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If you have any questions about productivity and getting into a creative mindset I’ve got some suggestions for you.

As a High-Performance Coach — I love The One Thing. Yes, you use it in a task-based way. But it doesn’t mean you have to finish your task before you can start another one.

You take your 4 goals, break them down into doable chunks and get into a flow state for each one thing (each chunk) along the way.

You pick a designated UNDISTRACTABLE time frame. And hyperfocus on the one thing you’ve decided to do like create the outline for your novel. Finish a chapter, learn a skill in game dev.

Here are 3 high performance/creativity workflow rhythms:

1. Sprints—rivet your focus and flow on one task/goal for short time frames like 30 mins to a couple hours with breaks in between. Use it when you know what you are going to accomplish in a designated time frame. This is also known as the Pomodoro Technique–but it only works for some tasks. Using reps of 25 minute Pomodoros can actually reduce creativity and decrease productivity.

2. Deep-Dives— rivet your focus and flow on one task/goal for a longer timeframe or unspecified time frame. When you don’t have a predefined outcome. Like when you get downloads of inspiration and you have to document it all somehow. Or like when you put an idea into your creative thinking map and allow it to formulate over a couple of days or trigger an AHA.

• when you become like a writer or composer who keeps going to get in all down

• when you don’t know exactly what you’re creating will turn out to be yet. Because the process is open-ended—creative exploration, designing, creative inquiry, creative problem-solving.

• become like a detective putting together the pieces of a case to determine what happened. You don’t know the final picture or result until you get enough pieces together.

3. Mixers— gamify the doing of a selection of mundane or non-creative tasks by moving from one thing to another completing bits of each task until they’re all done. THIS IS NOT MULTI-TASKING.

Mixers rivet your focus and flow on one part of a task for a short time frame (like 15 mins). And repeat with each of the tasks to be done.

These workflow rhythms provide necessary structures to focus your mental, emotional, physical, spiritual energy– for accelerated learning and performance. You’ll get to know which rhythm works best for what tasks — and having the variety increases your overall flow and productivity.