
How to Learn to Love to Practice: Is there a secret to staying in the zone? - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/33/attraction/how-to-learn-to-love-to-practice
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iEchoic
The ability to find (or manufacture) this "flow" state on a regular basis is
probably one of the most underrated personal and professional skills
(interestingly, it's also one that you can't really interview for in others).

This article seems to treat the ability to get in "flow" as an intrinsic
quality of the individual or a superpower to unlock. In my experience, like
everything else in life, there's no "secret", only an iterative process
through which you learn and improve. These things have been the most helpful
for me:

• Taking care of the rest of my life: trying to eat well, work out, get enough
sleep, etc.

• Constantly identifying things that slow me down or cause mental exhaustion
(tiring processes, poor work environment, poor tools), and making fixing them
a priority

• Consciously hyping myself up; motivation doesn't always come easily. When
I'm having a hard time focusing, envisioning a future self that's gone through
this work and have achieved what I want to achieve helps orient and motivate
me. If you're a competitive person like I am, treating it as a competition
helps.

• Once deciding on a strategic direction and sitting down to work, staying
focused only the next piece of work to complete. Similar to the "one game at a
time" mantra from competitive sports.

• Cultivating an unwavering belief that I will succeed at <thing>, it's just a
matter of practice and dedication.

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Nomentatus
Focus and the ability to stay on a task aren't the same thing as flow.

Flow is much rarer than focus because for evolutionary reasons it has to be -
flow is action without a lot of the self-monitoring that's necessary for
learning. When you're in a knife fight, you'll flow 'cause learning isn't job
one, surviving is job one. Learning a task so well that you can dispense with
further learning also gets you to flow; but only a fool wants to get to that
flow despite NOT actually having mastered the task.

