First: My thoughts on what it takes people (overall) to get into flow are not wholly from my own experience. I have regular conversations with other writers (of all genres) on what helps them focus. Not all of the answers are the same... but I've never heard someone say that a ticking clock was helpful.

(Other than, "I need a deadline, because I start writing the night before it's due," which is different.)

There are books about the topic, including <a href="http://amzn.to/1T4Nf4H">Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life</a>. It's years since I read it, but the overall discovery is that for _most_ creative people, the way to get into flow is to do something active that you can do on automatic, which somehow gets the hindbrain in motion. That's why so many people "get their best ideas" while they are taking a walk or in the shower. You can let your mind drift... effectively.

What I've learned from conversations with everyone from Hugo award-winners to household-name tech journalists to famous software developers is not that everyone has the same way of getting into flow. It's that every one has noticed what it takes for _him_ to get into flow. To look back at the commonalities of, "When did you figure that out?" and to recognize that process for oneself.

For instance, 30 years ago (when I was still programming professionally) I was listening to a public radio station interview in which the interviewee explained how she worked with people to "reach their inner child." (That meme dates it, doesn't it?) I snorted in derision, but it was a long car drive so I listened to the interview anyway. During which the psychologist explained that she got adults to lie down on the floor, on their tummies, with a pad of paper and crayons... and discovered that _their handwriting changed_ when they did that. And they came up with more creative ideas.

--Whereupon I practically dragged the car over to the side of the road, because I realized that whenever I was stumped, I'd lie down on the living room floor with a pad of paper, and I'd write in just the same way as a 3-year-old with a coloring book.

So next time I was frustrated with what I was working on, I _deliberately_ lay down in that way... and 20 minutes later I had a solution. Eventually I just started an important project by going into that coloring-book mode, and I found that by the time I was physically uncomfortable I had the entire thing scoped out in my head.

It DOES change, however. Originally I found that I wrote best when my first draft was longhand; then I found I could kind of put myself into the same head space. I used to write in silence; then I discovered that (for reasons I cannot fathom) I can get into flow by playing old Cat Stevens albums. But for me... the key is paying attention to what works, and repeating that. I also recognize that I write best at some times of day; please don't ever ask me to get fired-up before 10am, though I'm happy to write email or other general conversation at 7a.

Obviously, "your mileage may vary," and this does not necessarily match the other writers I know. A few (particularly fiction authors) need to completely turn off all distractions. One award-winner has a PC that has NO Internet access on it at all, in a separate room, which is where she does her writing.