What Is 'The Zone' Anyway? | Hacker News Reader

What Is 'The Zone' Anyway?

martinrue.com

19 pointsmartinrue17 comments

When I came back to college after the war, I resumed my studies as an art major. For those of us involved, the 'zone' was pretty much a natural state. We would drop in and out for conversations and such. But mostly as soon as you pick up a chisel or piece of boxwood to smooth clay or whatever it might be to initiate work, the rest of the world pretty much goes away. To the degree that I remember such things, this has always been the way it works for me. I pretty much see it as intimately tied to any creative task. When after 8 years of enjoying myself I woke up and realized that you really can't make a living as an art major I walked across the campus to what would one day become the computer department (then a branch of the business school) sat down and proceeded to learn how to program. I was very surprised to discover that there was no difference between the 'zone' with painting and the 'zone' with programming. This lead me to the notion that it must be tied to the idea of creativity. I've seen virtually nothing since that would lead me to believe otherwise. Since I started zoning out in grade school, I can't really give advice on how you might arrive there, but if what you are doing is 'creative' then you most likely will find that moment when you lose yourself in the activity---at that point, welcome to the zone! As far as literature goes, most of what I've read that seems to explain or resonate comes from the world of Zen. In particular the idea of 'Mushin'. As starting point down that road, try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin with the usual caveat that 'nothing you read is Zen' :)

A thing I've found about zoning, is that no matter what the magic sauce required to get there, it is impossible if you don't ever start working. He mentions going in needing to know what you are going to do -- I totally agree with this. I don't know if it is a key component of zoning, or just bootstrapping to get there, but it is important. In fact even in complicated bits, I tend to have a list of todos around that are simple or at least straight forward, that can be done any time (e.g. clean up comments or rearrange methods to my preferred ordering style or whatnot). I used to use these tasks for remaining productive during meetings, or in those wierd little 30 minute windows between things that crop up. But I found they are also a great bootstrap for zoning.

A different way I sometimes think of it is "warm-ups", like the little walks,stretches etc before a workout, or the first 10 mins of a run, the minutes that are largely useless from a running point of view, but are needed to get the blood flowing and the joints loose.

Good article, thanks Martin.

Just in case it's not on your radar, there's a very compelling book called Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi that delves deeply into the subject of 'being in the zone.' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29)

I came here just to post this. Quite an incredible book. Highly suggest it to anyone!

I came here to post this as well, so I just upvoted the OP instead. It's the kind of book that's almost impossible to excerpt, but a few of my favorite passages might illuminate a few of the topics it covers:

"Though the evidence suggests that most people are caught up on this frustration treadmill of rising expectations, many individuals have found ways to escape it. These are people who, regardless of their material conditions, have been able to improve the quality of their lives, who are satisfied, and who have a way of making those around them also a bit more happy.

Such individuals lead vigorous lives, are open to a variety of experiences, keep on learning until the day they die, and have strong ties and commitments to other people and to the environment in which they live. They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult; they are hardly ever bored, and they can take in stride anything that comes their way. Perhaps their greatest strength is that they are in control of their lives" {Csikszentmihalyi "Flow"@10}.

This also sounds like descriptions of resilience. Maybe there's a connection between flow and being resilient, like one enables the other. Or do they go together?

"What I 'discovered' [25 years before the writing of this book] was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to happiness" {Csikszentmihalyi "Flow"@2}.

"One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that, while it lasts, one is able to forget all the unpleasant aspects of life. This feature of flow is an important by-product of the fact that enjoyable activities require a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand—thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information.

In normal everyday existence, we are the prey of thoughts and worries intruding unwanted in consciousness. Because most jobs, and home life in general, lack the pressing demands of flow experiences, concentration is rarely so intense that preoccupations and anxieties can be automatically ruled out. Consequently the ordinary state of mind involves unexpected and frequent episodes of entropy interfering with the smooth run of psychic energy. This is one reason why flow improves the quality of experience: the clearly structured demands of the activity impose order, and exclude the interference of disorder in consciousness" {Csikszentmihalyi "Flow"@58}.

This is what I feel when I write.

When I'm reading blogs and stuff at work, I generally like to scroll down enough to hide the headline or site banner so it's not EXTREMELY obvious that I'm perusing HN or Prismatic. No one cares per se, just a thing of mine.

Doing that is impossible when no matter how far I scroll down your profile picture is stuck in the upper left corner of my screen.

"Doing that is impossible when no matter how far I scroll down your profile picture is stuck in the upper left corner of my screen."

An irritating feature displayed on many of the blogs which feature regularly on HN... (I'm looking at you Zach Holman... because your picture floats there) :)

This is OT, but this one hits close to home. My solution: I use "Decreased Productivity" plugin in Chrome. This might be an overkill for this page, but might be handy on others.

It's funny, I wanted to say exactly the same. I would add that this picture staying here while scrolling distracts me from focusing on the text to read which is quiet ironic considering the subject of the post :-)

Readability Redux plugin (chrome) helps with this. Or you can read in a console-based browser (w3m works well, screen or elinks* variants).

But, yeah.

I'm finding increasingly site design for content-based sites gets in the way of content. G+ is among the worse offenders in this regard (particularly as various plug-ins to fix this keep breaking themselves). I tend to browse it with the Developer Tools element inspector open, deleting the stuff that bugs me most.

I've been coding for nearly 30 years and to me "the zone" is most easily described as Meditation.

I meditate often and in my early years I worked hard to master the process as I tend to be a bit hyper active and easy to distract (see I'm reading HN right now lol).

If you add the same sort of discipline to your "the zone" quests as suggested in a number of good teachings on meditation I think you will find that it is actually fairly obtainable.

I do agree with the post that it's not magical and that we can control it. That said a lot can make it hard to enter "the zone" some call it writer's block etc. When I hit those times I usually just give up and find other things to do for a bit to relax and let my mind clear up.

Your environment can only effect it as much as you allow. I've been in the zone many times in an airplane between JFK and LAX and in an airport terminal, in car rides while my wife drives us on a long ride etc. It's really about discipline and training your mind to let go of distractions.

I'm completely incapable of finding 'The Zone' in my office. Every time i've reached it, there are a few things in common. I know exactly what i'm doing. The full solution to the problem is in my head. When i'm "in the zone" i can twist that diagram around, jump to different parts etc, but its all in my head. More importantly its the only thing in my head. That's the most important part. That means I can't have an orange light in the corner of my eye, I can't be wearing shoes that are uncomfortable, I can't be hungry or thirsty. Anything and everything that would cause me to loose my brain state will cause it to break. Music (like the techno that is repetitive) is best for me, as after a while I can zone it out. However it blocks environmental sounds from entering.

I find myself coming out of the zone when someone comes up to me and talks to me. I feel baffled, stupified, and really confused about almost whatever they are asking about.

It's obvious to them, and 60% of the time they find it extremely bothersome because I'm nearly unable to focus on what they are asking after because I'm heavily processing whatever what was flowing around my head.

The result is that I feel irritated and being interrupted, and they feel put off because I'm not paying enough attention to them. Thus my most productive times when really digging into something are something like 6pm - 9pm in the office, alone.

I can't find the article but I remember reading at some point about how difficulty of work relates to one's ability to get in the zone. To achieve some level of flow, the work you are doing must be difficult enough to provide some sort of challenge and mental stimulation, while not being too difficult that you find yourself getting stuck and frustrated. So if you're not constantly trying to push your abilities to their limit, you're not going to find that sweet spot.

For those of us who are easily distracted I would recommend a wonderful tool called Rescue Time (http://rescuetime.com/)

It doesn't solve the problem but helps you analyze it.

The zone for me is that hyper productive place I get to at approximately 5 o clock every day right before my wife asks me "so what do you want for dinner?".

I think the easiest way to get in "the zone" (at least for me), is to have side projects that you can only devote time to in 30-60 minute chunks. You have to get down to business and focus to get anything done in that amount of time. Make sure you get at least one session done a day and over time you get good at jumping in and solving a problem quickly.

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