In other words, anyone who’s a knowledge worker spends their working moments somewhere between two states: choke and flow.

Flow is a state of mind that gives you complete, energized focus on the task at hand. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this state as being completely involved in a task, feeling a sense of ecstasy and clarity, and losing your awareness of time (a summary from Lateral Action can be found here). There are many alternative words used to describe flow. Programmers may call this “deep hack mode,” while athletes refer to it as being “in the zone.”

The other end of the scale is the “choke”, also known as a creative block. When you choke, your performance becomes poor or your work process is halted because of anxiety — even if you’re normally skilled and have performed exceptionally well in the past. Choking is a state full of worry, self-handicapping and pressure. Author Steven Pressfield calls this state “Resistance”, but other words used to describe this feeling include “mental block”, “writer’s block”,  and “performance anxiety”. When choking takes over your workday and accomplishing anything seems impossible, it may feel like an uphill battle.

So how does one encourage flow and break down blocks?

To avoid being crushed into inaction by our creative blocks, we need to understand how to break them. In a radio interview, psychologist Andy Evans of Arts Psychology Consultants discussed a two-pronged approach to breaking creative blocks: eliminate or lessen the elements that are causing the block, and to build up one’s self-esteem and confidence. How this is accomplished varies individually, but here are a few areas to start with:

Removing the Block

Some creative blocks are caused or triggered by complex issues such as depression or personal tragedies. But for the simpler, more mundane blocks we encounter regularly, they are mostly caused by distractions: thoughts and objects that take away our attention from our work. You may be worrying about what to cook for lunch, the laundry you have to do, or a client’s late payment. Instead of using your brain’s energy and resources on your work, they are spent on these. Fortunately, you can deal with these distractions accordingly:

• To avoid being bothered by miscellaneous tasks and errands, give them their own place and time. Schedule them for later so that even if you can’t do them now, you know that you’ve allotted time for them.
• Establishing routines also helps clear your mental clutter. If you find that you worry too much about food preparation, then prepare your ingredients and meals in batches. Or have a list of two or three “default” meals to buy if you don’t want to spend time thinking about what to eat.
• But if you find yourself interrupted by unforeseen, multiple worries such as a late paycheck, an argument with your boss, or other personal concerns, taking a break to mediate or do a mind sweep may help.

Once you feel like all the blocks you can control have been removed, it’s time to build your confidence to start working without choking.

Building Confidence

To gain confidence, we must take the pressure off. During creative work, we may have the tendency to control even the smallest details to ensure that the final output will be great. This may come in the form of editing, rewriting, and re-editing the first sentence of an article before finishing the first draft, or by erasing and redrawing imperfect lines in a pencil sketch. This is especially true if we are working in front of an audience (PDF) — whether they are supportive or not. As some studies (PDF) show, this extreme self-consciousness during a task we’re competent at, especially one we’ve heavily practiced, can lead to a decline in performance.

A simple way to put it is that if we waste our brain’s resources over-thinking how we’re going to do something we normally do well, we don’t leave enough brain power for the creative act itself. So instead of dwelling on unnecessary details, maybe it’s better to remind yourself that you’ve done this work before and trust the instincts that you’ve honed over the years.

Getting to “Flow”

But getting to the flow state requires more than alleviating pressure. It means we should sit down and work long enough to get to the point where our vision of the work is clear and we’re not distracted by anything else. But working on the web gives us easy access to hundreds of distractions. How do we avoid giving in, especially when being distracted has become a habit?

Positive self-talk (PDF) can be a simple way to start. When we encourage ourselves too keep working and not check Facebook or Twitter for the umpteenth time, it may help us curb our impulses and resist temptation.

And if that doesn’t seem to work, previous posts from Amber, Darrell, and Georgina contain other suggestions on how to focus and get back to the task at hand.

Going from choke to flow may seem easy on paper but, in reality, it’s different for everyone. It may even be different for you every time you encounter it. Ultimately, the best way to break down creative blocks and get to the flow state is to be aware enough when it happens so that you can test and apply what works for you.

How often do you experience creative blocks and how long do they usually last? What do you do to break them?

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But what do we really know about how music affects our work? Probably not much beyond our personal perceptions and experiences. The good news is that there are some studies out there that can help to give us a better understanding of what’s happening when we listen to music while working.

Research from University of Windsor in Canada showed the effect of music on the work performance of software developers. According to the study, without background music the designers’ quality of work was lowest and it took them more time to complete tasks. With background music, participants reported positive mood change and enhanced perception while working. Plus, the researchers noted that this positive change in mood correlated with increased curiosity — an excellent thing to have when doing creative work.

However, the same research showed that listening to music at work doesn’t provide automatic benefits. For those people who don’t usually listen to music while working, it takes a bit of time for them to get used to it and reap the rewards. At the same time, once you’re used to having “work music,” your productivity and work quality are slightly diminished when the music is taken away.

The paper also cites a study on air traffic controllers where their personality may have a role in determining how music affects work. Extroverts felt reduced anxiety whenever music was playing, while there was no measurable effect for introverts. In a previous article, Anne Zelenka discussed personalizing your work music. She was right — the effect of work music depends on several factors, among them your personality.

The type of music you listen to also matters. In a study published in the Journal of Music Therapy, excitative music tends to increase feelings of vigor and tension, while sedative music eased tension. That may be stating the obvious, but here’s the interesting part: Listening to your favorite type of music, whatever it is, lowers your perception of tension. This means you don’t feel as stressed or tense. But your heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure is higher when listening to excitative music — even if you like it.

Given these facts, I guess the question of what kind of music you should play depends on whether you work better tense or relaxed. In his book “On Writing,” Stephen King wrote that he preferred to work while listening to hard rock music. Personally, I seem to work better and faster when I’m a bit tense, so my work playlist includes the soundtracks of heist films, Rhapsody in Blue, and The Toreador Song. If you’re unsure how to come up with tracks for your work music playlist, you can use tools like Pandora and Last.fm to get automatic recommendations.

So should you listen to music while working? Going back to the paper from University of Windsor,  the researchers state that “…over time music listening based on workers’ choice to listen ‘when they want, as they want’, is beneficial for state positive affect, quality-of-work, and time spent on a task.” In other words, go ahead. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little to see what works for you.

How does music affect your work performance? Do you have a work playlist you can share with us?

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Does the above paragraph sound familiar? If it does, then we have something in common:  self-handicapping. It’s finding excuses and obstacles that explain why we’re not responsible for our mistakes, failures, or poor performance. Most of us start experiencing it as students during our first few years at school, but the habit also tends to stay with us even when we turn into capable professionals. An article from The New York Times cites a study where, in workplace scenarios, people’s “…impressions of a character began to sour after the second time the person cited a handicap.”

To avoid self-handicapping at work, we need to recognize it when it occurs. Here are some behaviors associated with self-handicapping:

• Decreased effort. Sometimes, this comes in the form of procrastination, especially when you expect to be evaluated. Self-handicapping also shows when you spend less time preparing or practicing. Research shows that giving in to self-handicapping in one task may lead to having less motivation to complete a succeeding task, too.
• Setting unrealistic goals. Aiming high or having ambitions is a good thing, but it helps to be aware of your true motivations. Sometimes setting unattainable goals is a form of self-handicapping.
• Creating or emphasizing physical or psychological handicaps. We sometimes tell ourselves that we don’t have the right training, state of mind, experiences, and other traits that would make us perform well for a certain task. We make excuses — even flimsy ones — just so our mistakes will be the fault of some external force instead of our own.

The bad news is that like most qualities deeply ingrained in us, there’s no magic pill, no one-size-fits-all cure for self-handicapping. But there are a couple of new mindsets that I’m trying out:

• Praise our own effort rather than talent. While it’s OK to recognize innate skills, acknowledging effort, practice and hard work as the source of your success has greater benefits. This kind of attitude leaves us less afraid of failure, more inclined to try again, and even to have better performance.
• Accepting pain as part of the job. Not physical pain, but the painful idea that you won’t always be as good as you want to be, that sometimes you’ll fail. Self-handicapping is all about protecting your self-image, so one way to “hack” it is to come to terms with the fact that failing is normal. It comes with being human. A few mistakes won’t make you less of a good worker or even a good person. It’s rare that you’ll fail hard enough that it’s irreparable or unforgivable.

Do you experience self-handicapping or self-sabotage? How does it affect your work and how do you deal with it?

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While it’s easy to say “get enough sleep,” it’s not always easy to achieve. Here are some ideas:

• Listen to your body. Though I was raised to believe that we should get around eight hours’ of sleep each night, the National Sleep Foundation claims that there is no “magic number.” Apparently, sleep needs vary depending on your age, gender and other factors. Though seven to nine hours is a good guideline, you need to find out what works for you.
• Sleep debt can be repaid. No matter how diligent you are, it’s possible that some days you might not get as much sleep as you need. The good news is that this “sleep debt” can be repaid. This doesn’t mean that you can sleep for  three hours during the weekdays then spend your entire Sunday sleeping as a way to make up for it. According to the this article from Scientific American, you can add an hour or two of sleep each day until your body catches up.
• Nap during the day. There might be very busy days when you’ll tire easily or need an extra jolt to get you through the rest of the day. But before you reach for that cup of coffee, know that the best way to combat tiredness is through  napping. Taking 20-minute power naps during the day is known to improve productivity and can recharge you better than caffeine. It’s also much easier for teleworking professionals to pull this off compared to their cubicle-dwelling peers.
• Sleep after learning something new. “Sleep may allow the brain to reprocess newly learned information so that memories of it stick. Research that uses technology to peer inside the brain supports this idea,” according to this article from the Society for Neuroscience. This means that the best way to commit new skills to your long-term memory is to sleep after learning new skills.
• Finally, don’t worry about it. It turns out that not everyone who feels sleep deprived is actually sleep deprived. This article suggests that our worries about sleep are affecting the quality of sleep we get. According to the author, “one of the surprising disadvantages of trying to get enough sleep is that you can be hypersensitive to those times you don’t get enough — and that the hypersensitivity alone can depress and distract you.”

What’s your sleep schedule like and how does it affect your workday?

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As we change over time, our work strategies have to be flexible enough to accommodate these changes. Your work strategy is your plan of attack, the arsenal that helps you get through each workday with as much efficiency and motivation as possible. Your work strategy may include tools, productivity techniques, work processes and other important elements that are vital to your job.

But how do you know when things need to change? Here are some symptoms you might want to check for:

• A change in your job description, regular tasks, or responsibilities. Were you promoted? Did you suddenly realize the importance of social media, leading you to spend more time on it? If you track your time once in a while it might be easier to spot these changes.
• Lowered productivity. What is your output like compared to last year’s? Don’t worry if your output has lessened (you spend more time on tasks than usual) if it’s been offset by an improvement in quality. However, be concerned if there’s no change in quality or if you find your overall performance declining.
• Your good ol’ motivators have a lesser effect. Whatever you use as motivation, whether it’s a snack after a difficult task or the thought of a job well done, gauge if it’s still as effective now as it was last year.
  
• New concerns. Long before you establish long term goals, they are born at the back of your mind as “concerns” — little things that you ponder often but haven’t recognized as something that requires more action. This could be a new niche you want to get into, or a new skill you want to learn. Or you could be thinking about family and friends more often, not yet recognizing the need to socialize more with them. If you find a recurring thought at the back of your mind, it’s time to pay attention.
• Thirst for experimentation. From trying out a standing work station to hiring a virtual assistant, it doesn’t hurt to explore and experiment with new ways of working — even if you think you’re already doing well. As long as it’s not too disruptive to your current routine, of course.

Unsurprisingly, I find that I’m experiencing many of these things as I evaluate my performance from the first half of the year. This means it’s probably time for me to go back to the drawing board, experiment — as well as carry over the things from my routine that are still working for me today. It may take effort, but we all have to change and adapt.

How often do you evaluate your performance during the year? Do you find yourself changing your work strategy regularly?

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As someone who spends a considerable amount of time thinking about productivity, I realized that over years of testing and experience, the blockers don’t really work in the long run.

Don’t get me wrong — there are instances where a blocker might work. If an app, tool or hack can shut out things that you can’t control — such as noisy neighbors or needy pets — then they’re a must-have. Things that fall under this category include sound-proofing your office, or creating a separate room for your work. Blockers can also be useful if you need an urgent fix, but as a long-term strategy they tend to fall short.

Here’s why: if a blocker is removing a distraction or obstacle that’s within your power to control like, say, checking your email or looking at Facebook updates for the umpteenth time, then the fix is no more than cosmetic. It’s like sticking a Band-Aid on your problem and telling yourself that it’s cured.

Apps can be disabled and uninstalled. The same goes with the manual tweaks you do to “block” distractions, such as tinkering with your hosts file and whatnot. Some developers of blocking tools know this, so they add certain features that make it difficult for you to disable the app. But there’s always a way to disable a block if you try hard enough. If you’ve muted your ringer, you end up looking at your phone to check for messages. You reconnect to the Internet and uninstall your site blockers to see if someone’s emailed you or commented on your latest Facebook or Twitter update. We easily give in to disable a block “just this once” and, in doing so, give in to distractions which may eat up the rest of your day.

The funny thing about this is that your “productivity tool” is actually making you more unproductive at being unproductive. You need to jump through all these hoops just to give in to procrastination, which you need or want to do for one reason or another. And the reason I know this phenomenon so well? Because it happens to me, too.

So what really helps? Using aids rather than blockers. Finding our own internal ways to block out distractions. At the same time, we really need to be easier on ourselves and allow for slips in our productivity. This is especially true for knowledge work, where the difference between procrastination and healthy play may be blurry.

If we’re to become truly productive people rather than just “productivity people,” we need to develop our own distraction blockers that can’t be turned off by a “Disable” button. They have to come from our own efforts to change our habits and behavior. Not enough is said about this, probably because it’s a difficult, lifelong, and highly individual process. Maybe that’s why it works.

Have you tried using distraction blocking tools? How did they work for you?

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The good news is that with a simple strategy in place, it won’t take much effort to return to your normal productivity level. Here are a few tips:

Pre-plan your schedule. Plan your post-holiday work schedule even before the holiday reunions, celebrations and other activities take over. This is the primary reason why I easily got back to my regular workload. As soon as Jan. 3 hit, all I had to do was look at the schedule I prepared two weeks earlier to see what I needed to do. Without it, I would’ve probably spent a day or two regrouping.

Work a little during your downtime. In a previous post, Darrell talked about how he uses the holidays to work. I have to admit that I agree with him. In fact, I found myself working harder than usual for a few days. If you feel that’s being too much of a killjoy, choose to work on light tasks — perhaps checking your mail or brainstorming. The point is to avoid work being overwhelming after the holidays.

Now, this doesn’t mean you’ll get up in the middle of a family gathering and start typing away in your laptop.  I waited for my family to be asleep or for the activity to die down before I started working. This allowed me to be part of the festivities, while getting some work done during times when less was happening.

Stick with your normal body clock. I know that this is easier said than done, but one of the reasons that many people feel sluggish post-holidays is that their body clocks have adjusted to a later waking-up time. If this has happened to you, make sure to try and reset your body clock back to suit your ideal sleeping hours before the regular workweek starts.

Don’t forget to relax. As Dawn recommended before, it’s important to relax. I know some people who actually spend the holidays being completely stressed out preparing gifts and celebrations. The irony is, they don’t end up enjoying their supposed “vacation time” from work. Avoid falling into that trap and catch up on your sleep.

How easy is it for you to work after a long holiday? What techniques do you use to get your productivity back to normal?

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I’d read my post through three times before hitting that button, but somehow missed adding a crucial word — the word “don’t”. Inadvertently, I had told my readers that they “have to sacrifice too much to lessen their cost of living,” . Furthermore, two of the hyperlinks I had added were broken.

I am a sloppy self‑editor, mostly because I am forgetful. I realized it was time to create a standard checklist to remind myself of all the steps I have to take before clicking “Publish”.

Since creating this checklist, I’ve made fewer mistakes and I haven’t had another “oops” moment. I created a similar list for my fiction, too. Anyone who does creative work should have a similar checklist to ensure that their projects are polished before submitting them.

Why Have a Standard Checklist?

Apart from remembering the small yet essential steps to finishing one’s work, there are other reasons why a standard checklist can be useful:

• Smoother workflow. Since all the steps to a polished project can be seen in a single page, you spend less time asking yourself “Is there anything I’m forgetting?” Once you’ve checked each item on the list, you can look at your project one more time and feel confident enough to send it.
• Objectivity. Ideal list items should be objective enough for you to check off each one without much thought; it’s hard to measure items like “Make the design pop” or “Write compelling copy”. Opt for quantifiable points, such as “Test design/copy with 10 different users and make sure that at least 8 take the preferred action”.
• Consistency. A standard checklist for major projects allows you to deliver a consistent output. Plus, it becomes a handy reference when you’re subcontracting work.

It helps to look at the project checklists of other knowledge workers for inspiration, so you might want to look at the following examples:

• A web site accessibility checklist by Aaron Cannon.
• A comprehensive content quality checklist by Colleen Jones from UXMatters.
• A list of essential checks before launching your web site by Lee Munroe from Smashing Magazine.

Making My Own List

For my blogging projects, I spent half an hour listing the important things I had to do before publishing a post. Some of the items I included were as follows:

• Print the article and read it. Spot all spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes.
• Make the necessary corrections on the soft-copy.
• Read the revision backwards, sentence by sentence to check for overlooked mistakes.
• Add post tags.
• Use correct HTML for punctuation.
• Preview the post, click each hyperlink and make sure they work correctly.

To make the list reflect how I work, I also noted the gaps and weaknesses in my process for the last three posts I wrote. While I added an odd item from time to time, I had to remind myself that the goal was not to create a longer list. The goal is to make sure that each article I deliver is as clear, concise and as polished as it can be.

Which brings me to my final point: Know the reason why your checklist exists. By having a clear objective, you’ll know whether your list works or not. It’s supposed to streamline your process, rather than adding another step to an already saturated workflow.

Do you have a project checklist that you use before handing finished work to clients?

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Not often, but it happens. Sometimes I get so intimidated by work that I end up procrastinating online. I started my workday at 6 a.m. last Monday hoping to get the week off to a good start, but I found myself reading a Wikipedia entry on the many versions of “Blade Runner” three hours later.

While these incidents are few and far between, I’d rather avoid them altogether. Every time I catch myself returning to bad habits, I take the following steps to get right back on the wagon:

Step One: Identify where your attention goes. The best way to identify time sucks is to track what you do with your time. For many people, there’s a gap between what they think are their time wasters and what their actual time wasters are. Having accurate data on your hands bridges this gap and gives you the facts.

We’ve covered several applications that do this, but there’s nothing wrong with auditing your time using pen and paper. The disadvantage to this analog approach, though, is that you might not remember to do it the entire day. It might be helpful to keep the pen and writing pad always in plain sight.

Step Two: Block them. While there are paid apps you can download to make site-blocking easier, I prefer free methods because you spend less time worrying about the pros and cons of each app. It’s better to just install the first free option you can find and see if it works for you. After all, you just need something that blocks URLs. It doesn’t have to be feature-rich.

If you’re often using Firefox, you can automatically block certain domains using add-ons such as Leechblock and Invisibility Cloak. For advanced users, there’s also a manual way to do this.

But what if your time suck isn’t a web site? It could be a game or an instant-messaging app. If it’s something you can live without, take the plunge and uninstall it. Alternatively, you can remove easily accessible shortcuts to the program, blocking impulsive access.

Step Three: Know why you’re doing this. For any of this to work, you need to know why you’re taking such drastic measures to eliminate time sucks. This will be your primary motivation. Are you trimming your schedule so you can spend more time with your family? Or do you want to use it to work on personal projects?

Also, apart from simply knowing the reason, you need to have a visible reminder. I like to keep a sticky note near my monitor. On the note is an arrow pointing to the screen, with the words “Is this really what you want to be doing right now?”, which is based on an undistraction created by Merlin Mann.

Step Four: Set goals. It’s hard to quit aimless Internet surfing all at once, so start with modest goals to avoid feeling frustrated. I started with a goal of spending one work hour each day avoiding Internet fiddling. After I found this acceptable and easy, I raised the bar a bit and went on two hours. Whatever your goals are, write them down to get your commitment on paper.

It also helps to schedule these blocks during times when you’re performing high-attention tasks such as writing, rather than low-attention tasks like checking email or scheduling your week. This gives you a better chance of focusing on the task at hand rather than letting your attention drift.

Step Five: Reward yourself. You should have something to look forward to after you’ve reached a milestone or goal. This can be a special home cooked meal, an extra hour of sleep, or going out with friends. As for me, I prefer to keep things simple. Spending more time working on my fiction and comics is enough.

Once you’ve taken control of your compulsive web fiddling, it doesn’t mean that the process is over and you’re completely cured. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to fall back on bad habits, particularly if you’re scared or if you lack the motivation to do the things you have to do.

Do you find yourself compulsively surfing the web no matter how productive you usually are? What do you do to avoid it?

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However, after the initial adjustment, I found that I was actually more productive when I wasn’t connected to the Internet. This happens every time my connection goes out, which is more often than I’d like. If this is the case, maybe I should consciously disconnect myself from time to time? Especially since many other bloggers have recommended it.

Why Disconnect?

One observable benefit of disconnecting from the Internet for a time is that it allows you to better rank tasks according to importance, and even drop tasks that aren’t necessary after all. Many online workers might be able to work like this all the time, but I’m not one of them. Luckily, one hour without Internet access seems to help.

Limiting my time on the web also seems to help prevent me from taking too much time with random surfing. Additionally, if I complement Internet-free time with computer-free time and use pen and paper instead, it’s much easier on the eyes.

Time-based Zones

One way to do routine disconnection is by specifying a block of time without Internet access. I’ve decided to disconnect from the Internet for one hour each workday. I’ve set this hour at 1:00 pm, after I’ve eaten my lunch. This allows me to take a nap for half an hour and then use the remaining time to brainstorm using a paper and a pen, so that I’ll be ready when I get back to writing.

You could also schedule an no-Internet day each week. For me, this is harder to implement simply because I always need to look up something, whether it’s a recipe for chicken enchiladas or a map to a place with which I’m not familiar. Still, I prefer to use the Internet less during weekends, unless I’m scheduled to work on a project.

Here are some alternative ways to schedule Internet-free time:

• 10-15 minutes in between timeboxing tasks (usually in 15-30 minute blocks of non-stop work);
• An hour or more before going to bed, which you can spend on relaxing tasks such as reading a book, talking to your family, or writing letters; or
• A half-day in the middle of the week to check how far along you are with your weekly goals or to take a break from hectic projects.

Location-based Zones

It’s also useful to have physical zones where you shouldn’t be online. For me, this includes the dining table and the bedroom. When I’m sitting in front of the dining table, the only thing I should be doing is eating and talking to my partner. In my house, meals are meant to be quality time spent with the family. Doing work tasks during meals — no matter how urgent they may seem — tends to get in the way of that. As for the bedroom, I find that I sleep much better if I don’t access my email or do random browsing directly before I go to bed.

If you’re going to implement these Internet-free zones in your work, remember that you should always do what works for you. While some readers out there are probably less prone to impulsive web surfing, those who find the need for more drastic measures should consider disconnecting. Disconnecting from the Internet from time to time could allow you to connect with new processes and ideas that you wouldn’t have come across online.

Do you decrease or restrict your Internet access to improve productivity? Does it work for you?

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