The Importance of Strategic Time Management

How You Spend These 15 Mins Everyday Changes Your Entire Year

Estimated read time: 1:20

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    Summary

    Rian Doris, the founder of flowstate.com, explores the hidden challenges that impede our productivity, commonly overlooked by most individuals. He delves deep into the concept of flow states, an optimal state of focus where productivity thrives. Rian discusses the unseen force in our brains that fractures our capacity to achieve flow, predominantly due to "calendar choke points," minor obligations that disrupt our flow potential. He introduces the 'flow no' technique as a method to reclaim focus and stresses the significance of structuring our days to allow for prolonged, uninterrupted periods dedicated to deep work. In doing so, individuals can experience heightened productivity and creativity.

      Highlights

      • Learn to identify the 'hidden force' that may be stealing your productivity: calendar choke points! πŸ•΅οΈβ€β™‚οΈ
      • Discover how a single 30-minute meeting can derail a whole day’s focus and flow πŸ™ˆ
      • Rian introduces the 'flow no', a strategy for maintaining focus by gracefully declining disruptions 🚫
      • Imagine scheduling choke point-free days as clearing cognitive runway for take-off, leading to high-output work! ✈️
      • Booking all meetings back-to-back can help preserve the potential for uninterrupted deep work πŸ“…

      Key Takeaways

      • Understanding calendar choke points and their impact helps in maximizing productivity 🌟
      • Scheduling choke point-free days enhances focus and the ability to enter flow states πŸš€
      • The 'flow no' technique is a strategic method to set boundaries and protect deep work time ⏰
      • Persistent calendar commitments can sabotage high performance and increase frustration πŸ˜…
      • Creating immersion runways can lead to compounding productivity and creativity gains πŸ“ˆ

      Overview

      Rian Doris, CEO of flowstate.com, paints a vivid picture of how our modern calendars might be the true culprits undermining our productivity. He explains the subtle yet powerful influence of 'calendar choke points'β€”those pesky, ever-present meetings and appointments silently eating away at our flow states. By dissecting the flow state process, Doris unveils the importance of uninterrupted time blocks to foster not just productivity, but optimal creativity.

        The idea revolves around restructuring one's schedule to eliminate these choke points through what Doris calls a 'flow no'β€”a polite, strategic refusal that protects one's deep work time. He draws a compelling parallel between sustained focus sessions and literal flow, emphasizing how setting rigid boundaries around time can amplify one's productivity potential and overall creative output.

          Imagine your daily energy as an expansive runway, allowing your mind to soar into deep work zones. Rian Doris's insights offer a toolkit for anyone feeling bogged down by calendar inefficiencies, showing how eliminating unnecessary meetings not only clears mental clutter but also invites more profound and productive work into your day-to-day life.

            Chapters

            • 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Speaker Introduction The introduction presents a provocative question about productivity, listing common issues like distraction and meetings but suggesting something deeper might be at fault. Ri Darus introduces herself as the founder and CEO of flowstate.com, a company using neuroscience to teach people to access flow states. She hints at sharing significant insights and personal experiences in the upcoming discussion, encouraging listeners to stay engaged.
            • 00:30 - 01:30: The Productivity Trap The author reflects on a recurring issue where their productivity is hindered not by a lack of time, but a psychological hurdle. Despite planning for deep, impactful work sessions, they feel trapped by their schedule. This becomes apparent when a simple glance at their 9:30 a.m. meeting instigates a mental shift, causing doubt about the value of beginning meaningful work before that time. Despite attempts to resist this feeling and engage with their projects, there is an underlying mental block that prevents them from fully committing, leading to a sense of being trapped in a cycle of ineffectiveness.
            • 01:30 - 02:30: Understanding Flow State This chapter delves into the concept of 'Flow State,' emphasizing the difficulty of achieving deep work in a schedule filled with continuous obligations. The author describes a personal experience, illustrating how meetings and continuous tasks hinder productivity, not due to the time consumption but due to the mental energy spent calculating the balance between effort and accomplishment. It highlights the subtle and often unnoticed task of 'rationing effort,' showcasing how this process undermines the ability to focus deeply and engage in meaningful work. The narrative suggests the need for understanding and overcoming mental barriers to enter a state of flow, where one's productivity and creativity are maximized.
            • 02:30 - 04:30: Calendar Choke Points The chapter discusses a situation where the author's future commitments and obligations, noted in their calendar, are reducing their ability to focus on meaningful work. Ironically, the team's formation, intended to improve productivity, has inadvertently lowered the author's productivity, making them the primary bottleneck in the workflow. Furthermore, the author struggles with management tasks, such as leading and strategizing, because of constant interruptions. This disruption stems from an inability to reach a flow state, which is crucial for peak focus and execution.
            • 04:30 - 06:00: Neurological Impact of Meetings The chapter discusses the 'flow' state in terms of its neurological impacts, particularly in meetings. Flow is described as part of a four-phase cycle: struggle, release, flow, and recovery. The 'struggle' phase involves the brain wrestling with challenges and experiencing discomfort due to a surge of norepinephrine. The 'release' phase involves letting go of conscious control to transition into the flow state. The flow state itself is characterized by peak performance, immersion, deep focus, and effortless action.
            • 06:00 - 09:00: Strategies to Eliminate Calendar Choke Points The chapter titled 'Strategies to Eliminate Calendar Choke Points' discusses the importance of recovery in the workflow process. After an intense period of work (or 'flow'), the brain requires a phase of active recovery to consolidate learning, replenish neurotransmitters, and prepare for the next cycle of work. The author highlights a personal struggle with interruptions, emphasizing that the real issue was not the interruptions themselves but the hidden cost of having focus constantly disrupted by upcoming calendar events. This constant anticipation of interruptions led to a resistance to engage in deep work, as the anticipation of being interrupted made it difficult to commit fully to challenging tasks. The chapter underscores the necessity of uninterrupted focus for productivity and the mental preparation needed to engage in challenging work without the subconscious resistance caused by anticipated interruptions.
            • 09:00 - 11:30: Step 1: Implementing Policy Bans The chapter discusses the implementation of policy bans with a focus on how interruptions can impede progress. It uses metaphors like building a sandcastle and surfing to illustrate the necessity of uninterrupted flow for productivity. The idea is that without the promise of extended periods of focus, the effort may not be deemed worthwhile.
            • 11:30 - 14:30: Step 2: Schedule Immersion Runway The chapter discusses the importance of uninterrupted focus sessions to achieve a sense of accomplishment and progress, often referred to as the 'struggle payoff'. It highlights how scheduled distractions, such as meetings or persistent interruptions, can sabotage the payoff derived from concentrated work sessions. These constant calendar events are seen as a barrier to catching meaningful 'waves' of productivity.
            • 14:30 - 16:30: Step 3: Addressing Calendar Reality Drift The chapter discusses the concept of 'calendar choke points,' which are minor obligations like meetings or appointments that disrupt your day and prevent you from achieving a state of flow. Using a surfing analogy, it explains how these choke points are like another surfer who interferes with your momentum as you're about to catch the perfect wave, ultimately ruining your productivity and focus.
            • 16:30 - 18:00: Conclusion: Maximizing Flow and Managing Time In this chapter, the focus is on understanding how to maximize flow and manage time effectively. It explores the neurological aspects of flow, particularly involving the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the brain. The chapter explains how 'calendar choke points' can sabotage flow by creating a conflict between present focus and future planning. The DLPFC plays a crucial role in this due to its responsibility for prospective time monitoring, which involves keeping track of future obligations and ensuring they are not forgotten. This chapter delves into how these dynamics affect our ability to maintain deep states of flow and offers insights on managing these challenges.
            • 18:00 - 18:30: Call to Action In this chapter, the focus is on the role of the DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) in managing attention. The DLPFC becomes highly active in response to upcoming events, which can be problematic when trying to achieve flow. Flow is a mental state characterized by complete immersion and lack of self-consciousness, and it occurs when the prefrontal cortex, including the DLPFC, downregulates its activity, entering a state known as transient hypoprontality. This reduction in prefrontal activity is essential for experiencing the profound state of flow.

            How You Spend These 15 Mins Everyday Changes Your Entire Year Transcription

            • 00:00 - 00:30 what if the biggest thing killing your productivity wasn't distraction procrastination or even meetings but something invisible a hidden force inside your brain working against you and when you understand it it'll explain why some days feel effortless and others are a complete loss Now I'm Ri Darus founder and CEO of flowstate.com We've trained everyone from Audi Assenture and the US Air Force to use neuroscience-based principles to access flow states at will And it is good to be back with you We got lots coming so stay tuned And the first time I built a proper team of employees I thought my
            • 00:30 - 01:00 schedule would finally open up giving me the space to focus on the kind of deep high impact work in a flow state that I knew would push the business forward But instead of getting more done I found myself stuck in a trap I couldn't name I'd wake up ready for deep meaningful work and then I'd glance at my calendar 9:30 a.m meet it Suddenly something subtle would shift like a whisper in the back of my mind saying "Is it even worth starting something deep or difficult right now?" I'd try to fight it I'd open up the project anyway ready to dive into the complexity But somewhere under the surface my brain was already pulling
            • 01:00 - 01:30 back Not because I didn't want to work but because I knew I couldn't go as deep as I wanted By the time the meeting ended I tried to reset But the next obligation was already looming Noon I had a team all hands just a few hours later It wasn't the meetings that were killing my productivity It was the mental math my brain was doing in the background quietly recalculating whether the effort required to exert in order to accomplish deep work was worth it I wasn't procrastinating I wasn't distracted I was doing something far more damaging without even realizing it I was rationing effort before I even
            • 01:30 - 02:00 began Every future obligation on my calendar was shrinking my willingness to engage with the work that mattered most And here's the brutal irony I had built this team to increase my productivity Instead I had destroyed it I was now the least productive person on the team and the biggest bottleneck became me Except now I had the overhead of salaries and I couldn't find the uninterrupted space to lead strategize or even properly manage the team so that they were productive It was only later that I realized what exactly was really happening See I was trying to get into flow state That peak state of focus and execution where
            • 02:00 - 02:30 productivity soarses and we're totally immersed in the task at hand But what I didn't understand at the time was that flow isn't just something you fall into It's one stage in a four-phase cycle The first phase it's called struggle This is where your brain wrestles with the challenge at hand And there's a surge of norepinephrine which makes it hugely uncomfortable Then there's release where you transition into flow You need a moment where the brain lets go of conscious control The next part of the flow cycle is the flow state itself So flow the peak performance state where everything clicks immersion deep focus and effortless action pop online And
            • 02:30 - 03:00 then finally the fourth stage is recovery Once flow is over your brain needs active recovery to consolidate learning replenish neurotransmitters and prepare for the next cycle The problem wasn't that I was being interrupted It was about the hidden cost of having my focus constantly held hostage by whatever was coming next on my calendar I was losing the willingness to struggle in the first place And that's the problem If you know in advance that your work will be interrupted you subconsciously resist the struggle phase bracing at it rather than tackling it full-on which is what's required to pop
            • 03:00 - 03:30 through release and into flow because your brain calculates that the effort won't be worth the reward Building a sand castle on the beach feels pointless if the tide can just wipe it away at any moment Same with work If you know you'll be interrupted struggle becomes harder to endure So to justify it a little bit of progress on the task isn't enough alone You need the promise of prolonged uninterrupted immersion in flow state Think of surfing Would you wake at dawn wax your board and battle cold waves if the ocean went flat after one or two rides i know I wouldn't There just
            • 03:30 - 04:00 wouldn't be enough of a struggle payoff It's the same of persisting through struggle in work You rally your focus block distractions push through discomfort only to have a meeting or something on your calendar after 90 minutes Without an uninterrupted flow session struggle feels pointless There's no real meaningful waves to catch This sabotaging of the struggle payoff is often attributed to the usual culprits distractions and interruptions and even procrastination But there's something else working against you Something even simpler than that These things that you see on your calendar all the damn time
            • 04:00 - 04:30 that ruin your day in the way I've just described These are called calendar choke points A calendar choke point is a seemingly minor obligation a meeting an appointment something on your calendar that fragments your day and leaves you with insufficient time to get into flow Building on the surfing analogy imagine this You're paddling out into the ocean ready to catch some waves Just as you're about to catch the perfect wave someone else drops in killing your momentum A calendar choke point is that other surfer It's that single unwelcome but planned disruption in your day that kills your momentum and ruins your
            • 04:30 - 05:00 ability to access deep states of flow Now what's happening in the brain that causes calendar choke points to be so effective at sabotaging flow well we hypothesize based on the research that it's due to the dorsalateral prefrontal cortex The flow state happens when all of your attention is fully locked into the present But a calendar choke point creates a neurological tugof-war between now and next Among other things your DLPFC is responsible for prospective time monitoring tracking future obligations ensuring you don't forget what's coming up next The moment a meeting appears on your calendar your
            • 05:00 - 05:30 DLPFC locks onto it and starts to run background processes subtly anchoring and manipulating your attention against the upcoming event This creates sustained activation in the DLPFC And that's the problem because flow requires the opposite Flow happens when the prefrontal cortex downregulates a state that arid research names transient hypoprontality This prefrontal quieting is what allows for some of the key characteristics that make flow such a profound state that we seek so much The loss of self-consciousness You stop
            • 05:30 - 06:00 thinking about yourself and just act uninhibited instead The merging of action awareness where you get effortless fluid attention and execution Time dilation where you lose track of time with minutes turning into hours Another way you can think of what's happening in flow is that you're surrendering The you the inner critic the you you feel behind your eyes that grips holds on steers and tries to control every aspect of your life begins to dissipate and fade into non-existence You are temporarily surrendering your sense of self suspending conscious control over your own existence And the
            • 06:00 - 06:30 paradox is by relinquishing that control you access a deeper freedom Your brain shifts from effortful top-down control to more efficient bottom-up processing which ironically results in more control regions like the basil ganglia and cerebellum take over allowing practice skills and intuition to flow without interference from self-doubt But again it's extremely hard to let go and surrender into flow when the brain has to have high prefrontal activity which it does have to have if you've got a damn thing on your schedule a few hours
            • 06:30 - 07:00 ahead There's a simple inherent contradiction You're trying to quiet the DLPFC and yet you've given it something to chew on and stay activated around Your brain struggles with doing both at the same time Neurologically it's kind of like trying to flex and relax a muscle at the same time Your DLPFC can't power down while it's counting down And because the DLPFC stays engaged tracking the time gap constantly recalibrating your effort in accordance with it you never fully let go Remember the struggle is effortful It requires a surge of
            • 07:00 - 07:30 norepinephrine pushing through discomfort blocking out distractions sustaining focus long enough for flow to emerge But when your DLPFC is already monitoring a future event your brain instinctively resists the struggle It knows at some level the tide is coming in before you can even build a sand castle So you hesitate you hold back you ration energy calibrate effort shift toward low impact tasks because struggle only makes sense when there's enough time to reach the payoff This is why even a single calendar commitment fundamentally alters your ability to access flow state a single meeting even
            • 07:30 - 08:00 one 30-minute call at 2 p.m bang in the middle of an otherwise empty day derails the day Not because of the time or prep that the meeting requires but because that one meeting on our calendar fundamentally alters the nature of your consciousness and decreases your susceptibility to flow and peak performance It's a 30-inute meeting but it's a dayong alteration of your consciousness See calendar choke points don't just fragment your schedule they fragment you They fragment your mind This is why high flow individuals are hyper sensitive to calendar choke points They felt what it's like to have a fully
            • 08:00 - 08:30 open cognitive runway No effort calibration no clockwatching just pure uninterrupted flow And once you've experienced that even a single meeting in the middle of the day feels like a landmine because you know at a deep neurological level that it's not just a time slot It's chronic DLPFC activation And once that switch is flipped the cognitive doors to flow start to shut On the other hand the more choke pointfree time you have the more expansive fluid and immersive your experience of work and life becomes So let's clear these calendar choke points so we can maximize
            • 08:30 - 09:00 the struggle payoff But first start with the basics To avoid calendar choke points collapse meetings where possible from inerson to Zoom Zoom to phone phone to email email to text text to no meeting a cancelled meeting because research has found that up to 70% of meetings are unnecessary Any meetings that you still have to have shrink them at least 25% in terms of length at least the ones you control And when that's not possible batch your communication outside of your peak productive hours and bookend your meetings Either knock them all out at the beginning of the day or right up against your hard stop for
            • 09:00 - 09:30 the day after you've done a deep long flow block And here's a bonus tip Rather than trying to end your meetings 5 minutes early so you can get a recovery burst in start them 5 minutes after the hour or the half hour By doing this your likelihood of being able to take a break increases For example a meeting that runs from 2 to 2:25 will run over to 2:30 since that's the natural time people expect But if you end it at 2:30 which is when other people have calls but the next one doesn't start till 2:35 your likelihood of having a 5minute break is much higher Now take a hard look at your calendar We're going to hunt down those pesky choke points the
            • 09:30 - 10:00 events that are keeping your DLPFC activated and strangling your potential for flow Maybe it's that weekly status meeting that's always running over or that coffee date with an acquaintance that you feel obligated to keep Whatever they are circle the top three types of activities that are creating the most calendar choke points for you Now it's time to clear them out and set boundaries Here's the exact protocol to run Step one implement policy bands For each identified chokeoint source create a policy ban This is where the flow no comes into play The flow no is a tactic for setting boundaries without guilt or
            • 10:00 - 10:30 awkwardness Instead of saying no to individuals you say no to categories of activities that don't align with your goals By framing your refusal as a clear preset policy you protect your priorities while maintaining relationships For example I don't do social meetups during the work week or I'm off booze entirely for November or I'm on a no coffee and meetups diet for the rest of the year or I'm not doing podcasts until after my book comes out Whatever it is you'll notice that the no has nothing to do with the person asking Rather it's an external rule that they are just obliged to abide by that you
            • 10:30 - 11:00 set independently from them I'll give you an example of a flow no in action So let's say my friend Scott who lives nearby me in LA invites me to a party in the Hollywood Hills on Friday night but I'm not available because I'm writing a book So how do I say no to a good friend with an appealing invitation scott I'd love to but I'm writing a book Have a tight deadline and I've banned myself from partying until it's complete or whatever the case may be Now you see the flown no here has four key parts Firstly politeness and personal acknowledgement You want to acknowledge and compliment them on the value of whatever they're asking for Second admitting your
            • 11:00 - 11:30 shortcomings Demonstrate humility by showing them what you can't handle about their request because of your own deficits And third state your priorities with specificity State your priorities and be detailed so they can empathize with your situation If you don't give enough information they will fill in the gaps with less favorable assumptions For example you just don't care And then fourth never backtrack This makes your no seem disingenuous and can cause anger or irritation The no must be a legitimate immovable decision Now you can download a fill-in-theblank template for crafting your flow no responses below this video So that's the flow no
            • 11:30 - 12:00 to help you prevent and clear calendar choke points Next up is step two schedule an immersion runway The same way a single meeting could fragment your focus within a day a scattered week does the same thing except at scale Each time you allow a meeting to slice up your workday you not only lose flow today you make it harder to access flow tomorrow Why well because your brain treats flow as an investment If your DLPFC predicts that tomorrow will be another fragmented day it subconsciously resists entering struggle today This is why high flow individuals don't just protect
            • 12:00 - 12:30 individual days They aim to protect entire weeks Back-to-back chokepoint free days create what we call immersion runway A sequence of uninterrupted high output work days where deep immersion compounds on itself Just like with single day flow the more runway you have the easier it is to persist through struggle Let go and enter flow faster each time It's like the runway of a plane For the plane to take off you need a long runway The longer the runway is the deeper the flow states and their immersive quality can go With Immersion Runway you don't even have to think about setting priorities or what you'll
            • 12:30 - 13:00 do the next day There's just the thing the singular focus the big meaty creative project that you're working on and it just runs day over day A lot of the thinking and strategizing required for peak performance becomes unnecessary when all you're doing is a multi-day immersion runway working on one critical project or task You don't have to priority manage You just do that one thing all day and flow with all else removed And a solid way to measure one's life's creative output is to add up your total immersion runway How many consecutive days with no calendar choke
            • 13:00 - 13:30 points singularly focused on whatever your highest priority thing is To create immersion runway maximize the total amount of choke point free days in your week Be ruthless Reduce all the meeting lengths cut all the meetings you don't need and batch everything back to back Aim to create at least three to four choke point free days within the next 10 days One way to do this is with a oneweek meeting day One client I was working with had enough space roughly to do all of his calls on a Monday but he had them peppered throughout the week So I had him institute a one-week meeting
            • 13:30 - 14:00 day This creates maximum flow potential and a longer immersion runaway through the rest of the week allowing for deep sustained work Remain incredibly vigilant about incoming call requests that will choke point any of the free days you have after this And become comfortable with not doing a call until the following Monday Even if they ask for a call on Tuesday or Wednesday say "Hey I've got a spot on Monday." and allow yourself to wait the days required for that call to occur which takes discipline If you have some calls spill it over into the next day Tuesday not into another day like Wednesday You want
            • 14:00 - 14:30 consecutive choke point free days and as many as possible in a row And remember meetings aren't inherently anti-flow But switching the category of activity that you're engaging in is a benefit of a one month meeting day is you'll build up social flow which is a subtype of flow state that can only happen when interacting with others And the social flow can carry across meeting over meeting specializing in that mode of cognition for that day and bifurcating from that mode of cognition for the other days Now step three is to address calendar reality drift Identify any
            • 14:30 - 15:00 unccalindered flow blockers actions or commitments that aren't on your calendar but could interrupt your flow state Examples might include school pickup times household chores anticipated client calls that aren't pinned on the calendar upcoming deadlines not yet scheduled For each uncalled action do this Decide if it needs to be on your calendar If yes schedule it If no create a reminder or system to manage it without interrupting your flow blocks Now by following these steps you'll clear your calendar choke points You'll maximize your struggle payoff and you'll create a more accurate representation of your time commitments This will allow
            • 15:00 - 15:30 you to enter the struggle phase of the flow cycle with confidence knowing that the payoff of flow is there waiting for you in all its depth and glory on the other side of that initial grind Now by the way over time you want as many choke point free days in your calendar as possible where your day doesn't have a single calendar choke point That is the mark and one of the key characteristics of a true high flow lifestyle You want days where there's nothing or only one thing the absolute most important thing to do for hours on end And that most important thing could be recovery which
            • 15:30 - 16:00 is the fourth phase of the flow cycle When you clear calendar choke points from work days you get more flow But when you clear calendar choke points from leisure days you end up getting deeper more immersive recovery which then aids in giving you more and deeper flow So aim for chokepoint free days at least a couple of times a week Obviously a lot of days you'll have to have things scheduled So try and batch schedule as many spacious choke point free days in your calendar as you can One open day is powerful but three four five days in a row that's where the real magic happens because you can follow flow freely You
            • 16:00 - 16:30 can surrender let go and find the deepest form of immersion You can just sit down jamming enjoying work and roll all the way through into the night and follow flow wherever it takes you There's a different level of inside creativity productivity ideas and output when you follow flow rather than try to box it in It is if you loosen the reducing valve of consciousness and access what Aldous Huxley author of Brave New World called Mind at Large the place where ideas come from or where the muse lives When you protect empty space and follow flow you can drop down to the
            • 16:30 - 17:00 depths where insight occurs and the things that you produce during this choke point free space end up paying off and compounding for decades So remember because every yes to a calendar choke point is a no to your goals Every scattered meeting every thoughtless yes to a calendar request depletes your brain's capacity for flow But now you understand the true cost and more importantly how to stop paying it By clearing calendar choke points and protecting large blocks of uninterrupted time you create the conditions your brain needs to persist through struggle and drop into flow state day after day
            • 17:00 - 17:30 Now that you've cleared space for deep flow here's what's next What you do between those focus blocks matters just as much So click the video on screen to learn the sciencebacked way to take breaks that boost your dopamine drive motivation and keep you in flow longer