impact on your ability toenter flow state, be focused, maintainconcentration. So practically, there aretwo levels I focus on to get my bodyready to enter flow. The first is themacro physical state. This is the broadersense of just how you’re feeling. Are youenergized? Do you have overall physicalwell-being to be able to get into astate of flow? Scientists have prettyuniversally aligned that in terms ofyour macro physical state and focus,there’s one factor that is mostimportant, and that is your sleep. I thinkit’s obvious that sleep has an impact onFor example, our mood and our generalsense of well-being. I think it's less

obvious that it actually directlyimpacts our concentration levels and ourability to really be absorbed by whatwe're doing. But studies into flow haveconsistently shown, particularly in aworkplace setting, that sleepiness issignificantly and negatively correlatedwith flow experiences. So look, I've madean entire video on why you're so tiredand how to overcome sleepiness. So Irecommend you go watch that video. Buttwo practical techniques that I thinkmay feel counterintuitive during theworkday. The first one is that actually,if you're the kind of person for whom anap actually makes some positivedifference, a 20-minute nap followed bydirect sunlight exposure for maybe 10minutes, going on a walk may actuallyhave a positive impact on your overalldaily productivity, given the ability toenter a flow state and do really focusedwork. So definitely consider napping ifthat is something that works for you. Andthe second is something that I findreally improves my sleep at the end ofthe day, and that is planning out thenext day, everything I'm going to do.

Unloading everything that's in my brainin terms of what I want to get donetomorrow onto a piece of paper, planningexactly what I want to get done thefollowing day so that I can then relaxfor an hour or two in the evening and goto bed without my mind racing about allthe things I need to get done tomorrow.The second thing I'm focused on froma macro-physical perspective is exercise.There is again such a strong body ofevidence to show that there are hugecognitive benefits, including improvedattention, from doing even a small amountof daily exercise. So, I personally usethe app to track my habits, and I setmyself the challenge each week of doingthree workouts and then two days where Irun or walk. Even if I just go 15minutes on the bike in the gym, it takesme a total of half an hour betweengetting to the gym and then showeringafterwards and being at my desk. Thatmassively improves my focus and myability to get into flow.

Once the macro is sorted, I'm then looking at mymicro-physical state, and this is myphysical state as it relates to thespecific work session I'm about to enter.Probably my favorite productivityThe technique is what I call the cinematechnique. It's this idea that when yougo to watch Oppenheimer, you don’t go inwith a full bladder, no food, no drink.

You’re going to watch a 3-hour film, soyou’re going to the L beforehand, you’regetting a snack, you’re getting water.You’re making sure you’re ready to befocused on the film for 3 hours. So youshould treat your work sessions theexact same way. You should go into that worksession expecting your micro-physicalstate to be sufficiently ready toperform and to focus for an hour or two.

So I recommend taking five techniqueswhen you’re going into the cinema. Thefirst is to eat something before you go in,ideally something slow-releasing, but itcan be just a small chocolate bar, notsomething too big that gives you a bigsugar spike because that will hamper yourability to focus. Second, take a little break.Third, have another snack ready for 30 to60 minutes’ time in case you get peckish.Fourth, have a full supply of water, andfifth, put a timer on your desk, startand see how long you can go for andremain focused. Okay, on to the secondpart of my system: you need to build anenvironment where you feel happy.

I'm confident and comfortable spending hoursat a time working, so I focus on theeasy wins at the end of every day. Ialways make sure my workspace is tidy, sothat when I arrive at work the next day,I have this sort of clear workspace, clearmind in order to begin my work for theday. Another easy win is to make suredistractions aren't easily accessible. Soput your personal phone on work mode andflip it over, so you can't see the screen.

I make sure, personally, that my workphone, while face up, has notificationsturned off, and I just have notificationsappear on my screen so I can quicklyflick to see if the email said it wasurgent. If it's not urgent, I don't lookat it; I'm back in a state of flow. Ifyou're in a job like mine where peopleexpect you to be responsive, it might bea good idea when you're in a deep worksession to set your status on Teams todo not disturb. That red icon with a dashthrough it means that people probablywill assume you're in a meeting or doingsomething really important. They won’tdisturb you, and they'll expect you torespond later. The final thing aboutyour environment is to invest in qualitytools. I have made a number of desk sets.

I put up videos which you should check out onthe more budget end and the more premiumend, but fundamentally there is nowherein my bed included that I spend moretime in my life than at this desk. Sothat means spending a bit of money on anice keyboard, a nice mouse, and good monitorsis really making this setup somewhere thatI want to spend time. It is fundamentallysuch a good investment of money. This iswhere I spend the vast majority of mylife, and from a flow perspective, ifyou’re getting annoyed because yourkeyboard is kind of rubbish and old, andlike you hit one key and it doesn’t work,or your back is uncomfortable becauseyour chair is old and not that comfy,it means that fundamentally those thingsare going to get in the way of you beingabsorbed by your work because they’regoing to distract you. One amazingtool I particularly want to call out interms of focus and flow is this bad boy:the Remarkable 2. It is an absolutesavior when it comes to note taking,

because unlike other tech that monetizesyour attention, its sole purpose is toallow you to effectively take notes. So Ihave been using the Remarkable 2 for afew months now, and my experience has beenGot to say, it has just got better andbetter as I've gotten more and more used toit. It feels more like paper than anyconventional tablet I've tried and evenhas this sound that is the same aswriting on paper. I'm a huge notetakerand so I'm really excited to stop havingnotebooks all over the place that Iforget about, can never refer back to, cannever find anything in, and instead haveall my handwritten notes organized andin one place. Plus, it's obviously amazingthat all of your notes are thenaccessible across different devices andstored in the cloud. I also love that youcan open up PDFs within the device andmake notes over the top of those as ifyou'd printed them off and weretaking notes on paper.

I also absolutely love the size and ease of use of theRemarkable 2. I've traveled with itquite a bit and it slips easily insidemy menos backpack when I'm out and about.It's so thin and lightweight thatyou barely even notice it's there. Thepen case and device itself are allreally sleek and minimal in their design,so it really fits in with my overallaesthetic, making the Remarkable 2 areally satisfying bit of tech to use.

I just really love having it with me inthe feel of it; plus, it's easy tonavigate with a simple and intuitiveuser interface. You can find out moreabout the remarkable tool through thelink in the description. Do go andtry one out for yourself. Okay, so you'rephysically ready; you've got a positiveenvironment, and now it's time to focuson the big one: your state of mind.

There are two elements here. So the firstthing you need to focus on ischallenging yourself. So, Cheek semi Highfound that generally, we're only able toget into a state of flow when thechallenge of the work matchesapproximately our skill level. This meansif there's a simple task atwork, I try to delegate it. If I can'tdelegate it because I need to do itmyself, I will try to find a challenge inthat simple task. For example, if I'mtasked with proofreading something, Iwill try to understand it and find areaswhere I think things could be betterexplained. Conversely, if a task isparticularly challenging, above my skilllevel, I'll focus on it for maybe 30minutes. I'm probably not in a state ofQuestions that I want to ask the personwho I'm doing the task for clarify anyareas where I really don't understand.

Equipped with my new knowledge,and now ready to enter a state of flow,I'll work on that task for a couple ofhours. The final thing I'd say hereis that you can also just challengeyourself to be focused for an hour, say,twice a day. In the D app, I have ahabit that I have to complete twice aday to remain focused in deep work foran hour. Each time I do that, I get tocheck it off. Just the challenge ofremaining focused is often enough to getme more towards a state of flow. Thesecond thing I'm doing is getting in thezone. I have my CA task — those fivesteps to complete before I get in thezone. Once I've got everythingready, I'm ready to go into the cinema.

I'm putting in my noise-cancellingAirPods, probably having a few deepbreaths, and putting on Endel. I'mgetting to work. So once you've done yourkind of cinema steps, I really recommendbuilding up your own pre-work routine.For example, take a number ofdeep breaths, prepare yourself, andmaybe move your shoulders.

Relax, and you start something that youcan reliably do to trigger yourself toget into a state of focused work, and thefinal thing I'm focused on to get intoflow is how I’m structuring my worksession. For me, the ideal length ofa work session is between 1 and 2 hours. Ican stay focused for that long, and if Iget into a state of flow after around 20to 30 minutes, I then find that I’veprobably got another hour of work inthat state of flow before I need a break.

So when I’m setting myself a task, evenif the task is going to take overall 7hours, let’s say, I will break that downinto doing this little bit of thatoverall bigger task for a period of whatI think will be around an hour to anhour and a half, giving me a target thatI can try to reach during my next worksession. So break down any bigger tasksinto smaller, specific, targeted chunks ofwork where you have an end destinationyou're getting to, and then when you getto that, you can have a break. It givesyou something to work towards; it’s waymore fulfilling, and it also means thatyou can roughly time how long your worksessions are—the ideal length of workFlow. The other thing I do when I'm

structuring my work is to start easierand get harder. Procrastination isdriven by the feeling that the workwe're about to do is going to be reallyhard, really painful, and therefore weavoid doing that work because it'seasier. Therefore, procrastination can bemitigated by starting with really easytasks. I like to apply David Allen'stwo-minute rule from his book, GettingThings Done, where you effectively startthe day by doing anything that's goingto take less than two minutes. Get thatknocked off the checklist and get into yourwork. You're not in flow yet; you're juststarting the day with some easy wins.

However, you absolutely should not spendmore than 20 to 30 minutes doing thesekind of two-minute little jobs. Taskswitching because actually, the morningfor many people is one of the mostproductive times of the day. And so ifyou spend more than about 30 minutes onactually what are pretty admin-focusedeasy tasks, you're probably wasting someof your most productive time in the day.So start easy for about 20 to 30 minutes,knock off those easy two-minute-ish items,and then move on to more focused tasks.

Difficult work, so I really hope you'veenjoyed this video. If you did, then goand check out one of my other videos.It's on screen now. Please do give this alike, please do subscribe, please docomment. I always read your comments.Honestly, liking it actually, genuinelyhelps so much, so please do. If you enjoythis, give it a like, and I look forwardto speaking to you again very, very soon.