I’ve always been a person that really gets into things. I have spent hours and hours and hours of my life obsessing over minute details.
When I was younger, these manifested themselves as strange habits that I’d convince myself were productive. I used to have huge caches of pirated anime and manga on my computer that I’d meticulously spend days naming, sorting and archiving. I could do this for hours and hours at a time.
I now realise I’d wasted so much of my life archiving, documenting and listing things, rather than experiencing them. I’ve learnt to let things go. I can let things be a little bit disorganised and I can be comfortable with just knowing the surface level of particular topics. I know that my time is precious, and I can’t spend my whole life going deep on everything.
That hard drive filled with anime, manga and games recently corrupted and, although my heart lamented all my wasted effort, I know that here and now, in the present moment, none of those hoarded files even mattered.
I say all this, but I recently spent 5 hours reorganising all of the typefaces on my computer, categorising grotesque from geometric, old style from transitional. Time went past rapidly. It was easy for me, again, to think of this as my obsessive impulses getting the best of me and alas, I was wasting my life away on something trivial again.
But I realised, this is one of my superpowers.
Transmuting obsession into flow
“Flow state” gets thrown around a bunch in the productivity space these days. There are countless self-help and business gurus creating videos and articles on how you can trick your brain into this flow state, accessing this special productivity hack to become the best hustler around.
In fact, triggered by my recent experience of the day flying by sorting typefaces, I decided to watch a bunch of these, take what resonated with me and tailor it to my own particular obsessive habits. I realised that whenever I got obsessed about something, or wanted to “go deep” on something, I was accessing my own brand of flow state.
So here’s a couple of tips that I found useful.
1. Obsess over what matters
I realised my key to a fulfilling life is to obsess over things that have a clear outcome and build my skills. It’s easy to get cheap dopamine hits by going deep on tasks that you rationalise as productive, but actually don’t gain you any skill, progress or output.
This varies from person to person, of course, but some examples from my life include:
Writing this article, which I value for consistent practice in articulating my thoughts and sharing my ideas.
Practicing design, as a creative outlet and skill-builder.
Obsessing over music creation and production… And actually releasing it.
Journalling and unlocking insights about how I interact with people and who I am (just… don’t overdo this, or we go into mental spiral territory!).
Researching and consuming media that provides meaning to my life, which I can then internalise and share with the world.
And examples of things that don’t matter:
Sorting and building lists of media I intend to consume but will never get around to.
Going deep on topics that don’t provide me useful knowledge or insights.
Doomscrolling.
Tinkering and playing with technology without a clear outcome (eg. mindlessly creating images with AI — what’s the point?).
Try making your own list about what you’re spending your life on. Is going deep on those tasks worth it, or are you just burning time on tasks that are creating friction with your life goals?
2. Start with the hard thing
I really enjoyed this video from Rian Doris which emphasised breaking down tasks into clear actionable steps to shrink the challenge-skill gap.
He outlines that we procrastinate because we perceive tasks as too difficult for our skill level. To combat this we should boil tasks into simple, basic, actionable steps. Like a recipe. I think we’ve heard this one before.
What I like though, is how you can combine this with the natural state of the brain, in the morning, to be less severe and less self-critical.
As an example, I’ve started to ingrain a morning habit of waking up and then spending 30 minutes on the hardest thing I have to do for the day. This 30 minutes easily transforms into hours because you’ve forced yourself into flow state, especially if you’ve broken down the task into actionable steps beforehand.
And even if it doesn’t extend, you’ve spent 30 minutes chipping away at that tough task, making it easier for you down the line. Which will then help you break the challenge-skill gap once more.
So in short, break down your hardest task into actionable steps and do it in the morning.
3. Start with the easiest thing
Wait, didn’t you just say start with the hardest thing?
Well, sometimes those heavy-handed approaches don’t work. You can’t get past that daunting feeling of the task in front of you, even after you’ve broken it down into manageable steps. You need to build some momentum before you get there.
And that’s where the smaller tasks help — as momentum builders. Giving you short dopamine rushes of encouragement telling you “hey, yes, actually you can do stuff.” Simpler emails, messages and the rest of miscellany fall into this camp.
Just make sure, again, these small tasks are actually driving towards your own goals and outcomes. Otherwise it’s easy to fall into “task faking” where you’re doing tasks that seem on the surface productive but in actuality are anything but.
4. Start by exploring
This is probably my favourite tip, as someone who loves to go deep on things. I love to explore. I love to turn over all the rocks and see all the options. I find this a very easy flow state to jump into, as it can be as simple as passively looking at mood boards and inspiration. And I think anyone can look at pretty things for hours on end.
It’s pivoting this to actual creation and problem solving which can be a challenge, but with an easy solution. I call this “tandem research-solving”. Until someone comes up with a better name.
Basically, you keep open any program you are using to create your output. Be it a word processor, a design program or whatever your speciality may be. And then get to research… But be consciously ready to feel that moment when inspiration strikes. Be ready, at a moment’s notice, once you’ve found your piece of the puzzle, to jump into the program and just get doing. Take that spark of inspiration and start kindling a fire.
Without the program open there is too much friction and it’s very easy to just save things, move on and end up in a spiral of exploration but no output. Then you’re just task-faking.
Research and create, at the same time. Don’t make them distinct stages, bounce between them. And then you’ll be able to access flow.
5. Embrace your inner monologue
This sounds kind of weird, but hear me out. Especially as a writer, I feel like I do a lot of talking to myself. As I write these words, I feel like I’m talking to myself. As I do any task, I’m constantly berating and coaching and championing myself to do better.
I have no idea if other people are like this, or if this is just another symptom of being an only child.
Nonetheless, this internal voice keeps me in flow. This constant dialogue that keeps asking me questions keeps me moving forward through the tasks I need to do. Like a strange internally-spawned fairy godparent. Weird.
It only disappears, in its puff of pixie dust, due to outside distractions, be it from social media, messages or emails.
So moral of the story: when you’re in flow, talk less to the world. Talk more to yourself.
Hopefully, you enjoyed this more productivity-oriented piece. A friend of mine told me if there’s no kaiju in this next article he will riot. So, Stephen, this one’s for you. Here’s a faux kaiju movie poster I made recently. Midjourney’s still got it with those cinematic movie stills
“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
— Stanley Kubrick