“In studies done on soldiers and radar operators and snipers skill acquisition in flow goes up 200-500%… We’ve all heard about Malcolm Gladwell’s fabled 10,000 hours to mastery. This is Anders Ericsson’s research. What the research also shows that flow can cut that time in half.” – STEVEN KOTLER.
I can remember drawing this in 2018. I couldn’t draw it again if I tried. There seems to be many directions this can start from and go in. It’s almost like a loop. Still trying to figure it out.
FEAR CONFORMITY MORE THAN FAILURE
Don’t take a normal boring job. Pack in picking up phones. Any role that demands your attention constantly is a distraction and drain of your precious resources. You will never get the opportunity to learn nor become more than you are capable of being here. Any role that demands your attention to serve others all day puts you into workplace prison. You will never get any chance to be creative, as your boss will do their best to ensure using your mind is extremely limited and solely for the purpose of their goals. They will do their best to try and kill your flow, making the necessary energy to engage with your own important tasks later that day far harder to start, from your attention being sucked dry from the constant distractions that surround environments that demand you to serve other people all day. You must always move and go to where you have many options, to engage your body and mind in more deliberate activities that stretch and strengthen your imagination, and are much better for your physical, and mental health, allowing you to be far more active.
Always go to where you will have more freedom, flexibility and the ability to be able to think and explore your own interests and expand your horizons.
THE DELIBERATE PRACTICE MODAL: HOW TO DO 10,000 HOURS [INSIDE 5,000 HOURS]
This is practicing with the intent of increasing your skill level to expand your knowledge in whichever fields you choose to move in. This timetable works best for those who already know how to get into flow, who have flow triggers, the ability to induce the flow state each time, anytime, you start to do anything. In other words: it works best for those who already know how to achieve flow on command.
The boxes are for mental activity assignments only. Not physical. However, physically demanding activities are prerequisites to achieving the state of mind possible for attaining your mental targets. So as part of the project, and a major part of your process, for the deliberate purpose of improving your mind, and mental health, you must also factor in running several marathons to achieve this.
You must not tick any boxes for reading, as that’s also a prerequisite each day anyway. You only tick these boxes whenever you have finished creating something where nothing was before it. You deliberately went out of your way to produce work on that day. And, you produced it. Now tick a box.
With 500 boxes and you won’t be able to focus on ticking one box per day, as you will have marathon training around these days, both reading and running, it’s probably safe to assume that one page containing 500 boxes should take 2-years to fill. And that will equate to 1,000 hours of deliberate practice, aiming to produce a piece inside each 2-hour timeblock window. The boxes representing a minimum of 2-hours of complete immersion and total focus.
You must read at least 20-pages of a book every day without failure. If you can do more, wonderful. But 20-pages per day is the minimum. Therefore, these boxes can only be ticked after you sit down to write or actually produce something. The goal is to be able to write 45-minute essays. So even several scattered pieces will suffice if they add up to a single 45-minute block later on. Break it into chunks to turn it into a fun game, with the long form essays being the aim.
*It’s worth noting, however, in order to be able to practice at this level, you might need 10-years prior training / experience before knowing how to use it well enough properly. I mean, someone who is uneducated picking this up at 20-something years old and only starting isn’t going to be able to do the same thing as someone who has been engaged and challenged in education for a decade starting. In other words: be prepared to always begin again until you can finally learn to start properly. Time, experience and education will make this difference.
Some people would love for nothing more than to do less, or see to it that you do far less, simply because they can’t, and feel a bit cheated as to how and why you can. And so, if that’s the kind of environment you find yourself in, then you are surrounded by wrong people and you must move to where lets you be challenged to achieve this growth in complexity, by the self.
Don’t stay in a comfort zone or somewhere to comfort or please others. That, is a mission to failure. Instead, you must do a little bit each day, and continue to do a little bit each day, as all that adds up to a lot in the future. The problem is, many people are too lazy to bother with all that.
But not you.
2-hours of heightened focus each day is much better for you than doomscrolling. Yes, it’s okay to use these tools. But make sure they are serving you, making you smarter, making you better. Not pulling you like a puppet. Don’t zap your creative potential by giving your attention away so freely and so cheaply to things that don’t matter. Choose your masters wisely and consume them religiously.
Knowing what you want to know, and only want to know, makes all the noise, everything else, so much easier to ignore.
CREATE A PRODUCTIVITY CALENDAR: THE DELIBERATE PRACTICE FLOW STATE TIMETABLE
Song for the day: