Some days you feel like absolutely nothing can go wrong.  You’re on fire, unstoppable.  Ideas are flowing, confidence is high, and you’re walking around with your chin up and your back straight.  There’s no better feeling than knowing you’re at the top of your game.  The world is your oyster.  Everything you touch seems to turn to gold and you wonder how you were ever stagnant before.

Until the past few years, I had really only been able to identify these times when looking back.  Now I’m acutely aware of them when I’m in them and I grab onto them and try not to let go when that train is rolling.

But these feelings never last long. Maybe a day or two, maybe a little more. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a full week of this superhuman ability to create things out of nothing without obstruction.  Sooner or later things will return to normal and there’s no explanation why this happens.  You just can’t self-motivate like you were able to the day before.  Ideas are at a distance, just out of reach.  You aren’t feeling flow and a day’s worth of work is taking two full days instead of just three hours.

It’s crazy frustrating when this happens. You try and recreate the environment, the feeling you had, and you just can’t. Your mind has moved on, your thoughts are elsewhere, and your current experience has been altered in some inexplicable way. And you don’t like it at all.

What happened?  Well, nothing at all.  It’s perfectly normal for creativity to ebb and flow like this.  It happens to every single creative person dozens – even hundreds – of times throughout a year. It’s just not possible to keep anything running at its highest capacity all the time.

But are there ways to keep it running for as long as you can?  Maybe.  There are things you can do that will help but only in the sense that they may be able to prolong that window.  There’s no guarantee that these things will work every time, but if they buy you an extra few days or a shorter period in the downswing, it could be worth it.

First you need to realize that any extended period of creativity comes down to the amount of energy you have and are able to apply to your task at hand. Remember that life is the sum of what you focus on, and in order to focus you need to have the energy (and the skill) to be able to do it. Energy is one of our most important assets.  If we have appropriate energy, that foundation will at a very minimum keep us going through the inevitable dry spells – and could even make peak creative output sustainable over the long run.

Tony Schwartz, speaker and author, says in his epic and highly recommended book, Be Excellent at Anything, “human beings are not designed to run like computers—at high speeds, continuously, for long periods of time. When we try to mimic the machines we’re meant to run, they end up running us.”

He recommends a ‘pulse’ approach.

See, our bodies themselves are pulsing all the time. Our blood flow, our brains, our muscles. Virtually every part of the immensely complex human system is pulsing between times of increased output and decreased output, and it’s because of this rhythm that our bodies and minds are able to perform at their best when they need to. This, of course, is assuming you’re working with your body and mind on its natural rhythm and not sabotaging it!

So how does this relate to creativity? Creativity comes down to maintaining energy, and energy comes down to effective “pulsing” – balancing renewal with hard work and making sure to keep some fuel in the tank for later. If you can do this, chances are you’ll be able to eek out a little more of that flow state when your creativity train starts to slow down (as it always will).

Here are three basic things you can do immediately that can work wonders.

Train for your brain every day.

Move your body every single day in some way. This can be through basic movement – stretches or light exercises you do at your desk every 30 minutes, it can be brisk outdoor walks, or more formal gym time. There’s so much research that shows the positive effects of exercise across the board, that it can be almost overwhelming to dig into it (don’t bother, just exercise instead).

Yet the thing that many people still don’t realize is just how important exercise is for your mind itself. Studies with lab mice have shown that brainpower improves when the mice are given the ability to run as freely as they would like. When the mice are pushed to their limits (think: lab technician as personal trainer of mice) the cognitive ability of the mice improved even more.

The same happens with us. We’re able to strongly improve our cognitive capacity – the range in which we’re able to flex our brain muscles – with daily exercise.  If you consider yourself a creative person and you’re not exercising every day, you really should try it.  Here are some specific suggestions to start with:

Exercise for 30 minutes each and every day with an alternating approach. Stretching, yoga, biking, strength training, boxing, gymnastics. They all have their benefits and they’re all worth doing. Remember, think of yourself as an athlete and look at how serious training translates directly to real life. Also, skip the slow-go cardio training and switch to interval training. As a proponent of using intervals for almost 15 years now, I can vouch that it’s the single best way to improve performance, health, and overall fitness when done with progressive resistance. You’ll be astounded at how fast your mind starts working after just 20 minutes of interval training.

Get up and move every 30 minutes. Stretch your arms, legs, and neck if you’re sitting at a desk for a prolonged period of time. Switch to a standing desk if you can, and try to use every opportunity to walk to work (or while at work). As I mentioned last year, I have lots of my 1:1 meetings outside while walking.

Eat small snacks of protein, low-glycemic carbs, and water every 3 hours. While its impact on bodyweight is debatable, this is something I’ve been doing for 15 years as well – and it’s hard to argue with its impact on energy. Maintaining blood glucose is critical to maintaining energy. If you’re subsisting on a muffin and a latte all day, you simply can’t expect to be performing at your best. You need to start treating your body like a high-performance vehicle and fueling it!  Here are some ideas.

Singletask every day.

Remember that multitasking is a total joke, and that it’s impossible to apply real brainpower to two or more tasks at the same time.  What you’re really doing is just switching really fast so that it appears as if you’re doing more than one thing at a time.  And of course, if you’re like 99.9% of the population, both of the things you’re trying to do aren’t being done well.

As I wrote about in Multitasking vs. Background Processing:

We’re not really multitasking, we’re just context switching really fast. Think about the last time you were interrupted in your office as you were deep in thought. You stopped to pay attention to someone and your focus shifted. Then when the conversation was over, you went back to what you were doing. That’s quick context switching, not “multitasking”. Whatever it’s called though, it will impede your efficiency.

Here are some ways to get out of the habit of multitasking and start focusing on one thing at a time:

Harness the ultradian rhythm. A powerful concept discussed in Be Excellent at Anything, the ultradian rhythm is based on the principle that during the day we oscillate every 90 minutes or so from higher to lower alertness. Which means we should focus our energy on a single thing for 90 minutes, and then stop, take a break, and after some time refreshing, prep for another 90-minute sprint. I know that when I focus for 90 minutes on a single thing, I can get the equivalent of 3 or 4 hours worth of “normal” work finished!  That’s how I wrote this post.

Use RescueTime for a week or two to see just how much you’re switching between tasks every day. This service will literally track what you use on your computer, for how long, and you’ll quickly discover patterns for yourself that you may not like to see. You may think you only use Facebook for 15 minutes every day, but what would you change if you found out that it’s really an hour of usage every day? We fool ourselves – and data is reality.

Get the time wasters out of the way first. This is counter to lots of advice, but it works best for me. If you know you’re going to be “pulled” into email, RSS feeds, or Facebook – then just timebox your usage, allow yourself to do it for that set period of time, then get up, stretch, grab a cup of tea, and settle in for a 90-minute sprint of real work. This structured play time will keep your mind from wondering “what’s happened” in your many inboxes, and instead you’ll be able to focus immediately on your task.

Renew every day.

Pulsing between high levels of output and low levels of output effectively means you need to allow yourself to have low levels of output, even when you’re on a roll. Making sure you have some downtime means that you’ll be better equipped for times of flow when they make themselves available to you.

Meditate using mindfulness. Meditation comes up in virtually every book on happiness, wellness, or even leadership and productivity these days. There’s a reason for this: it’s a vital habit to form if you’d like to become more in touch with your thoughts, emotions, body, and train your brain to stay in the present moment. Just 15 minutes of mindfulness meditation every day is preparing your brain to pay attention to the present moment in a way that’s non-judgmental and non-reactive. It’s literally exercise for your brain.

After just a week or two of mindfulness meditation, you may find that your mood has improved, your energy levels are higher, your work is higher quality, and your relationships have more purpose. Seriously. Check out Mindfulness for Dummies for a crash course (yes, I realize it’s a ‘dummies’ book – but it’s good).

Take your micro-vacations. Creativity is restored with exposure to nature and with downtime. In Take Micro-vacations to Boost Focus, I defined a micro-vacation as “Daily activity lasting at least 15 minutes that can’t be considered “work” by any sane, rational human being; purpose of which is to recharge and increase overall focus for the next few hours”. Aim to take a few micro-vacations every single day, and really strive to get Downtime with Nature while doing so.

Give yourself a “tech-free” hour (or more!) Wow, is this a hard one for me. My time revolves around being connected; I have 6 PCs and Macs, an iPad, a Windows Phone, a Kindle, a Kindle Fire, and about a dozen more gadgets that connect me to the outside world (don’t judge, it’s part of my job!) Yet even I will admit that being attached to the web via a Matrix-like brain implant isn’t the healthiest thing. So every day, I make sure to have at least one tech-free hour. I never take my smartphone with me to the gym, so sometimes this qualifies – but most of the time, it’s the time I spend with my family that I prefer to be most present. This is an explicit goal for me to improve on for the new year.

And of course, I’ve covered sleep before on Refocuser and that’s indeed a big part of renewal. Get your sleep!

Tony Schwartz goes into a lot more detail (352 pages worth) on many of these concepts in his book, Be Excellent at Anything. I had the opportunity to chat with him briefly after a seminar a couple weeks ago and I came away impressed with his approach to human performance – you may too.

Let me know how things go!

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We’ve all heard this quote, most likely from an interview in a business magazine with some mega-billionaire CEO.  Of course this person is either a walking collection of crazy or some genetically gifted mutant.  I’m actually not kidding about that mutant option, as those who thrive on little sleep may have a rare genetic mutation according to a recent sleep study at the University of San Francisco.  Of course, that mutation was found in just 2 out of 1000 study participants – so rare is right.

The rest of us need sleep and need it badly.  And we probably need more of it than we think, or at least more than we’re inclined to let ourselves get by on.

In a 2002 study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation (PDF), it was found that the majority of American adults (68%) don’t get the recommended 8 hours of sleep needed for good health and optimum performance, and more than one-third (39%) sleep less than 7 hours nightly.  Strangely (yet ironically) enough, a staggering 85% of those surveyed said they would sleep more if they knew it would improve their health.

Guess what?  It does improve your health.  And your sex life, body shape, and ability to stay awake during Avatar in IMAX 3D.  It’s also the best way to improve your mood and the way you respond when you’re frustrated or stressed out.  In other words, good sleep can keep you from being a jerk AND help you look and feel better.

Lack of sleep can also have a profound effect on memory and other cognitive skills.  In an interesting study, researchers measured cognitive function in sleep-deprived, right-handed men and found that sleep deprivation has a negative effect on cognitive functions associated with "right-brained" functions such as "motor, rhythm, receptive & expressive speech, memory and complex verbal arithmetic function." (PDF link)

There are a number of ways to improve your sleep habits – this post is just going to scratch the surface with six basic habits you should start incorporating into your life if you don’t already.  Over the next few months, I’m sure there will be six more… and then six more and so on.  But hey, you’ve got to start somewhere! 

1. Know how much sleep you need, and make it a priority

This one may take some trial and error, but its impact on your lifestyle will be immeasurable.  Draw a correlation between the number of hours you sleep on a given night and your energy levels the following day. (Make sure to maintain a constant diet as changes in your diet could cause your energy levels to vary considerably.)  Before going to sleep, start a stopwatch or a timer.  (If you fall asleep as your head hits the pillow, it is a sure sign of sleep deprivation!).  As soon as you wake up, stop the timer and record the total time you were asleep in a sleep journal.

Do this for about two weeks, making sure to record your energy level using a 1-10 scale in your journal each day.  When you felt "awake" and full of vigor throughout the day, score it a 10.  If you’re nodding off at your desk and have little or no real energy, give that day a 1. (While the scoring will be subjective, since you are the only one performing the evaluations, it should be relatively reliable.)

At the end of the two-week period, you should be able to determine your "ideal" nightly sleep target, which should fall somewhere between 7 and 10 hours depending on genetics (few can get by with only 6 hours and VERY few can get by with less than 6).  Now, make it a priority to reach your quota by doing whatever you can to put sleep first!

If you’re too lazy to do this (no judgment here! I am too) then start with somewhere between 7 and 8 hours of sleep each night as this is the most common requirement.

2. Limit your naps, if you need them, to 15-30 minutes

It’s natural to feel sluggish or tired every once in a while.  If you feel the urge to nap, do it!  There are a couple of caveats though, and they’re important to remember.  Try not to nap in the late afternoon, as it could delay the time you fall asleep at night and cause your internal sleep clock to go haywire for a few days.

Napping in the late morning or early afternoon, on the other hand, can help you feel more alert throughout the day and give your system a needed "boost" as well as promote faster recuperation from intense exercise.  Keep the amount of time you spend napping to a minimum, usually no more than 30 minutes.  A short nap is all the body needs to revitalize the nervous system and restore alertness.  Any longer, and your body falls into delta (deep) sleep and you may have trouble waking up.  And when you do, you may be irritable or slightly dazed.

See How to Power Nap on WikiHow for more on this.

3. Maintain a consistent sleep schedule

It’s very important to go to bed and wake up (unassisted!) at the same time every day, even on weekends.  This will help regulate your internal sleep clock, making sure you are at your most awake during the day when you need it most.  Interestingly, if you maintain a constant sleep schedule for a few weeks, you may find that your nightly quota will decrease slightly, and you will be more alert on less sleep each night!

4. Pay back your "sleep debt" as soon as possible

Think of your body like a bank.  Every time you fail to meet your sleep quota, your body registers it as debt and expects to be "paid back”.  Your sleep debt will continue to accumulate until you make up for it!  Have you ever noticed that you naturally sleep more the night after a late-night?  That’s your body attempting to make up for lost sleep.

Unfortunately, however, your body can’t store sleep just like it can’t store exercise results.  You can’t sleep 12 hours one night and expect to get by on 4 the next if your quota is 8 hours nightly.  With that said, it becomes even more important to maintain a regular sleep schedule.

5. Avoid alcohol before bed

Many people believe that a glass of wine right before bed will help them sleep better.  The opposite is true. While the alcohol may "knock you out" and make you feel very relaxed initially, it disrupts sleep later on throughout the night.

Alcohol, taken less than 4 hours before bedtime, will severely limit REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is essential for daytime alertness.  While you may not even realize it, alcohol could in fact be the indirect cause of lethargy throughout the day.  You may also find yourself waking up more often throughout the night, and that’s an indicator that a deep sleep state isn’t being reached.

6. Practice good sleep hygiene

Maintaining a regular “wind down” routine can help improve your sleep.  Some general tips in this arena include:

• Read some fiction – or something that helps get your mind off of other things.  Non-fiction can get your mind working too hard, which is not conducive to good sleep.  Read something fun.
• Shut down computer screens at least 30-60 minutes prior to retiring.  The light emitted from screens can disrupt circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep.  (Snarky note: this is the reason I won’t be buying an iPad for nighttime reading anytime soon)
• Remove your TV from the bedroom.  Certainly don’t watch prior to falling asleep if you’re having trouble.
• Kick dogs, cats, and chimps out of your bed.  They’ve been known to disrupt sleep, even if you aren’t aware of it.
• Break up your nightly routine into multiple parts to make it easier to go to bed.  For example, I take out my contact lenses a few hours before going to bed because I know that when the time comes to get ready, that annoying act of taking out my contacts will give me an excuse not to start the process.  And I’ll stay up later.
• Keep your bedroom cool – but not cold.  Cooler temperatures are best for sleep.
• Use a white noise generator (fan, noise machine, etc.) to drown out the sounds of pets, cars, or other hindrances to a good night’s sleep.
• Straighten up your bedroom each night.  This can help you get out of bed in the morning.

Stop reading this now… and go get some sleep if you need it.  It’s important if you expect to be able to focus at the level you obviously want to (otherwise, what are you doing reading this?)

Thanks to Dr. James Maas of Cornell University for first opening my eyes to the importance of sleep fifteen years ago.

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There has been a lot of interesting research on sleep over the last couple decades.  The majority of it has focused on the importance of sleep, yet through it all 1 in 3 people are chronically sleep deprived, relying on large amounts of caffeine to get them through the day… All the while, dozing off at their desks wondering why they don’t have any energy to exercise (further exacerbating the problem!)

So what do we know about sleep and how it relates to focus?

Mayank Mehta at Brown University found that during sleep, the hippocampus and neocortex actually reconfigure themselves in order to make sense of everything from the day.  Your thoughts are being structured and moved from short-term storage in the hippocampus (like RAM on a computer) to long-term storage in the neocortex (like a hard drive) while you’re drooling on your pillow.   Research at Harvard Medical School also describes a process called memory consolidation whereby sleep assists us in the absorption of new information.  Robert Stickgold, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center says, "It seems that memories normally wash out of the brain unless some process nails them down. My suspicion is that sleep is one of those things that does the nailing down."

Sleep is widely recognized as a time when memories and new information from the day are cemented for future reference.  It’s a critical component of learning a new skill or task, and it appears that without a good night’s sleep, information can’t be retained and likely has to be relearned.

Research (literally hundreds of studies) and loads of anecdotal data also show that the process of mental practice – or rehearsing something only in your mind – can help improve on a skill.  Performing mental practice has been shown to be a significant benefit to performance when compared to no practice, and in some cases has been shown to be as effective as performing the activity itself.  Sports psychologists have been using mental practice techniques for a long, long time with clients, and it’s become part of routine training for Olympic and professional athletes.

Given these two facts: 1) that sleep is critical and can help form new memories and strengthen thoughts for the future, and 2) that mental practice is critical to skill development and improvement, I’d like to outline a technique I’ve been using for over 20 years to turn this into action.  The idea is to utilize the pre and post dream states to train your brain to excel.

Here’s how it works:

1. Before getting into bed, immerse yourself in a topic area (15-30 minutes). This can be done in any number of ways, but the idea is to “prime the pump” for the pre-dream state.  When I’m doing this to improve in the martial arts, I like to watch videos, view images, or read descriptions of the technique.  The key here is to specialize – you don’t want just read about being better, you want to study a very specific set of circumstances so you can adequately rehearse them.
2. While lying in bed, practice active visualization through the means of a story.  This is what I’m calling the pre-dream state.  Start off rehearsing your skill in your mind until you feel like you’ve “got it”, then move onto an uplifting story as guided by your mind.  Visualize pulling everything together into a realistic application of the skill.  Most importantly, picture yourself succeeding.  Walk through your day or your event as you prepare to sleep, interact with other people, and make it feel as real as you can.  Pretend it’s a movie and you’re the star.
3. When you find yourself drifting off to sleep, start to take more risks.  This may take some practice (it’s effectively the start of lucid dreaming).  You’re now suggesting to your mind that you’re confident – that you know what you’re doing – and you’re going to have some fun with it.  Since your rational senses will start to relax, strange things may happen as you start to dream.  Just go with it.
4. While sleeping, sleep… for 7-8 hours straight   You’ll find that your dreams may continue down the path you’ve set for it, or they may go off in a different direction.  It doesn’t really matter much.  What matters is that your thoughts are now being configured and stored for the future.
5. In the morning, while waking but still half-asleep, continue without moving.  This is what I’m calling the post-dream state.  In this state, mental restrictions aren’t usually applied.  Since you’re still not fully awake, you can benefit from not being “boxed in” by perceived or real limitations that you would otherwise encounter in the real world.  Things like “that would never work” or “but I’m just not good enough to do this”.  You can usually continue to be in a dream-like state, while still having the ability to guide and think about your skill development.  This is also an application of lucid dreaming and takes practice to perfect.

These 5 steps can be performed in order to improve on any skill, or just to generate positive or fun emotions for the day ahead.

I recently discovered that Ray Kurzweil, one of the world’s leading futurists, uses a very similar process.  In his new book, Transcend with Terry Grossman, he outlines the process he uses for creative problem solving and invention.  Reading someone else’s method, especially someone with Kurzweil’s track record, prompted me to post about this.  He also discussed it a bit on his website:

By thinking about problems without those senses you can really find creative solutions to them. But what’s really effective is that period of time when you’re awakening. You realize you’re conscious and you could will yourself to get up, but you choose not to and you’re really still in a dreamlike state. It’s a period of lucid dreaming. Your dream can even continue, but you now also have your conscious faculties.

One of the advantages of this dreamlike state is that your senses are relaxed, but the disadvantage is that your rational faculties are not operating. In this lucid dreaming state you have both. You’re conscious enough to have your logical faculties but you’re also still in the dreamlike state where you’ve relaxed the restrictions to creative thinking.

In short: sleep is a powerful mechanism and lucid dreaming techniques can help quite a bit with personal development.

Give it a try and let me know how it works!

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