HOW TO ENCOURAGE FLOW

The goal is to enter a state of creative flow. But how do we achieve this? Some thoughts:

1. No self censorship

DISSATISFACTION FREESTYLE RAP

To self-edit yourself disrupts your flow. Best to repeat yourself, say cliched things than to pause and stutter.

WHY BECOME YOUR OWN HYPE MAN?

2. No interruptions

I find auto-complete insanely bad. Why? When you autocomplete names in your address book or whatever, you get thrown off-course. I don’t like this:

I prepare to do a phone call to Cindy or text message her. As I start typing her name, other random names pop up, which totally rob me of my focus.

I don’t like to think about other people unless I myself *want* to think about them. This is why Facebook messenger and a lot of these other messager apps are so bad:

When you want to send a direct message to someone, other ‘suggestions’ pop up, which just keep you addicted to this platform.

3. Optimize your tools and lifestyle to DISCOURAGE or to PREVENT interruptions

Something I did on my Android phone:

‘Don’t interrupt’ mode, but the only phone calls that go through are from Cindy (the only essential person who needs to contact me).

Everything else can be addressed later.

Also, not to check email for the sake of checking email. Only checking email for a specific message. Or better yet for Gmail:

Go to contacts.google.com, and search for a certain person’s name when you are looking for an email only from them.

Or another Gmail hack:

  1. Install ‘Inbox when ready for Gmail‘ (hides your inbox when you load Gmail)
  2. Install ‘Send from Gmail‘ in Chrome, if you just want to email someone really quickly without opening your inbox (which can disrupt you).

4. Dropbox’s Mission is Great

Dropbox mission:

To encourage work flow.

A lot of their new tools allow you to ‘Share’ directly from your Mac Finder, or allow you to ‘Send’ (like wetransfer.com) all without opening up a browser window. This is great!

Productivity by KIM

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