In the name of work

I have a secret that I want to share with you. However, I’m unsure how this will come over, so I will get to it without further due.

I love to work. However, there is work, and then there is work. The work I’m talking about is where you are “in the zone”. In that state of mind, mundane activities dissolve into the background. Hours pass without notice, and your bodily necessities are secondary.

To get into that state of work meditation, I strive to be in the right mindset. I don’t have set days and times, but I merely take it when I have a good night’s sleep, feel calm, and feel fit to be fasting.

Fasting especially is essential as it helps with focusing. Furthermore, when your body isn’t engaged and using energy for digesting, you have more energy to focus on your work. Moreover, fasting can and will put you in a trance-like state whereby your energy will become laser focused.

There are many more qualified people to talk about the benefit of fasting and the science behind it. For full disclosure, I’ve gone through several fasting sessions of different lengths in the last thirty years. The most prolonged fasting I’ve done was for five days. With fasting, I mean not eating solid food. However, water is a must for me. If you want to practice fasting, start with a short period and see how you feel. You can always extend it from there.

One significant part of my work meditation is music. I’ve played with all music styles and services but always come back to a specific style (more about this later). Recently, I’ve been having a lot of success with brain.fm for the first one to two hours of my session. I like to put my Sony WH-1000XM4 on and do a 90 to 120 minute brain.fm focus session. I select “deep work” of the focus section, select the cinematic and electronic genre, and the high effect within the neural settings. Every time I’ve done this, I found to enter a focused state within 20 to 30 minutes.

My favorite kind of music for work is definitely in the electronic segment. Of that, the non-vocal ones. Usually, I don’t listen to dance tracks, you know, the Armin van Buuren kind of music (that is not to say that I don’t enjoy his tracks, just not for my work sessions). The sound I most enjoy is from Jon Hopkins (Immunity, Singularity), Trentemoller (The last resort), Extrawelt (Schöne neue extrawelt), Tipper (Marble Hunting, Forward Escape, Broken Soul Jamboree), Rone, Dusty Kid, and many single tracks. My Spotify playlist includes over 150 tracks. The point is that any of those tracks quickly get my blood pumping and motivated. Recently, I’ve been listening almost exclusively to Avichrom from Dominik Eulberg. Just about every track of this album is excellent. Dream machine is another of my absolute favorites of his.

Your work environment also impacts how deep and long your work session can be. Your possibilities may vary here, but I argue that screaming kids, loud neighbors, barking dogs, and other distractions won’t positively impact your way to work meditation. Though, I’ve had excellent and concentrated streaks in Starbucks. One of my favorite places to work is airplanes. I’ve done some of my most significant projects on 13 hours flights to Tokyo. Another of my favorites is the 8 hours of flights to Europe and back.

The above-bespoken techniques have allowed me to stay up close to 48 hours and have working streaks of 15 to 19 hours.

I’m not glorifying working for many hours or thinking that the more you work, the better you are. The above is just how I like to work.

I’m keen to learn how you are getting into the zone. Let me know in the comments.