Writing
A Writing Trick for Finding Flow
Get your words to pour onto the page
This past week I’ve been assessing my productivity. Specifically, I’ve been experiementing with task batching, to find my sweet spot for efficiency.
For those not familiar with task batching, it comes from the idea that there’s an opportunity cost each time we switch focus from one task to the other. Lump similar tasks together and you’ll get them done faster than if switching back and forth from unrelated work.
At first I thought this would be an exercise in process. I love process — follow the checklist and there’s always a clear outcome. But I soon discovered that what I really needed to inspect was my focus.
What I found was a trick I use in my writing, but never thought to translate into my other work.
Flow is focus
For authors, the ultimate goal is to achieve flow state as we write. Being in the flow means our fingers fly across the keyboard and we are so intensely focused on the story that we seem to stop thinking — the story just happens.
Notice that word: focused.
The reason flow is so hard to acheive is because it requires a certain amount of focus.
We don’t sit down and enter a flow state. We sit, we pound out a few words, search for some new ones, and then, if we are lucky, the words seem to come on their own.
And the opportunity cost associated with leaving the flow state is tangible. Physically painful, at times.
If we are in a scene, and get an email notification, it rips our attention away. Even if only for a second, we can feel our brains struggle get back into that groove. Sometimes we lose that state altogether.
Multiply that distraction by social media notifications, special offers, and all sorts of other pings, beeps and buzzes catching our attention, and it’s impossible to ever get back into the flow state. Our writing suffers.
Indestractible
I read Nir Eyal’s incredible book Indestractible when it came out, but the points come back again and again as I work toward improving my efficiency.
Nir recommends turning off all notifications to focus on one type of work for a set amount of time.
I’ve never been a big fan of my phone buzzing with constant updates, so this was easy for me. Plus, it’s possible to turn on a Do-Not-Disturb feature on most devices now.
But in taking a look at this trick, I recognized a similarity to my writing habits.
I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.
How many times have the words been flowing and you stopped to look something up? What were coffee machines like in the 1890’s? Time to open a new browser, search, find what you looking for, then close the browser, only to need to look up something else, opening a browser…
Writing like that is horribly inefficent.
Specifically for authors, using “TK” can eliminate distractions as much as turning off notifications.
What is “TK”? Two little letters you drop in the text as a placeholder.
Anytime you encounter a fact you need to check, or you have a question that only the internet can answer, drop a TK into your work and move on. Don’t give it a second thought and keep your forward momentum.
Before I discovered the industry TK, I created a keyboard shortcut that drops in a “[XX]” any time I reach something I need to go back and check, look up, or rewrite.
Then, once I’m done writing for my session, then I set aside time to search for all those reminders and complete them. Inherently I knew I couldn’t risk stopping to fact check while I’m still trying to capture an idea. Like most things, I thought I was a bit of a genius until I realized this was a well-known industry concept and I’d reinvented the wheel, so to speak.
Still, the trick stands.
By delaying those fact checks, I stay in the flow state longer, and I reach it much more frequently.
Which brings me back to my experiment.
Deliberate focus, in batches
That neat little trick of delaying fact checking is actually a form of task batching: intense focus on a certain type of work until finished, then moving to a different type of work to focus on that.
When I’m at the desk to write, I write. When I’m there to polish and revise, that’s all I do.
So why did it take me so long to apply in my other work?
As writers, we tend to pay a lot of attention to process. We try new ways of writing, talk to other writers about how they write, and devour anecdotes about how other authors get it done. (Or is that just me?)
I was used to analyzing my writing habits.
Many authors may not be. Or maybe you’re newer to writing and haven’t quite found what works for you. Give the “TK” trick a try, and see if it helps you stay in that beautiful flow state for longer.
As for my pursuit of work efficiency, I’ve discovered my sweet spot is about 45 minutes of work before I take a break and switch to a new task. Any longer and I slow down, any shorter and I’m switching too often and wasting time.
But I always make exception when I enter a true flow state. I ride that until I come out blinking and disoriented on the other side.
Have you found a productivity trick that’s deceptively simple? I’m all ears!
