A simple trick to get back in “Flow” by leveraging the success from today, to carry you into tomorrow.
It turns out, you do not have to wait for these magical moments, they can be engineered. This is the concept of “flow”, also referred to being “in the zone”. That state of total absorption in an activity, where you are totally in sync with what you're doing. Even better is the idea of carrying over that momentum of flow into the next day.
The idea originated from Hemingway (Nobel & Pulitzer Prize winner) and is called “The Hemingway Bridge”, you can read more about it in a great book called “Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte.
Hemingway’s idea was to build himself a bridge from yesterday to today which helped him to immediately get back into flow. Knowing exactly what to write next, he would leave one or two sentences unwritten before finishing the day. This process would allow him to jump right into writing the next day, and get back into his writing flow, instead of staring at a blank page.
Since I orginally wrote this for my dev team, I will use a software engineerign example.
Imagine opening your favourite IDE at the start of the day knowing exactly what to do, with all the context needed, and ready to start coding and fix the next problem. Instead of staring at a blank screen.
One simple tip; leave it broken, but easily fixed.
Applying the “The Hemingway Bridge” principle here would be to, at the end of a successful task or day, write the first failing test for the next task. Keep it simple and easy to pass. You quickly get that early win for the start of the day, releasing the dopamine to carry you through the rest of the day.
In much the same way you can apply the principle to writing up that report or proposal. By simply knowing how you want to finish of a section, you purposely leave it out for the next day.
I know you expected more, but that is it, it really is as easy as that. Use the success momentum from today to build your “Hemingway bridge” for the next day.
References:
Forte, T. (2022). Building a Second Brain. Atria Books.
Nelson-Isaacs, S. (2019). Living in Flow. North Atlantic Books.