Today, I mow over another bit of the past. Removing pages that shouldn’t be around, and continually trimming things that I no longer want in this page.
Yesterday, I was on a set, and people were earnestly talking to me, yet I was completely detached. I gave minimally-required responses that were expected to make a conversation interactive, in hopes that maybe it would eventually blossom into a real conversation that I feel I could participate in.
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot into Mindfulness, and trying to be mindful with the current moment, and those around me. I obviously was not being mindful of where I was, and what I was doing. I wasn’t just disengaged from the conversation, but also from my actions as well. I was just doing my job automatically without thinking about the tasks at hand, I just did them. Meanwhile, my mind drifted away into other thoughts.
In fact, I’ve been doing this for so long, that it’s become my modus operandi. Then,
I got to thinking about this phenomenon: Even though I’m doing these things automatically because I’m familiar with them, I’m not in a “State of flow”.
In essence, the state of flow means that you are fully immersed in a specific activity, where you are fully focused and completely energized. Some call this “being in the zone”.
So when was the last time I actually had this feeling of total immersion? I can’t remember, but here are some ways to identify them:
- So focused on something that everything disappears.
- All action and awareness is dedicated to that one thing.
- Time can either speed up or slow. Self-consciousness disappears.
So how do I train for it? How do I achieve this?
- Overload your brain with all sorts of information. (This starts with you being very uncomfortable.)
- Stop thinking about the problem (release yourself from it).
- Deep low. Recovery. (unpleasant).
“Hacking flow” means learning how to manage that recovery. Hm… This post went in a different direction from where I thought it’d go…