Rule 4: Warm Up To Get Into Flow State Sooner
Tags: productivity, career
Published: 2021-02-25 17:21:09

---
title: "Rule 4: Warm Up To Get Into Flow State Sooner"
published: true
description: How do I get into flow state sooner so that I can make meaningful progress more quickly? By warming up.
tags: productivity, career
series: Maximizing Productivity During Small Blocks Of Time
canonical_url: https://www.stevenhicks.me/blog/2021/02/warm-up-for-deep-work/
//cover_image: https://direct_url_to_image.jpg
---

Deep coding work is like building a LEGO spaceship in my head. It takes a while to construct the model, and it takes focus to keep the model from collapsing. Once it collapses I have to rebuild the model from scratch. I've explained to my lovely interrupting children that this is why I get mad when I'm interrupted — what seems like a 30 second request to them is a much longer distraction for me. 

I've estimated in my head that I need about 20-30 minutes to get into a state where I'm in the flow, the spaceship is fully constructed, and I can manipulate it like a master builder. I call this my "ease-in time." I think of it like [critical mass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass_(sociodynamics)), or a moat that I have to cross to get to an adventure.

I find writing to be similar — I need that ease-in time to get into a writing mindset before I feel effective. When I've got 45 minutes until bedtime, which is frequently when I write, it's easy to convince myself that it's not even worth starting. I'm only going to get 15 minutes of quality writing time after I ease in. **Why bother?**

During my ease-in time, I have very little self-control or direction. I'm mostly doing my best to keep myself from all the distractions I want to chase. It's sloppy. Sometimes I end up on Twitter. Sometimes I don't. The sessions when I end up on Twitter take longer to feel productive than the sessions when I don't. 

Until recently I treated this as something I couldn't influence. I thought I just had to ride out my ease-in time, it takes what it takes, and I'd get to deep flow eventually. 

But then I thought about athletes. 

## Athletes don't warm up on Twitter

Athletes don't just do whatever they want before a game — they _warm up_. Giannis Antetokounmpo doesn't go into a game cold — he warms up by dribbling and shooting jump shots. When I get on a bike, I'm not ready to crush my ride right away — it takes ten minutes of gradually increasing my cadence and power before my body feels ready. I don't just put on my shoes and run five miles — I do stretches and strengthening exercises. (Maybe _you_ just put your shoes on and run but I am old and I want to avoid injury.)

Athletes don't warm up by scrolling through Twitter or watching [incredible marble machine videos on Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1BYAfrUwLk). They do drills that warm their body up for the specific movements they'll be making. 

With easing-in I've been allowing myself the _time_ to warm up, but I wasn't guiding my time properly. I was taking jump shots to warm up for a bike ride. My warm-up time wasn't effective. It didn't actually warm me up for deep coding or writing. 

## What makes a good warm-up activity?

1. It's easy to start the activity. You're using it to warm up for the deep work — it shouldn't itself require a warm-up.
2. It's easy to stop the activity. It's important to set it aside when it's time to focus on your intention. You don't want to get sucked into your warm-up.
3. Specificity. This is the piece I was missing. Warm-ups should exercise the muscles you're going to use during your time block. 

## Writing warm-ups

Intentional writing warm-ups have reframed the amount of time I need to work on my writing practice. Whereas I used to see that 45 minutes before bed as not worth starting, I now see it as an opportunity to make at least a _little_ bit of meaningful progress. I'm more likely to start a short writing session instead of conceding to Twitter or [GCN](https://www.youtube.com/user/globalcyclingnetwork) for the night, because I can usually get myself into the writing mindset in ten minutes or less. 

Some things I've done for writing warm-ups: 

* Time-boxed free-writing
* Re-reading/editing an in-progress article
* Picked a page out of the book ["642 Things To Write About: Young Writers Edition"](https://www.amazon.com/642-Things-Write-About-Writers/dp/1452127840/). ("Young Writers Edition" because my partner teaches middle-school English online, and that's the book that's on our shelf 😅)

I'm sure this is probably a technique that real writers talk about, and there are probably lots of other good resources for this. 

## Coding warm-ups

Warming up to write code feels more natural to me because I've done this unintentionally for years. It feels different now that I'm applying intention, though. It feels like I have self-awareness and I've got agency in how long my warm-up will take.

Things I've tried for coding warm-ups: 

* Time-boxed work on a personal project. Emphasis on time-boxed, because I *don't* want to get sucked in. If you try this option, make sure this work doesn't require its own warm-up: right now I have a personal project that's always kind of floating around in my brain when I'm not working, so I can usually jump right into it.
* Time-boxed PR Review. Yeah, I know I told you in [the previous article](../categorize-by-depth) that you should defer that to your smallest time slots, but I have found it a good way to ease into deep coding too. 
* Small learning challenges. My friend [Barry](https://twitter.com/bhoggard) recently shared [an interactive TypeScript course with very small exercises](https://www.executeprogram.com/courses/typescript). The exercises are _tiny_, so I can get a taste of coding without getting sucked in. 

Things I want to try:

* Writing a couple unit tests. They wouldn't even have to be tests for my focus project — the important thing is that I'd be warming up the "muscles" I'll be using. I haven't done this yet only because I keep forgetting to try it.
* A code kata. The challenge here is to find a kata that's short enough to qualify as a warm-up instead of a full-fledged problem. It'd be easy to get sucked into this. I haven't put the effort into finding a short enough kata yet. 

## I'm not a robot

I know it seems like it but I'm not always on. Sometimes I self-indulge. Sometimes I still let my hair down and "warm up" by scrolling through Twitter. 

I have more awareness of when I'm doing it though. And intention — I'm _allowing_ myself to warm up in a way that I know is less effective as a treat. Like allowing myself to drink a Coke twice a week even though it's bad for me. (This is what I tell myself...and you...to convince us that I have agency and self-control. Is it working? 😬)

I also don't always _need_ a warm-up. Sometimes my mind is in the right space from the start, and I'm able to jump right into my deep work. I try to do a check within the first few minutes of my time-block to see if I need an intentional warm-up. I think I need it about 50% of the time for writing, and maybe a little less for coding. 

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Warming up for deep work in small blocks of time is pretty new to me but so far it's been really effective. I spend a lot less time getting into the mindset I need to be effective. If you've got suggestions on how to warm up for deep work, I'd love to hear about them!