Early every morning, I go for a long walk in silence. I don’t listen to podcasts, audiobooks, or music, or talk on the phone. My soundtrack for 30–45 minutes is the birds chirping, the wind in the trees, and maybe some traffic noise. Because my workdays are filled with activities that divide my attention and involve a lot of talking and listening, I need this quiet time to let my mind wander with no particular mental destination.

On my walks, I’m often stopped dead in my tracks by a “lightbulb moment.” Out of nowhere, an idea or a solution to a problem that’s been nagging me will pop into my head. I’ll grab my phone and take a voice memo to record the thought. After more than three years of going on morning walks, I have a collection of hundreds of voice memos narrating these spontaneous thoughts. 

Until recently, I didn’t have a name for this experience—I was just glad it happened because these lightning-bolt ideas greatly help me professionally and personally. Intrigued by my experience, I did some research and found my walks helped me achieve a “flow state”—a state of total immersion and focus in which all distractions fall away. Flow is different than focus, although focus is an important element. When in flow, focus, creativity, and productivity merge, so our minds can bring new ideas and solutions to light with very little effort.

Researchers at Drexel University found that to achieve flow, you have to “do the work and then let it go.” They gave highly practiced jazz guitarists an improvisation task and found that the subjects achieved flow through “optimized domain-specific processing enabled by extensive practice paired with reduced cognitive control.” In lay terms, the musicians had set the stage for flow through years of training and practice, but when given the improvisation task, they didn’t overthink it and just let their creativity take over.

The concept of flow was popularized by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who started studying flow in the 1960s and wrote the best-selling book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life in 1998. According to Csikszentmihalyi, some of the keys to finding flow include: 

• Setting clear goals every step of the way. People who experience flow set ambitious yet concrete goals and break down larger tasks into smaller, manageable steps. 
• Finding a balance between challenges and skills. Tasks should be a “reasonable reach”—neither too easy nor too difficult; challenging yet achievable. 
• Removing distractions to enhance focus—including visual, auditory, and mental clutter.
• Enjoying the activity for the sake of doing it. To achieve flow, you focus on the process rather than the outcome and enjoy the activity without being concerned about failure or results. 
• Losing yourself. People who achieve flow don’t worry about how they look or if others are judging them; they let go of self-consciousness. 

So what are some ways you can achieve flow? In addition to Csikszentmihalyi’s guidelines, here are a few tips based on my own experience of being in flow: 

• Get physical. When I exercise, I’m fully in the moment, focusing on the activity and not all the other things on my mind. Activities like walking, running, paddle boarding, and riding my horse, Libby, allow me to be fully present.
• Change the scenery. As a kid, my mom’s answer to every problem was, “Go outside and get some fresh air.” I find this is still true. Being in nature helps clear my head. 
• Tidy up. Removing clutter, clearing off my desk, and cleaning my office create a “clean slate” for my brain to work from. 
• Listen to music. I put on noise-canceling headphones and listen to a classical music channel on Apple Music or Spotify to completely immerse myself in a task. 
• Walk away. When I’m stressed or feeling stuck, the right answer is usually not to keep hammering away at the problem. Going for a walk or doing some mundane task—like emptying the dishwasher or sorting laundry—encourages my brain to change gears. 
• Set a timer. I’m a big fan of the Pomodoro method—a time management technique where you work in intervals (or “pomodoros”) using a timer, and then take a timed break. I set a timer for 25 minutes to work on a project, and am amazed at how quickly the 25 minutes fly by. (I’m using pomodoros to write this blog, as a matter of fact.) 
• Create a ritual. Rituals can signal the brain that it’s time to relax and focus. In the morning, before my walk, I drink coffee while writing in my journal at my dining room table. This ritual creates the right conditions for achieving flow.

These methods may be less conventional, but I encourage you to experiment with them to discover new and effective ways to find flow and enhance both your productivity and enjoyment of your daily tasks.