an invisible unnamed enemy is sabotaging your performance you encounter it dozens if not hundreds of times every day it makes all your work harder and by the way this enemy is not your phone or social media or dopamine distractions or anything that the productivity gurus tell you it is it's something different now I'm r r CEO and co-founder of the flow research Collective and alongside my partner three-time poiter prise nominees Steven Cutler we've taught thousands of professionals how to access flow States on command now imagine this you sit down to work right as you start
getting into the task this notification pops up before your laptop battery dies you search for the power cable but you've got to untangle it then you've got to find an outlet to plug it into then you open your email to find an important document but Google prompts you to enter a two-factor authentication code finally you get the document but then you have to call your bank they put you on hold for 45 minutes and as you wait you realize you left your lunch at home and now you have to walk back to grab it and
on the way you're ping emails back and forth trying to schedule a call with two different people in different time zones you're momentarily thrown off your groove again and again and again and this is just a tiny snapshot of your day you might intuitively consider these experiences distractions or interruptions but what you might see as a mere annoyance or slight deviation from your task science reveals as a more pervasive and Insidious problem a problem called friction each of these moments of friction is like being pinched their tiny zaps of irritation that Spike cortisol the body
stress response to friction is nearly identical to your arm actually getting pinched it wastes your time and it saps your attention every little bit of friction is siphoning off a small amount of your energy like a slow leak in a car tire and over time it can leave you irritated and flat it makes your thinking Jagged constantly having to converge on something trivial suppressing creativity constricting your Consciousness it's like trying to run in KNE deep water you see your destination clear as day and you're Keen to get there but every stride you take the water
pushes back it doesn't stop you from getting there but it does slow you down each step requires more effort than it should making the journey exhausting now Mii chmi High The Godfather of all the science on Flow State referred to friction as activation energy an analogy from physics referring to the amount of energy it takes to catalyze a reaction or response so friction is that resistance that sits between you and the action that you're wanting to take now contrary to what one might believe friction isn't inherently negative it's a neutral force it can be used
both to inhibit our goals but also to propel us forward and there are three different ways to harness friction friction as a deterrent friction as a catalyst and then systemic friction when you master these three uses of friction you attain what we like to call Super fluidity when your life is super fluid you don't exert effort no matter how small on anything that's off task or off purpose to attain superfluidity it requires mastering friction in three ways the first is to use friction as a deterrent to deter you and block you from negative behaviors so
I've got this savings account that's linked to Investments and if I want to pull money out I have to go through a bit of a process I've got to find a specific customer service number dial in hit a few buttons on the keypad and then chat with someone on the other end for a little bit it's not exactly climbing man Everest but it's not as simple as clicking a button either and this bit of friction or activation energy is enough to make me think twice before dipping into my savings for no good reason so the
key is a little bit of friction can make a massive difference it's a bit like placing a small speed bump on a road it's not going to stop you but it will make you slow down and think consider this common gold attracting Behavior frequently checking social media when working if the apps aren't at your fingertips and you need to log in through a browser it adds a step and this extra step creates a pause between the urge to check social media and the satisfaction from doing it this aligns with the strength's model of self-control which
says a longer gap between the urge wanting to check social media and the action getting the satisfaction can make a habit less likely to stick so we can see how adding friction can be helpful but what about removing it removing friction to catalyze is step two now back when I was beginning my first business I had to work a ton and the hardest part of working was getting started I used to work in coffee shops but the friction of getting set up in a coffee shop was was tremendous I had to find the right coffee
shop Googling around on Yelp I had to go into the coffee shop I had to make sure there was a spare seat and I had to connect to the Wi-Fi had to open my laptop hope it was charged plug it into an outlet if it wasn't clear enough space on the table probably get a coffee get my headphones working make sure the noise cancelling was on to block out all the noise in the surrounding area and then finally I could hit the keys and start the damn work but after learning about friction I prioritized getting
a full office desk setup at home with a computer that's always on so it's got that screen saver on all the time such that to start work all I had to do was tap one key and boom it's on locked and loaded with minimal friction and way more time spent working so here's the key we can use this lack of friction to promote behaviors that we want to encourage let's say you want to have a more productive workday if your desk is tidy your computer is on and you've got a task list ready from the
night before you've created a frictionless environment that lets you get started smoothly without a hitch I'll give you another example from my own life I'm constantly wanting to read more and reduce friction to make it easier to read and I love reading physical books I love the smile of the book The Look of the book but reading a physical book had a surprising amount of friction with it I'd have to find the book which I would always leave in different places all over the house then I'd have to make sure that I had a pen
then I'd have to hold it and sit in a certain position with the book to be able to read it and take notes and instead I transition to a Kindle and I have multiple of them so I can pick the Kindle up at any time the books always going to be on the Kindle and no pen is required and no sitting position is required and if you're reading at night no light stand is required because the thing lights itself so a perfect example of reducing friction and then upping the behavior that you want to up
which in this case is reading the principle of least effort says that when given several ways to reach a goal we are always going to default down to the one that requires the least work the path of least resistance we're wired for it so by thoughtfully controlling friction in our environment we can nudge our brains into encouraging behaviors that are conducive to our goals and discouraging behaviors that aren't but there's a final form of friction that we need to address to master friction and attain the state of superf fluidity and this is the invisible enemy
most people Overlook which is systemic friction and our goal our third step is to smooth out systemic friction systemic friction is the I have to deal with this moment that interrupts the smooth linear application of effort directed towards its intended target systemic friction momentarily hijacks that effort applying it towards something utterly meaningless cumulatively systemic friction makes effort more effortful a characteristic of flow is the opposite it's effortless exertion High exertion low perceived effort is the magic of flow High exertion High perceived effort is the terrible thing about systemic friction which inhibits flow so to give
you some examples finding things untangling things the maintenance tasks that don't progress you in a real way whether it's doing dishes cleaning shoing waiting on hold or digging your phone charger out of your backpack untangling it and then having to hunch over to plug it into a different spot that's that perfectly awkward distance from your desk all of these random low values and slightly suboptimal clusters of actions show up everywhere and resolving systemic friction involves two key steps first recognizing its impact and committing to its eradication even though it seems miniature and trivial and kind
of like a bunch of first world problems the reality is these seemingly minor inconveniences or micro irritants can chip away at our cognitive resources causing stress and disrupting our flow not only that but they can compound over time leading to significant decreases in productivity so the key here is to never underestimate the power of systemic friction and be willing to fix all things even those you assumed were too insignificant to matter so here are a few specific strategies and examples number one consider a setup that's always prepared and optimized for your workflow have a dedicated
workspace with a desktop that's ready to go number two organize your essential accessories imagine having your airpods attached to your car keys so they're always Within Reach when you need them this strategy can apply to other accessories you frequently use number three is to streamline password management or to handle two Factor authentication and password changes this way you eliminate the friction of having to remember and frequently change passwords meal prep is another example pre-plan your meals for the week this eliminates the decision fatigue associated with figuring out where and what to eat every day automate
software update set your devices to update during your off hours so you don't experience downtime in the middle of a work session these are just a few tiny little examples but think about your daily routine identify all of the systems and processes rituals and routines that you run in a given day and then where the systemic friction lies within these and then develop specific strategies to eradicate taking out systemic friction from even the tiniest little things and again these things seem tiny they seem trivial but there's hundreds of these little things a day and they
add up to either make your overall sense of life and productivity and performance high in friction and resistance or super fluid if three times or 10 times a week or whatever it is you have to look for your airpods and your car key for 2 minutes before you leave the house it's small but over time as you aggregate those things it's not small the principle here is to engineer your environment to remove these small points of friction that collectively have a huge impact even though they're almost in visible alone so consider this what would your
day week or year look like if you could significantly reduce systemic friction imagine spending the vast majority of your time on tasks that Advance your professional goals and contribute to the impact you want to have in the world remember super fluidity is what we're aiming for here this state where we transition seamlessly from one high value activity to another without the resistance by reducing systemic friction we take a significant step towards achieving this state now if you'd like to start your day in a super fluid state where you can slide into the Zone within seconds
after waking up watch this video and doing this you'll avoid all the friction that typically blocks the average knowledge worker from experiencing flow and instead harness the power of being an executive athlete and get your most important work done while in the most productive state known to humankind all before noon so watch this video if you want to figure that out [Music]
