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Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

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Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

#1

Post by impendia »

I have heard HN'ers describe being in the "zone", a mental state where you block out the entire rest of the world and are extremely productive.

I used to be able to get there regularly, but I went through a stage in my life where I had an enormous amount on my mind, and hence a lot of serious distractions. Life has since calmed down, but non-serious distractions have taken the place of the serious distractions.

I am fortunate to have blocks of hours at a time where I have nothing to attend to but my own work. What are your mental strategies for making the most use of them?

Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

#2

Post by eitland »

A few ideas:

- starting a block with something you will be happy for doing later.

- but also building momentum by starting on smaller tasks

- sometimes and for some people and some tasks hacks like pomodoro (basically: the next 25 minutes I will not do anything but this particular thing I have decided. Then and only then I will stop and decide what to do next.)

-"auto focus" is also a winner sometimes

Re: Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

#4

Post by marc0 »

When I was still working in science I got into this state regularly (I called it "the Flow" since I felt like surfing on some kind of mental wave). When I joined a company I lost that experience at first, until I got to work on some sophsticated problems, and until I learned to decouple me from the environment. At university that was no problem, but at a company there are more restrictions in place (more or less fixed working hours, working environment, telephone, internal chat, meetings etc).

My strategy is to create a temporary environment which isolates you -- not necessarily in a physical way. No emails, no meetings, no talking (earphones and loud music help me much, maybe also a sign like "genius at work" -- it's funny but makes people understand you need to concentrate). And then there is only you and the code, and that's your portal into the "zone" or "flow" or whatever you want to call this meditative state.

Re: Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

#7

Post by edw519 »

This is so important and comes up so often that I now have a boilerplate answer from:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191275

and also #49 here:

http://v25media.s3.amazonaws.com/edw519_mod.pdf

*

The single most important thing I do to "achieve laser focus and concentration" is to work in such a way that I don't need "laser focus and concentration" to get my work done.

This has to be done the night before.

I always quit all online work at least 2 hours before bedtime and print whatever I'm working on.

Then I go into any other room with program listings, blank paper, and pens (especially red!) and plan out all of tomorrow's work.

All analysis, design, and refactoring must be done at this time. I do not allow myself to sleep until the next day's work is laid out. I also do not allow myself to get back onto the computer. The idea is to have a clear "vision" of what I am going to accomplish the next day. The clearer the better.

This does 2 things. First, I think about it all night (maybe even dream about it). Second, I can't wait to get started the next day.

I always wake up and start programming immediately. Once I get going, it's easy to keep going. Any difficulties are probably because I didn't plan well enough the night before.

Re: Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

#10

Post by niuzeta »

When I was in university I had a serious problem with concentration and being "in-and-out" of the zone. So for two years I made an effort to have something chewing in my mouth(started with candies, then pen, and after a couple of unfortunate blasting incidents-coffee stirring rods) whenever I was 'in the zone' or about to be.

After a while, I've been conditioned to be "in the zone" on cue by chewing on a coffee stirring rod. it works about 50~70% of the time, and I have to be not tired at all. It's good to have it invoked on cue, though. I find drinking coffee in general not helping; caffeine is great in getting hufed up for a short duration, but I try not to consume more than two cups a week.

Addendum: A sad side-effect was that now I cannot seem to have meals without being mentally engaged - be it reading or conversing.

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