The Psychological State Of Flow, For Agency Owners

This week on Agency Conversation, I catch up with Chris McLean to chat about the physiological state of Flow. This article summarises our brief 30 minute chat into a few key areas: how to tap into the Flow state of mind to improve the quality and quantity of your output, increasing your productivity, working hard with less effort and avoiding burn-out.

First Thing’s First, Let’s Get To Know Chris

Over the course of 20-odd years, Chris McLean founded, ran and successfully exited his own global digital agency, he’s spent time providing coaching and consulting to fellow agency owners and has championed CMO roles across Australia & the Middle East.

In between all this, Chris has dedicated years to studying, practising and advocating the Psychological state of Flow and productive working within the Flow state of mind for almost a decade.

In 2020, Chris made the decision to combine his two areas of expertise and refine his agency coaching service to focus on teaching and practising Flow and developing his client’s state of mind and behaviour in order to develop the individual, before the business.

What Is The Psychological State Of Flow?

Flow is a neurochemical reaction in the brain, which on a chemical level is quite similar to the commonly known ‘Fight or Flight’. It’s where your brain enters a state where there is a conscious sense of action and awareness. Broadly speaking, it’s the art of being aware of your surroundings and deliberately (and effortlessly) taking the right action, at the right time.

When it comes to business, and more specifically, running your agency, Flow is a state of mind in which you are at your peak performance and are delivering your very best work.

Chris describes Flow as a state of ‘effortless effort’ where you are working productively, your output is high in both quality and quantity, but you don’t feel like you’re working hard.

This feeling of easy, effortless working is a product of four typical Flow characteristics, known as STER:

Selflessness — This is where your inner critic shuts down and you’re left with no one to second guess your work, critic your thinking or remind you of any previous mistakes. This leaves space for creativity, innovation and ‘outside the box’ thinking — the kind of stuff we agency owners and our agencies thrive off.

Timelessness — Within the Flow state, the feeling of time almost disappears. Not in a Benjamin Button sort of way, but in the way that you’re so focused and working so productively that time passes quickly.

Effortlessness — By tapping into the Flow state, you can work productively and with great output, but with minimal effort. Chris describes this as the similar feeling of having a great, flowing conversation with someone for hours at a dinner party.

Richness — Lastly, Flow state is about the richness of information. Giving your brain the power to tap into your subconscious and access the wealth of otherwise untapped information. By limiting your distractions and focusing on one topic, your brain will be able to think more creatively and innovatively.

Watch the full episode of Agency Conversation below:

How Flow Can Help Burnt Out, Fatigued & Unmotivated Agency Owners

As an agency owner, you probably started your own business because you were passionate about the service or function you were offering and wanted the freedom to do more of this work, on your own terms. Now, your agency has grown and so have your responsibilities.

This is something we’ve spoken about recently, how as distracted and fatigued agency owners, we’re multi-tasking our way through the day and feeling as though we’re never completely accomplishing anything.

As agency owners, our entire business hinges on the fact that we are utilising and selling our ability to be creative, strategic and analytical thinkers.

When we’re so busy being distracted by all businesses, accounts and operational responsibilities, it’s hard to find the headspace and the time during the day for our task work, be it creative direction, business development or project management.

This super common bi-product of a growing, busy agency is what leads to agency owners having to pull long hours, late nights and weekends of rushed, ‘catch-up’ work just to keep things ticking along. And this, is what leads to burnout — the antithesis of Flow.

An agency owner who utilises their brain’s Flow state by allocating time for deep, uninterrupted, productive work during their working day and is able to complete their tasks within that state of mind, can be anywhere between 500–3000% more productive.

How To Work In A Flow State

So, how can you tap into your Flow state in order to achieve your best work? Chris’ answer was made up of a few points:

1 — Reducing Your Cognitive Load

a) Remove irrelevant information from your (surprisingly limited) conscious and working memory. Practise passing this information over to your subconscious and allowing yourself to focus your conscious mind on the task at hand.

b) In order to successfully reduce your cognitive load, your brain has to be able to uni-task and focus deeply on the job at hand. Close all your unnecessary tabs and windows on your computer, switch off your phone and close your office door and force your brain to dial in on the task at hand with its undivided attention.

2 — Be The Developer

As agency owners, we often nurture this Flow behaviour with our Development Team. We encourage them to put their headphones in and enter a state of deep work in order to focus and create something brilliant. As a founder or CEO, you can do the same thing by limiting your own distractions to focus on your own tasks.

3 — Utilise The 22 Flow Triggers

Flow state of mind has roughly 22 triggers. There are 12 individual triggers, some internal, external and creative triggers and also 10 group triggers to activate Flow within a group environment.

4 — Become More Prone To Flow

Instead of stumbling into Flow as a happy accident, use these tactics and start to consciously place yourself into Flow.

Chris’ Top Tip For Improving Your Performance With Flow

As always, I wrap up this episode by asking Chris for a top tip for burn-out and overworked agency owners who want to practise tapping into their Flow state. Chris offers two:

1 — Eliminate Distraction & Only Untitask

In order to tap into your Flow state, turn your phone and your emails off, close all the unnecessary tabs and windows on your computer and focus on the task at hand only. To quote Chris, “multitasking kills productivity” and forcing your brain to toggle between two or three different tasks will only create a collection of half-cooked, unfinished tasks for you to finish later (probably after hours).

2 — Create 1–2 Hour ‘Flow’ Blocks In Your Calendar

Create 90–120 minute blocks within your calendar where you are strictly uncontactable. Using all of the tactics from the previous point to eliminate your distractions and maximise your focus, use these productivity blocks to do your task work. If possible, try to schedule these blocks earlier in the day to align with the body’s natural productivity pattern. Start by scheduling just one block a day and build up to ear-marking multiple Flow blocks in your day where possible.

To learn more about the Psychology of Flow, check out Chris Mclean’s Podcast where he connects with fellow agency owners & personalities to chat about peak performance working, or Get In Touch with our expert team of coaches at Digital Agency Coach.