Conditions for flow and a productive environment

Key Insight

Conditions for flow and a productive environment

● Put the best person into a bad environment, they will not succeed. Put the worst into a good one, and they will. Environment and conditions are extremely important, and actually underestimated. Inner motivation and superhuman effort cannot take us far, because life is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s necessary that every day we be extremely effective consistently, and that takes good conditions. If conditions are good, it’s hard to be ineffective, everything else comes easily.

● To allow the brain to relax and enter flow, suitable conditions in the material environment are also necessary. The workspace should be quiet, clean, ventilated (extremely important every 60-90 minutes), well-lit and calm. If you want quality deep flow, there can be no compromises. Good lighting is especially important in winter months when there isn’t much daylight. Absolutely all notifications (sound and vibrations) are turned off on all devices.

○ In a room of 30 cubic meters of air, two people reach toxic CO2 levels within 120 minutes, and before toxicity, reduced effectiveness occurs. If you work in a small office with closed doors, ventilate every 60 minutes or keep a slightly open window.

● Music is not desirable, especially if it has lyrics or ads. It’s possible you’ve gotten used to working with music, but silence is the best environment for deep focus.

● Where many people go wrong is trying to save 200 or 500 euros on rent for an apartment or workspace, and take space with poor conditions and create an opportunity cost many times the saved amount. Do not skimp on the working environment, get the best chair and a height-adjustable desk (and then stand for part of the day).

● If we work in open space (and even if not) a sound panel (foam pyramids) on the walls is an excellent option. The atmosphere changes dramatically when they are present, and one or two whole walls can be covered with them. It’s possible to have two or more quiet conversations without disturbing others, and external noise is far less audible. I personally have sound panels in my work and bedroom, and without them I wouldn’t be able to imagine efficiency. Thick rugs and curtains are also extremely desirable in a workspace as they help absorb sound and reduce echoes. You cannot have too much peace and quiet (even if some people try to convince you otherwise).

○ If we still can’t achieve silence, the next best option is noise-canceling headphones, which should cover the ears (not earbuds), and be fairly high quality (expensive). If we put these headphones on and play some background noise (rain sounds, for example), we can completely mute other sounds.

○ The last alternative are earplugs, which completely eliminate noise, but are fiddly to put in/out (though cheaper than headphones).

● Depending on needs and position, we need to have communication with others, and it’s best grouped into certain periods during the day, every 1-4 hours set aside 5-15 minutes for communication. If we have more emails than that, it’s best to respond to all at the end of the workday, and we should also communicate with subordinates/superiors that we won’t be online 24/7 and will not wait for their email. If you work in a company where that is unacceptable, and you are expected to do deep and quality work, then it’s probably time to change the company...

● For roles that realistically may have something urgent (primarily in stronger operations) you can leave a doorbell on for people who might call us with something that is “urgent,” but usually that “urgent” isn’t really urgent and turns out to be one to two hours.

● There are auto-reply apps that respond to the sender that we check email X times a day and do not expect an answer immediately, but I think that is unnecessary, especially if you check at least twice a day.

● If we have a bigger project, it’s not bad to go to a distraction-free environment, for example on a mountain, and completely devote ourselves to that project without distraction, especially if we go alone. Loneliness is not bad for focus, but can be depressing after a while, so balance is needed. Many successful people do this and even plan monthly or quarterly. Tim Ferris also suggests taking a mini-retreat from time to time, though that isn’t always possible (but if it is, seriously consider it).

○ Changing environment is extremely desirable in situations where we are in a bad emotional state, exhausted or in burnout. In such states we hardly see solutions, only problems, and changing the environment can be very helpful.

● Digital detox is the practice of periodically (once a week - once a month) completely disconnecting from the internet for a full day and getting away from screens, ideally combining it with being in nature, and doing a full-day hiking or camping. In Japan doctors recommend being in nature as a remedy, and there are many scientific papers confirming that being in nature positively affects psycho-physical health.

● Playing games is recommended on a different computer from work, ideally in a different room/environment, and never 2 hours before planned sleep time.

● If you want to place some recreation in the office, table tennis is a great break from computers and an ideal choice for recreation in the office, or perhaps darts. Don’t stare at a screen, socialize, rest the eyes, light physical activity, focus improves. Great in every way.

● In addition to the environment and conditions we’ve mentioned, the psychological factor is very important and here we should think about:

○ The weight/interestingness of what we are working on - if it’s too easy or boring, we won’t be able to enter flow, and if it’s too hard, we won’t achieve the small wins necessary to release the dopamine needed to keep us in flow. If something is very hard/boring we should break it into very small units.

○ Psychophysical health, good dopamine control, sleep, nutrition, blood sugar etc... All other topics we’ll mention in this course are very important, and everything works in synergy.